{"id":994,"date":"2026-02-04T14:04:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/?p=994"},"modified":"2026-02-04T14:04:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:04:39","slug":"the-bartender-said-i-was-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/?p=994","title":{"rendered":"The Bartender Said I Was Special"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t order this,\u201d I told the bartender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cShe did,\u201d he nodded down the bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The woman watching me didn\u2019t look away when I met her gaze \u2014 just tilted her head slightly, like she\u2019d confirmed a guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When she joined me, she said, \u201cYou looked like you needed interruption.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat obvious?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo someone looking for an opening \u2014 yes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhy me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She traced a slow circle on the rim of her glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re controlled,\u201d she said. \u201cControl is interesting to test.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAnd if it doesn\u2019t break?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her smile deepened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt always bends first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her knee brushed mine \u2014 and stayed there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t order this,\u201d I told the bartender. \u201cShe did,\u201d he nodded down the bar. The woman watching me didn\u2019t look away when I met her gaze \u2014 just tilted her head slightly, like she\u2019d confirmed a guess. When she joined me, she said, \u201cYou looked like you needed interruption.\u201d \u201cThat obvious?\u201d \u201cTo someone looking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funny-jokes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":996,"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions\/996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themodemuse.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}