I'D LIKE A SALOON

Karl: I’d like to start a saloon.

Yarl: Oh really?

Karl: Oh yes. I've got it all sorted out.

Yarl: I bet.

Karl: The main floor is alcohol-free.

Yarl: Okay.

Karl: The wall behind the bar is lined with every available box of cereal.

Yarl: A cereal bar.

Karl: $2 per bowl and $1.65 if you bring your own bowl and spoon.

Yarl: I see.

Karl: The bar itself has beer-like taps, with wild handles of course, pouring every mundane and exotic milk.

Yarl: Of course. Goat, camel, platypus–

Karl: Oat, cashew, hemp–

Yarl: Lactose-free, condensed–

Karl: Butter, toned–

Yarl: And that'll be all there is to drink? Or is that just for the cereal?

Karl: We'll offer every drink but coffee.

Yarl: Just to be different.

Karl: Coffee is covered.

Yarl: Just to keep people away.

Karl: Well, we'll have a specialty menu of science fiction- and children’s book-inspired beverages.

Yarl: Blue milk?

Karl: Pink yink ink drink, pan-galactic gargle blaster... the usual. All non-alcoholic.

Yarl: Is there a honky-tonk piano or brass spittoons?

Karl: Well, downstairs looks like an opium den but it's really karaoke and comedy. With alcohol, of course.

Yarl: And upstairs?

Karl: Upstairs is a bookstore and library. It looks like a brothel, with seductive velvet chaises longues and, if necessary, a pair of large burlesque dancers who linger in the stairway and offer reading recommendations and quotes from poets and unknown romance novels. Oh, and there's a tiny bar. Off in one corner. The attendant is a French-speaking Vietnamese guy who offers civilized portions of fine gin and port...

Yarl: Fine.