Happy Hour

Five of us meet at a restaurant— it used to be popular
for pastries but is now the place for bourbon, burger 

nights, and pizza. It's happy hour so everything, 
including cocktails, is twenty per cent off. Henry V 

says in Shakespeare's play: Therefore, my lords, omit no
happy hour/ That may give furtherance to our expedition. 

In the early 1900s, sailors in the U.S. Navy began 
to designate certain happy hours for entertainment, 

for relieving their tedium at sea. The stoics defined 
happiness as living in agreement with Nature, which 

to them meant conforming to the providential scheme of 
the universe: aligning one's choices with the perfection 

of reason, which results in virtue. One of us tells 
the story of a friend who's been in one of those twelve-

step programs where they're asked to "drop the rock"— 
let go of all that stands in the way of sobriety 

and personal growth. This friend, she reports, keeps 
both dogs and chickens. Sometimes, the dogs open 

their mouths and pounce on the chickens. Then he yells 
Drop the chicken! Drop the chicken! But he also said 

nowadays he feels lighter; even happy. There are more
than a hundred ways to carry a thing and as many 

ways to hold on to it— to feel the weight of stones 
in our pockets as we wade in the water, or the gag 

of feathers in our mouths. But in the end, there's 
only one way to let it go: by putting it down.