roll, baby, roll

It's early in the evening. There's a quiet table or two down at the other end of the pub, but I'm the only one sitting at the bar. My friend M is tending bar, doing some busywork and keeping me company. The TV perches above us, the Winter Olympics silently beaming out iceskating. Unfed, the jukebox plays a selection of the most popular songs in its repertoire.

Of course the friggin' Doors pop up in the rotation.

And because we're alone, M and I are the only ones who see it.

The skater takes to the ice just as "Roadhouse Blues" cranks into its first notes. At first, we snort in laughter at the unlikelihood of the juxtaposition, but thirty seconds in, M and I are silenced, our mouths gaping at how perfectly, how impossibly her gliding swoops and arches and leaps suit the tempo of the song.

You gotta roll, baby, roll.

It's flawless. It's maddening. We flick our eyes at each other, but hate to take them off the spectacle for even that instant.

The skater winds up with a grand flourish just in time for "I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer."

M and I spontaneously burst into applause.

You kinda had to be there.