Someone please ‘splain “tax-free weekend” to me. The list of what’s “eligible” for tax exemption and what isn’t seems so … random. Spendy Vans shoes are tax-free. The expensive athletic equipment my skater daughter actually needs to compete? Not. Backpacks may be tax-free, providing they are “a pack with straps one wears on the back.” (Uh, duh!) School supplies should be tax-free, but they aren’t. It’s enough to send even a patient consumer over the edge – or at least to the nearest bar.
The end of tax-free weekend found me near the SuperTarget in Montgomery Plaza, debating the value of venturing into the jam-packed megastore for a savings of eight cents per every “eligible” dollar. Fortunately I was with women who had more sense than I do. Too confusing, they agreed. Unlike cocktails.
I’m not fancy, but my friends are, so figured I could fake it. The fanciest place around is M Lounge, formerly known as Ten Martini and Cigar Bar. Evidently, a Dallas nightclub that had copyrighted the name got wind of the Fort Worth bar of the same name – almost two years after the Fort Worth bar had opened – and threatened legal action, hence M Lounge.
Fortunately, we wandered in around happy hour. Unfortunately, none of the items on the extensive and expensive menu was happy-hour priced or part of the tax-free weekend, except for the dirty martini, ordered by one of my crew. After a couple Oatmeal Cookies (vanilla vodka, Bailey’s, Goldschlager) and Patrón martinis, none of us really cared, though.
About a dozen women were scattered about the place. You could count the guys on one hand: the bartender, the older dude smoking a pipe (odd, even for a martini/cigar bar), and the guy who watched his girl get smashed on Seagrams. I don’t know if M’s vibe is always so “girl’s night out,” but the whole lot of us sang an estrogen-and-alcohol fueled chorus of Pink’s “U + Ur Hand” as if we were callin’ out a misfortunate cowboy who’d just accidentally stepped on our pedicures. Ever heard a whole bar-ful of women singing, “I’m not here for your entertainment / You don’t wanna mess with me tonight”? Trust me, if you’re a guy, you probably don’t want to. The guys at M were visibly squirming.
With football season just kicking off, M Lounge might be the ideal place for the girly girls to go to spend their Sunday afternoons while the boys are whooping it up at the nearest sports bars. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say it is.
