Dive bars are my favorites. I like the idea of a bar having regulars. I like dark, cozy spaces. I don’t mind if the floor is sticky; I prefer to not know why it is sticky.

The first dive bar I frequented was the Gold Rail in Glendale, California. My first newspaper editor boss loved it there, so when work was over, that was where people went. In my early 20s, I didn’t have a big frame of reference for the different classes of bar, but I learned quickly that I loved the Gold Rail’s prices over those of other bars, and that I was much more at home there than at the trendy Moose McGillycuddy’s in Old Town Pasadena, where I felt obligated to dress up and smile.

As I began, so I continued. My next haunt (also discovered by my old boss after he changed jobs and I followed him a year or so later) was the Brass Elephant, a few towns over in Monrovia and sticking with the metals theme. (Fun fact: The Brass Elephant is featured in Bad Santa as the Brass Monkey, so you can get a glimpse of my old stomping grounds.)

At that point, though, I got into swing dancing, so all my bar money went to the Derby in Los Feliz (and for gas money to get there and back). And then I moved to Florida, where I met my teetotaller husband, and bars were no longer front and center. When we moved to DC, we lived in a suburb and then an exurb, so bar attendance dropped even further, although even my husband was a fan of a pub in Falls Church called Ireland’s Four Provinces (or 4 Ps, for those in the know). We also went to the Brickskellar a few times. When our company moved, my new boss was big on happy hour, but he was also a man of practicality, so those outings were mostly to the hotel bar next door—definitely not a dive bar.

Where I live now, there are probably dive bars I could find, but the booze in town is best at a restaurant with lots of fried food, so that’s where I go for girls nights. But honestly, I’m of an age now where going to any bar on a regular basis just sounds like a lot of work. I’d rather drink at home in my play clothes!