Smudge, Smear or Shmere? Unsolved Mysteries and Beer at a Breakfast Café

Mr. Body may not have been a tight spot this time around and Mrs. Peacock may not have used her all-too-infamous pipe, but Lawson's Café - a Dupont breakfast joint - may have never suffered such a debaucherous sight, nor heard such potty mouths.

This week (and we wonder why anyone would have missed it) a group of just over 10 of us stormed what has until now been a fairly quiet spot on Dupont Circle for the after-work hours crowd (or any time after 3pm, really). The $1.99 beers were just the beginning... then there came slightly above-average sushi, a yummy roast beef sammich, Rachaels that were Reubens (that were Rachaels), a huge and wacky sushi yacht and - lest we forget - black bean soup on the house! (But oh the conundrum! Do we tip for beers/food purchased at a breakfast bar??)

Though the atmosphere took some getting used to with the relative emptiness of a breakfast place on a Wednesday evening (um, that doesn't serve breakfast after 11am), and with street music played on plastic tubs competing with Billy Joel and other great 80's/90's hits, and as the lights were'nt toned down to "evening mode" until well into happy hour, the cheap brews, good eats, and good peeps got the crew going strong.

The undeniable highlight of the evening was the "mystery smear" and all the theories and sherade-style reinactments that took us closer to... the Truth. While this was no Looking Glass Lounge, neither Alice nor her Mad Hatter friend could have ever taught us with such beer-glass-breakingly-hilarious detail the oh-so-critical difference between a smudge, a smear and a shmere (think Einstein's).

For more on Svenska, Danske, or other Scandinavian (but ultimately Germanic) tongues, tune in next week for: "Ankle Splatter Part Deux: How the Vikings Became Druish thanks to a Hillel P.R. Firm."