Historias from a bar in Madrid

There's a great book of short stories by David Toscana, Historias del Lontanaza . The collection revolves around a bar, Lontanaza, and the people who go there. Sitting yesterday evening with friends at the Madroño, I thought of that book.
It's a bar that I wouldn't consider one of my hangouts, though I've been there a few times. It's a good place to meet friends for tapas in La Latina. A few months ago I was with some friends when someone, a young painter, asked, "Are there more safe or unsafe things to lick in the world?" a few minutes later another friend talked about the time she took a rapelling course in the Golan Heights. I asked her if this was some course offered by the Mossad.
"I once drank a whole bottle of mezcal, followed by a bottle of Baileys. The next day I called my father to say Good-bye because I was convinced that I was going to die." This is how the best story I've heard in a bar begins. We were sitting at the corner table of the Madroño with three friends beneath the television on the wall that was showing the F1 race that would make Fernando Alonso racing champion for the second year in a row. She was homesick at the time, she said. She was in Germany on vacation with her grandmother at a gigantic German estate that belonged to some billionaire friends of the family. She had gone out with the wife of the tycoon who liked to escape into town for drinks. She drank the bottle of mezcal, and then the wife and she drank the bottle of Bailey's. The next day, sick and convinced that she was dying she stayed in bed. Then came the hunger. But the estate had no food. She remembered the five year old daughter who had a Mr. Potato Head. Better, a family of Mr. Potato Heads. They were real potatoes that the daughter had decorated with bits of glued on paper. The kid loved that Potato Head family. But the survival instinct kicked in and she went after them. Delirious and with a serious hangover she pulled off the bits of paper and glue and placed the potatoes in the microwave.
The next morning --death averted, and feeling better-- she awoke to the screams of a five year old girl asking for her Mr. Potato Head family.

The waiter at the Madroño then served us our cañas and our huevos rotos con patatas.