Monday, April 04, 2005

I swear, this really happened

Sometimes the various graduate student organizations at my university would sponsor a happy hour with free food and alcohol. By “sometimes” I of course mean once a week at a bare minimum. Grad school does have its perks. And these events could get pretty crowded, especially the ones in bars. It was at a particularly crowded happy hour in a bar, that the following events transpired.

I went to the bar with The Doktah and another friend and we were early, so we were lucky enough to get a table. It was really hot in there, though, so I hung my coat on the back of the chair and I laid my red scarf down on top of it. Then some more friends came in, and we moved around, mingling and chatting. And amid all the mingling and chatting, I lost track of my scarf.

So when it was time to leave, I looked around for my scarf. I retraced my steps, and found it still hanging on the back on my original chair, but there was a guy sitting on it. I caught his attention and shouted, “That’s my scarf! Can you hand it to me?” He just looked at me, confused. It was pretty loud in there, so I assumed he just couldn’t hear me. I gestured again towards the scarf, shouting, “My scarf! That’s my scarf!”

The guy was just not understanding me at all, so I gave up, leaned across the table, and started to take the scarf. But then the guy wouldn’t let me! He held onto my scarf so that I couldn’t take it! I wasn’t quite sure how to react to this. This sort of thing doesn’t often come up in everyday social interactions, and there was nothing in my mental etiquette handbook to explain what to do when someone is stealing your scarf in a crowded bar. So we just had a gentle tug of war.

Until I saw my scarf. Hanging over the back of another chair.

No comments: