The Worst Calling of a Bluff I've Ever Seen

Three anecdotes that will leave you asking, "But why, God?":

1.  There I was, resting my haunches at Delirium, when an obnoxious drunkard approached the bar right next to me. How obnoxious? Well, to give you an idea, his friend was wearing a black bowler hat. Anyway, this guy ordered a shot of 151--I suppose it was Baccardi. Now, Baccardi 151 gets its name, as I'm sure you all know, from the fact that it is 151 proof alcohol--and, as I know some of you know, a consequence of this is that the stuff is flammable. Apparently the drunkard was privy to this same bit of information, because when the shot was set in front of him he produced a lighter from his pocket and proceeded to lower the flame into the liquid. The flame, of course, was extinguished immediately. Scandalized, he raised a shaking finger at the bartender and yelled at the top of his lungs, "This isn't real! You watered this down!" Then he started laughing wildly. "Ha ha! I called your bluff! I called your bluff!" The bartender, nonplussed, merely folded his arms unhappily until the drunkard and his friends stumbled out.
   
   It was the worst calling of a bluff I've ever seen.
   
   
2. I briefly alluded earlier to some socks I bought at Walgreens. They had pink on the heel and toe, which made me think they were womens socks, but the labeling said mens crew socks, sizes 9 to 11. Well, I tried on a pair this morning and, brother, that's no size 9 to 11 mens sock. Which leaves us with the uninspiring result that I am now hoofing it around town in pink girl socks.
   
   
3. I made quite the fool out of myself at the taco truck at Division and Harrison today when I ordered 3 tacos al pastor, two pork tacos, and two beef tacos. Al pastor, you see, is spanish for pork. I had failed to notice that all the things on the left side of the menu were spanish for, and not exotic dishes in addition to, all the things on the right side of the menu.
   
   Note: the reason I was ordering 7 tacos was because I was also buying lunch for Mishael (read: friend from work).
   

The Great Jacket Heist of '06

Not that this has happened to me very often--namely, never--but every time I move to a big city, things just seem to go wrong. I feel like I'm living through some sort of montage of geeky mishaps. For example, today on the way home from work I stopped at Delirium (read: nearby bar) to see if they had my jacket, which I had left behind on Saturday. Unsteadily, I approached the tattooed, pierced barkeep and said something to the effect of:

 "Hi! I was wondering if you guys had my jacket. I think I left it here Saturday night."

He sized me up for a second and responded. "What does it look like?"

"Brown," I said, confidently. "With a kind of poofy inside."

The bartender took me to the back of the bar and to a sort of back room that had a lot of cleaning equipment and a big pile of clothes.

"What did you say? Brown?"

"Yeah."

He rifled through the pile of clothes for a few moments. "I'm not seeing any brown jacket here, sorry."

"With the poofy inside?" I said, hoping to subtly remind him of the other half of the description. It was at that moment that I saw it: my jacket, inside out, on the bottom of the pile!

"That's it!" I exclaimed in what can only be called a boyish manner.

The guy took a hold of it and frowned. "This is corduroy." There was a pause. It was true--I saw his point. The jacket was made of corduroy, with a sort of puffy lining to it--the sort of getup Wolverine might be seen sporting around town. He had me dead to rights on that score. On the other hand, I felt I still had an ace up my sleeve, which was this: the jacket was the color brown. I reminded him of this.

This time he peered at me with a bit of skepticism, and his unspoken question hung in the air between us: "Is this guy some kind of jacket thief?" He narrowed his eyes and spoke. "Are there any other distinguishing characteristics about this jacket?"

I looked him straight in the eye. "It should say it's from the Gap." I knew as I uttered the word 'Gap' that he would be disgusted, but the stakes were too high. I liked that jacket.

The bartender looked down at the tag of the jacket and then, in one terrifyingly quick motion, shoved it into my face. "Abercrombie and Fitch!" he said, with all the triumph of someone who just caught a jacket thief.

Dumbfounded--well, not dumbfounded, I did emit a hearty 'Fuck!'--I stared at the label and realized that, yes, this jacket was from Abercrombie and Fitch, and it was my other poofy black jacket that was from the Gap. Zounds! Was this the end of the line? Had I blown it? Was my jacket now lost forever within the confines of Delirium, never to be seen again by friend, foe, or lover?

No! There was one, final tactic--one move left that I had that could win me back my jacket and, to some degree, my dignity.

"Well, it's my fuckin' jacket. Do you believe me?" I said.

To which he replied, "I don't give a fuck", and handed it over. For some reason, it was really warm, like it had just come out of the dryer.

In addition to this I will relay one other brief episode in which my sore thumbness was made apparent to all:

After the jacket fiasco I had the bright idea of going to Cafe la Onda to write a blog entry about it. Two things about this Cafe make it a hotspot among the local David Morris'. First, it has free wireless internet. Second, in addition to coffee, it also servers beer. While there, this sequence of events occurred:

1. Order a Bootlegger Black.
2. They were out of that kind of beer so I ordered a Fat Tire instead.
3. Took the beer to a comfy chair.
4. Spilled the beer all over the table.
5. Went to get napkins to sop up the spill.
6. Dropped the napkins.
7. Sopped up the beer and dropped the napkins again.
8. Threw away the napkins, sat down, and, finally, opened up my laptop.
9. Discovered that my wireless connection was not working. 

 Et cetera, et cetera..

San Francisco

Well hello again, gentle reader. The time has come for me to pick up that dusty old hat that is my blog, brush it off, and put it back on, but without all that garish MySpace plumage that adorned it last time. Rupert Murdock, as the saying goes, can suck balls.

I mean to keep these things brief, so I will just quickly say that I now live in the city of San Francisco, in the Mission neighborhood. The last few weeks have been moving hell, and even now I'm not completely settled in, because I may yet decide that I would rather live by myself in a one-bedroom apartment rather than with fifty other people in a four bedroom apartment. We'll see.

My life as of late has contained the following: boxes, vacuuming, fleas, not having keys, not having deodorant, walking, a moving van, Albion St., Guinness (pint), Pabst (pint), white russian (with ice), white Russian (naked),  riding bikes, cigarette beetles, Mexican food, a birthday (not mine), angry friends, a desperate 22 year old virgin, an uneventful arrest (not mine), paying $2/load for laundry, not having cash, purchasing some ridiculous pink socks at Walgreens both out of desperation and a general hostility towards fashion, Siddhartha, a round of Werewolf (aka Mafia) wherein I kicked serious ass in front of Lindsay's friends, a broken computer, a brand new T60p ThinkPad (from work), pirates, crazy people, and, soon, some Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Oh, and outside my bedroom window, some of the loudest goddam fucking pigeons you'll ever care to come across.

 If you'd like to hear more about any of the items on this list, just let me know.

Update on Friday, June 9, 2006 at 11:02PM by David Morris

Of Desparate Virgins and Moving Vans

Hardly, as for the desperate 22-year old virgin: I was moping around Delirium with my roommate, KC, when some girl started talking to him. I, being girlfriended and therefore neutered, hung back. The girl was with her friend, who was notably less attractive. Apparently the girl's mission for the night was to get her unattractive friend laid. Her friend was, as you can probably put together, 22 years old and a virgin. I deduced that she must have been desperate, or else she wouldn't have been parading herself before every Tom Dick and Harry in some dive on a Thursday night.

Alex, as for the moving van: um, how about the gigantic moving van that I rented and took all my stuff to San Francisco in, and which I rented and returned while you were with me? (That's right: a heaping dose of attitude. That's what you get.)