A SIMPLE BAR STORY

This guy is nosing around for cocaine . He asks us if we know where he can get some "magic nose powder". I wish him luck.

He leans very closely into me and threateningly whispers: "You are a Norwegian.” He’s already so high on something that he can’t really focus on anything. It seems as though his entire face can’t focus on the world around him. His out of focus head knocks mine in the little scrum of two that he’s created.

“You are a skirt-lifting Scandinavian!” he shouts. He stumbles back, pointing at me like he’s ratting me out. Yeah, that’s me, one of those stereotypical Scandinavians running around town lifting skirts, searching for illegally gotten reindeer undies.

“You are a skirt-lifting Norwegian!” he shouts again. I’m neither of the two but a fist is forming in my mind. I’m out for a quick drink at a little fund-raiser for some friends’ weekly paper. This was not on the agenda for my Monday evening.

He suddenly loses interest in me, stumbles out into the night in search of coke and that’s the end of that.

I find out later that he is a columnist for a daily paper that features in-depth coverage of hockey fights and the breasts of celebrities. For ten years he has written a column on urban living; he doesn’t write about hockey fights or breasts, which perhaps explains his bitterness.

The items that I stole from his jacket while he was leaning in close to me have helped make my week a better week.

This is the end of my simple bar story.