I'm at a bar with Jig's Ever-Unbeatable Partner. It's nice; there's a great outdoors space with a cocktail bar there and we've been there, ahem, a while. I pop inside to visit the little jig's room and when I come back, Jig's Consistently-Described Partner is talking to somebody in a fez. About their fez. Because of course you would. Now, there's writing on the fez, and the guy has clearly come from a poshish dinner so he's well-dressed and there's a couple of other people matching his description: fiftyish, laddish, fez'd to the max. So I enter the conversation and because it's on the fez, I read the writing and work out the acronym as I go: <My City's Name> RUSC - Rugby Union Social Club. Got it right first time. Boom. Anyway, it becomes clear that what has happened is that Jig's Extensively-Wonderful Partner has referred to this thing as a hat and the guy has insisted it's a fez and
not a hat (of any kind), and while they're both playing, it's kind of uncomfortable to watch the back and forth of "It's a (fucking) hat/It's a (fucking) fez" escalate to the point that two people are legit shouting this drivel at each other.
Wanting to get in on the joke while also maybe calm things down, and also test whether it
is a joke, I make an askance comment that etymologically, 'hat' and 'hut' (both the German and Dutch) are the same word and in both of the other languages, a hat is defined as a solid structure worn on the head (as opposed to a cap, which would not be called a hat at all), so the fez is according to common language roots almost definitely absolutely a hat. This doesn't go down brilliantly (srsly who doesn't find etymology fascinating?) and the conversation abates while I and Jig's Tenaciously-Resplendent Partner basically get bored of him and he probably gets a bit bored of us. So we turn around and continue chatting to somebody who was better company that we'd been talking to this evening.
After a bit, our mate and Mr. Fez end up in conversation, too, seemingly much more pleasant and less fez-related. And then they have a half-hug, the kind of around the shoulders matey kinda hug you see guys do. Now, this is the magic bit, because my back is turned: while I and my beloved are chatting, not a metre away, suddenly my glass fucking flies out of my hand and smashes in the corner. Not much left and no harm done, but, dammit, I wanted that last mouthful of shiny. It's been struck - I didn't just drop the thing. And it's been struck by a deft blow, not a full body slamming into it. So it's either Mr. Fez or our mate, while hugging, and, from the directions they're facing, Mr. Fez's arm is the one that's going to have come my way and smacked the drink. I basically turn around and am baffled because nobody seems close enough to have done it, but Mr. Fez basically admits his mistake and says he'll make it good. Mr. Fez spends the few moments I spend looking around in bafflement shooting me certain glances that I only really picked up on later, when it transpires that Jig's Equally-Unimpressed Partner has also been shot glances.
Anyhoo, Mr. Fez makes it good. Sort of. He buys a set of shots for him and his mates and me and our mate that we've picked up. It's Whiskey. Yum. Or, as we say in Jigworld, the worst fucking substance known to man. Not that he's to know that. The rules, he states, are that it has to go down in one go, and it can't be touched with hands - the whole pick-up-the-glass-with-mouth-and-throw-head-back-malarkey. Now, of course Mr. Fez doesn't know this, but in addition to hating whiskey, I also can't stand shots. I've also been drinking consistently strong drinks since loooong before he started so a shot seems a poor idea. His mates do theirs, and then it's Our Mate's turn. He doesn't like it one li'l bit, no sirree: almost instantly after doing his, he basically enters brain-dead mode and spends a good few minutes (successfully) not being sick about a metre away. Well done him, but clearly he reacted badly to the experience - and Mr. Fez turns immediately to me and basically says 'now you'. Hmn. This does not seem like responsible or caring behaviour to me and when there's a distraction from a particularly big wretching noise not unrelated to the rest, I neck the thing with hands. He then rounds on me and demands if I did it properly, and I can't tell a lie* and actually the guy deserves to face some friction, so I own up to having cheated and play it off but make it clear that it's not actually a nice experience for me. There's another shot left. He thrusts it at me. No thank you. He thrusts it at me again. Thank you, but no.
No, thank you. He thrusts it at Jig's Surprisingly-Prescient Partner who also says no, thank you. My coldness and stubbornness are things of legend, so after some awkward attempts to bulldoze my polite but increasingly-stern refusals, he does indeed finally fuck off.
Now, you can look at this as 'guy fucks up and tries to make good', but, when you factor in the evil glances he was shooting me and then, after his failure to oblige us to drink whiskey, also Jig's Resolutely-Splendid Partner, you might forgive me for wondering whether smashing my glass was a deliberate move or not. Then if you look at the exchange from that perspective...
- Alpha male-type is challenged from a surprising source that might threaten alpha-male status
- Alpha male-type smashes drink of one challenger drawing them back into the situation
- Alpha male buys challenger a drink, earning him respect points for fixing his mistake and lad points for making it a round but also crucially gaining control of situation, namely the participants, the drink in question and the manner of consumption
- Alpha male's drink and manner of consumption make challenger's mate, only connected to him via the challengers, ill. Alpha male does not care and rounds on the next one
- Alpha male's rules are contravened and demands, increasingly boorishly, are made that they be obeyed
Remind you of a (less successful) somebody? Damnit, at least Sol had the courtesy to pick somebody
stupid naive enough to not be able to say no.
I was totally left with the impression that life imitates art and that megalomaniacs are much less fun when they're not charming German aristocrats with a propensity to chew scenery.
