Yesterday I was sitting in the den attempting to read my book for book club tonight (I say attempting because the author’s prosaic style has been hard for me), when there was a knock at the door. I was taken aback by two things- first, it was the *back* door, but last night was neither the first nor last time it’ll be mistaken for the front door, second, it wasn’t a normal knock, it was “shave and a haircut”.
I figured it had to be someone i knew/who knew the house, but had no idea who. I opened the door to find sort of a scungy guy I’d never seen before. At first I figured he must be selling something, but he didn’t have anything in his hands, and he smelled like he’d been drinking. Finally I spoke, and the conversation went like this:
Me: Can I help you?
Guy: Uh, yeah. I’m Doug, I’m a good friend of Chris’. Is he here?
Me: I don’t think so. He left a couple of hours ago and I haven’t seen him come back.
Doug: Oh, okay. Well, he has my bike, and so I was hoping I could get that back. He’s been keeping it for me for a few months.
Me: Um, well, unfortunately I don’t know anything about that, so I can’t really help you.
Doug: Well, I can tell you what it looks like. It’s silver, and it has tires. It’s specialized.
Me: Well, there are bikes in our garage, but I don’t feel comfortable just giving it to you without talking to Chris. Do you have his cell number? Can you call him?
Doug: Yeah, well, he’s being a punk, he’s not answering my calls.
Me: ………
So Doug takes a moment to call Chris and leave him a voicemail. Now, I’m generally a fan of a well placed F-bomb. I think there are certain situations where it is simply the most appropriate word to convey a sentiment. However, I do not approve of it’s use as filler in a sentence, where every other word is “fuck” or “fuckin'” because you can’t think of anything else to say. Doug falls into the second category, and the last sentence of his voicemail to Chris was this sterling gem: “Like fuckin’, you know, fuckin’, whatever whatever whatever, so fuckin’ call her.” Then he hangs up the phone and turns his attention back to me:
Doug: So now can I have my bike back?
Me: Um, no. I didn’t talk to him.
Doug: I just want my fuckin’ bike back!
Me: Okay, but hopefully you can understand my position. I’ve never seen you before. I don’t know you from any other random person on the street. I’m not going to be responsible for handing something over to you that is not mine to give.
Doug: Well, is it my fault that he’s like, fuckin’ holding it hostage?
Me: I can’t speak to that. I told you that I’m not going to help you out until I’ve talked to Chris. And you can watch your mouth. There is no reason for you to be swearing at me.
Doug: Well, whatever like, if you’ve got little kids around or whatever, otherwise I can say whatever the fuck I want”
Me: Then I can close this door and refuse to have anything more to do with you.
Doug: Yeah you can. Okay, have a nice night.
And with that he turned and walked back down the driveway.
Really, I couldn’t have cared less about the swearing, because he wasn’t angry at me or swearing at me, he just had a really limited vocabulary, and aside from that annoying me, playing “bait the drunk person” can be fun. And I told Chris that between his boss and Doug, he needed to introduce me to some of his “normal” friends.