It’s always nice when one can wind down just a little and relax with friends for a while. This isn’t to say that my week wasn’t hectic (because it rarely isn’t) nor stressful (ditto), and on Thursday I woke up in a foul mood for no particular reason I could discern. But I did receive my copy of Jillian Keenan‘s new book, Sex With Shakespeare, and on Friday I went to dinner with Mistress Matisse and super-ally Elizabeth Nolan Brown. We had a lovely dinner together (talking, among other things, about last week’s events) and relaxing and drinking and laughing and doing the things friends do at dinner. Then toward the end, this middle-aged guy came up to our table, stood between Matisse and Liz, and asked us to excuse him; he seemed to be studying our faces intently so I immediately figured he had recognized one or more of us. But that seemed not to be the case; he said he wanted to ask us something, so then I guessed he had overheard our conversation and had some question about it. But that wasn’t it; he said his table (two men & two women) had been discussing us and made a bet about the average age of our table. We were all a bit surprised at such a rude question, so Matisse asked him to repeat it and yes, he really was asking three strange women to tell him how old we were. It retrospect, I think it’s pretty funny that our reactions were exactly in character: Matisse was annoyed at his impertinence, Liz was curious at where this might be going, and I immediately tried to monetize the situation by asking him if we got a cut if he won. Had he offered to pick up our tab I might’ve tried to convince Matisse to play along, but when he said a mighty $20 was riding on our answer (not even enough to cover my cocktails), I totally agreed with Matisse’s politely but sternly telling him to shove off. One can only wonder what the conversation was that gave rise to such a bet, and how much liquor was involved. Anyhow, Matisse had another commitment so Liz and I continued the party at my “Den of Sin” as she calls it, and this selfie was the result; in case you can’t tell, we were horizontal because I wasn’t actually in a condition to be vertical.
The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing; on Saturday I went to Endza’s birthday party, then on Sunday I helped a regular client who asked me for a favor. See, he just bought a new car and wanted me to drive the old one home from the dealership for him. Oh, and did I mention he asked me to pick a young sex worker he could give it to? Not sell or trade, mind; give it to. He’s barely even met the girl I chose. But you know how clients are; abusive monsters, the lot of them. Slavery and oppression and paid rape and all. Well, I guess I’m just suffering from false consciousness; it must’ve been the Cosmopolitans from Friday night.
That bozo must have been checking if you were under age. After all, he had seen that you were drinking. 🙂 You could also have been trafficking each other.
Twenty-five years ago we were a party of three engineers from Canada who travelled to a trade show in Florida. We were youthful and nerdy enough, but the pimples were clearly gone.
As we ordered beers to accompany our suppers at the hotel restaurant in Orlando (we clearly weren’t going to drive afterwards), the waitress asked to see ID. Quebec drivers licences wouldn’t do, as they didn’t carry pictures back then, even though in those days they were generally considered sufficient to allow Canadians entry in the US. A Medicare card or a birth certificate (without photos either) were also OK for the border patrol, but not for her.
Two of us had passports. The third party only had the minimal documentation.
The lady became immediately extremely threatening, and wouldn’t allow our friend order some of that intoxicating 4% US beer, warning us sternly that if we offered our friend so much as a sip of our glasses, the polleessss would descend upon us. She spent most of her time observing our table from afar.
Ironically, the “dry” party was the oldest one amongst us, and well past 21.
That must have been one of those incidents when I began to become less and less interested to set foot in the US.
A flattering thought, but I honestly can’t conceive that he thought any of us looked like a teenager.
Amazon’s second suggestion for “Sex with Shakespeare” is slightly worrying.
That table age story just reminds me of the first example of homomorphic encryption that I ever came across… It was a method of calculating the average age of a group of people without being able to determine the actual age of any individual participant (if done correctly).
1. Write a random number on a piece of paper, pass it to the first person.
2. They add their age to that number, writing it on a separate piece of paper, and pass that number only (no supporting work) to the next person.
3. This continues until all participants have added in their age.
4. Subtract the random number and divide the result by the number of people that added their age to the number. This is the average age. As long as the intermediate papers are destroyed (not seen by people other than the two who are meant to see them) security is maintained.
Neat little trick. Has useful applications, like determining how much money a group can raise for a gift without revealing how much each individual is adding…
I have a vague feeling that I’d seen Elizabeth’s picture in some Reason article at one time, but I can’t clearly remember. But now I have a clear image of her to keep in my head when I read all her fantastic articles.
Unless I forget this one, too.