Introduction to Vinny

I don't believe I've ever mentioned on this blog my friend Vinny.

Vinny is well known for his arresting, if illogical, commentary and behavior. Examples would include his profession that "a cat is like an autistic dog" and his observation that his own attractiveness "is not blatant". He is also inexplicably accident prone, such as the Glass Incident. The Glass Incident occurred in my former place of residence in a housing co-operative called Brooklyn Acres. I had moved in only three weeks prior to my get together, and had just had brand spanking new wall to wall carpet installed throughout the house. At the time, I had a collection of lighthouse-shaped glasses from Red Lobster that were free with my copious drinks. Vinny had brought along a bottle of red wine, and as the resident drunk, he completely filled up one of my lighthouse glasses with this easily staining libation. The rest of the crew were gathered in the living room. As luck would have it, Vinny had managed to select the glass with the weak bottom.

Now mind you, I had used the glasses over and over again, without ever having a problem. But when Vinny got a hold of it, all bets were off.

Vinny strolled into the living room as the rest of us looked on. What we saw from our perspective was red wine slowly dripping out of the bottom of the glass. This slow leak quickly escalated into a fast leak, followed by a spray, followed by spurting out of the bottom of the glass while Vinny continued to walk along, oblivious.

The next 5 seconds happened in slow motion. The entire room saw what was about to happen. Each of us leaned toward Vinny almost imperceptibly, and began collectively opening our mouths to speak....but we were two late. The entire bottom of the glass liberated itself from the remaining vessel and crashed to the floor, dumping red wine all over my not yet three-week old carpet.

Paralyzed as we all were before, we sprang into action. People jumped up to get paper towels. Glass shards were carefully collected. The vacuum was retrieved and run. A half dozen of my friends frantically blotted at my carpet trying to undo the entire event. Vinny, on the other hand, managed only to shout "MY PANTS!!!!" before grabbing the paper towels out of someone's hand and furiously wiping at the leg of his khakis. We all stopped and stared at him pointedly. "What?" he asked.

And this, in a nutshell is Vinny, whose actions and reactions are just slightly outside the realm of the expected. But more on this in a minute.