In Which Amberance Briefly Grows A Pair

You know it's going to be just a stellar night when you have to use the phrase "DO NOT FUCKING TOUCH ME" before 9 p.m.

The whole thing seemed routine enough. It was Thursday night and therefore I was at Tai's having dinner with my roommate watching the Cubs lose and the Penguins win. When a guy came in by himself, shook the bartender's hand and sat down a couple stools away from me I thought nothing of it, because why would I? Apart from the fact that he was wearing his blue tooth earpiece like a fashion accessory he appeared fairly normal. Since this is being posted on Bizzybiz, you already know otherwise.

It became clear pretty quickly that he was completely inebretarded. In the space of twenty minutes he tried to shake the bartender's hand at least a dozen times. He also started in on me, wanting to know if I would play pool with him (no) and if I thought he was attractive (no), and then announcing "Giiiirrrrlll, you are fine!" (I was.) My terse answers, refusal to look at him directly and outright ignoring him did not serve as much of a deterrent.

And then he came over and put his hand on my arm.

Here's the thing with that, and actually there are two: 1) If you don't cut off that behavior immediately in drunks it will escalate until you find yourself being mauled, but more importantly 2) I have a thing about strangers touching me. It is that strangers should not be touching me. At all. Ever. So when this asshat touched my arm I screamed at him. "DO NOT FUCKING TOUCH ME! I am not kidding you." which was followed somewhat anti-climatically by the bartender repeating more calmly "Don't touch her."* This was effective. Temporarily.

Moments later, in came Gene Honda and his dinner. And so the douchebaggery continued. "Dude!" bellowed the shithead. "Shake my hand bro!" By this time Gene had started eating rib tips. Gene explains that he can't shake his hand right then, and also that he is trying to enjoy his dinner. Cockwad ignored this, and continued to try and shake a hand, get a hug, lean on, breathe on and generally irritate the crap out of Gene. The bartender said, "Leave the man alone, he's trying to eat his dinner." I said, "Get the fuck away from him, he's having his dinner." Gene said, "Listen, I don't know who you are. I am not going to shake your hand. I would like to eat my dinner and if you don't leave me alone I'm going to throw a bone at you."

In the meantime, other people started showing up in the bar. A guy came in with his girlfriend and started to shoot pool and two girls appeared and were talking to the bartender. It is these distractions rather than our words that got him away from Gene so that he could eat. Unfortunately for them. From across the room I heard the girlfriend say, "Please don't touch me," and the guy say, "Are you serious? I'm standing right here!"

Gene finished his dinner and we went outside, him to smoke, me because Gene said he's not leaving me in there defenseless. (I love my friends.) While we were outside a small miracle occurred: One of our friends who happens to be a detective for the Chicago PD showed up with his wife. I was ecstatic and promptly glued myself to them. We went back inside and settled in to watch the show fucknuts was putting on. By this point he could barely stand and was speaking Spanish. Another woman walked in alone and someone immediately grabbed her and sat her down with a group of people, probably saving her life. Or at least her sanity.

Jackoff stood alone and surveyed the room, eyes settling on me. In a moment of clarity he appeared to recognized me as the bitch who yelled at him and started lurching toward us, yelling something at me in Spanish and knocking over other people's drinks all the way. People who know me well know that I rarely confront people and even more rarely raise my voice. I am not yelly, and hearing other people yell normally causes me to panic and try to hide in a corner. I don't know if it was the depth of my anger or the presence of the detective standing beside me, but all that went out the window and I snapped. "You have GOT to be kidding me. Are you fucking serious? STOP fucking talking to me." As he took another step toward me I continued, "And if you get any closer to me I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL FUCKING HIT YOU!" I'm pretty sure the people at the gas station across the street heard me. He stood there, grinning stupidly while I stared him down and waited, fully prepared to punch someone in the face for the first time ever in my life (along with the yelling, I also don't hit people). He stumbled backward and spilled a beer.

The bartender had had enough (right about now, or perhaps earlier, you're saying "Why didn't he just throw the shit eating prick out of the bar?" Because it was too early for the bouncers to be there, and the bartender wouldn't have been able to take him out on his own if he'd started fighting). "That's it," he said. "You're done. Get out of here right now." We all stood at the window and watched him leave, bobbing and weaving across four lanes of traffic, miraculously making it to the other side without collapsing or getting hit by a garbage truck...and getting into a truck. The detective and the bartender bolted out the door and across the street before I could finish saying, "No. Way. He is going to kill someone." Eventually, the detective got his keys, the bartender called him a cab, and we bribed the cab driver (who took one look at him and said "I don't want this guy in my cab") to take him to the address we found on his driver's license since he couldn't remember where he lived.

So, all in all, the night was bizarrely entertaining, the detective bought everyone a round, certain death was prevented and I was a total badass for about 12 seconds. Not a bad night. MrSteve lamented to me that he missed all the good stuff, and Fish wanted to know why I get to have all the fun. The answer comes to us from the detective, who broke the stunned silence by quipping "Only at Tai's." Indeed.

Post script: Several hours later, someone dropped off a woman outside who got in the truck and drove it away. His wife.


*It keeps reminding me of the scene in American Pie, with the lacrosse coach yelling at the team and the assistant coach standing behind him mumbling the last thing he said. "CulmiNAtion."