Monday, September 20, 2010

What Woman? (A Gen Con/Safe House story)

I was introduced to the Safe House by artist friends of mine when Gen Con rocked Milwaukee. They told me tales of the fun they had there, the wife of one of them let slip the password. So I was thus prepared for when I went there the convention the following year.

My first night in town I went to the Safe House and had a blast, as there were many con goers there. The next day, I became friends with a fellow gamer, and even though he was from a rival organization, Jayhawks, and I am a Tiger, we were both suitably impressed with each other, and having that mid-west connection became fast friends. I told him he had to come with me to the Safe House.

That night we arrived at the Safe House, there was a line of course. As we approached Miss Moneypenny, I gave her the proper password and quickly slipped in. My new friend, unknowing the proper procedure had to prove to her that he should be cleared to enter. I of course enjoyed watching him flap like a chicken as I had a drink at the bar. Eventually he proved himself worthy, and she let him in.

As he entered, the bar gave him a round of applause. I informed him that he had been on close circuit TV. We each got a Spy’s Demise and grabbed a table. I stayed at the table as the place was starting to fill up, letting him wander around. I kept the drinks company and made sure we had a place to sit. As he was gone for period of time, I wanted to show my new friend some Tiger generosity. So I kept giving my friend, parts of my Spy Demise (we were drinking them all night). So when he came back from exploring, he must have thought that he was a Very Important Operative, as his drink seemed to last longer than mine.

In the early morning hours, we had made our ways to another table where we were going to grab a brief bite. We had just sat down and my friend had ordered a new drink, when he said he was going to the rest room. He then turned to a large table of people, whom we did not know and said, “Make sure that he doesn’t mess with my drink.” He pointed at me and left for the bathroom.

As soon as he was gone, I took his fresh drink, pouring almost all of it into mine. The table of people sat there and watched me do it.

He then returned and asked, “What did you do to my drink?”

“What do you mean?”

“I had a fresh drink here.”

“No, you almost finished it before you left for the toilet.”

About this time, one of the women at the table behind him spoke up, “He messed with your drink.”

My friend then turned around and said, “See, see. You’ve been messing with my drink all night. I just haven’t been able to catch you. I knew it. I knew you were trying to pull a fast one on me. But this time I have a witness. ”

As he had been going on and on, the woman who had spoken, had gotten up and left.

He continued, “See, I knew you were doing it, and that woman even saw you do it.”

I looked at him with a blank face and said, “What woman?”

He turned around and saw the woman gone. He looked at the empty seat and asked the table, “Hey, what happened to the woman that was sitting here.”

This table of people, who we had never seen before, looked him straight in the eye and said, “What woman?”

No comments:

Post a Comment