A Polyester Piece of Ordinary
“I’m from Scotland, man,” said a conspicuously drunk dude standing in the middle of the back patio at Weather Up last night. He was speaking to a rather robust man giving dating advice to a girl he clearly loved, but would never fuck, not unless she blacked out on Whizz Bangs—one of the bar’s bespoke speciality cocktails. “I’m a fucking philosopher.”
“Oh, really,” said the robust dude, condescendingly. The Scottish dude looked less of an intellectual, and more of a British kid who had just moved to New York after trying his hand at DJ’ing in Berlin. The robust dude was one of many exceedingly mediocre 25-year-old men at the bar who were masking their insecurity by dropping, frequently and loudly, that they had gone to Ivy League colleges.
“Yeah, man, I’m getting my doctorate at the University of Edinburgh,” said the Scottish dude.
“What are you reading?” sneered the robust dude.
Sitting in the corner, I rolled my eyes and snickered. “Reading?” I wanted to say. “Where did you get that, Harry Potter?” The two briefly looked at me, and continued.
“I’m studying the philosophy of happiness,” said the Scottish dude.
After a night of listening to a group of recent Brown graduates to my right try to intellectually beat each other up with Scrabble words, I had had enough of posing. “Are you seriously fucking having this conversation right now?” I butted in, much to their surprise. I myself was on my second Georgia Julep.
“I don’t know if you have seen the film The Master yet,” said the Scottish dude, drawing up a chair. “But like Lancaster Dodd, I am a theoretical philosopher…”
With both hands, I began making a gesture like I was sucking on two dicks, and not enjoying either.
“Let’s move on,” my friend Bobby said, coming to my rescue. “Nice sweater,” she commented to the Scottish dude.
“Thanks,” he said, showing off the elbow leather patches. “Do you want to switch with me?”
“Yeah, sure,” Bobby said, pulling off her flimsy white cardigan.
Given that the dude was Scottish, and the sweater he was wearing was gray wool, both Bobby and I were fooled into thinking it was a fucking high quality item. “Ok, see you,” she said to the Scottish dude, after it was safely pulled over her head. The back patio of the bar was closing for the night.
“Are you seriously leaving with my fucking sweater?” he said, suddenly taking things very seriously. “I like that sweater.”
“You switched,” Bobby said. “Sorry.”
Then she sassed her way, hips swinging, out the door.
A few minutes later, and we arrived at Silky Wilky’s apartment. Meredith posed and puckered in her new sweater as we climbed the stairs to his loft.
“Let’s see where it’s from,” Caleb said when we settled in, pulling at the tag on the collar. ”H&M,” he announced.
“What, seriously?” Meredith said, panic rising in her voice. The sweater, which a few minutes earlier had seemed like a gorgeous, expensive Scottish wool boyfriend item, suddenly revealed itself for what it was. A polyester piece of ordinary.
“I want my sweater back,” she said, her voice tremulous. “Can we go back and get my sweater?”
But it was too late. Silky, who had gone to get us beers, reported that as he was paying for them, the Scottish dude, in nothing but a yellow t-shirt, had bought cigarettes in front of him at the bodega. Meredith’s white sweater was in his left hand. By the end of the night, it would no doubt be left on a Salvation Army sofa at somebody’s house party. Either that, or wrapped around the Scottish dude’s dick, chafing him as he moaned to the empty air, “I’m a theoretical philosopher.”
