A True Story

This is a true story, it happened to me (Ben) when I was waiting to purchase some beer...

A "long-islander", as we like to call them, was standing next to me outside where I was waiting for my friend to buy some beer. He was with a girl,(presumably his girlfriend), there may have been more in the crew, more definitely stopped to hear what I had to say. This gentleman was clearly inebriated, and felt it would be in his best interest to come up with something clever to say, he chose to comment on my outfit. I was not dressed in any ridiculous way, just genes with a tucked in shirt. Not anything flashy like the silk black and silver shirt he was wearing though. Anyway, he commented on my shirt, a positive but sarcastic remark, and when that did not elicit a response pleasing to him he made a comment about my belt. At this point a couple of people had turned around and sort of idly stared in my direction. When I still didn't respond, just smiled, he asked me..."so uh...what were you trying to accomplish" in his own prose, I figured I might as well respond. Here is what I said: And yes, I did say these exact words, I figured it would fit the mood.

"My dear friend, let me tell you a story. There once were two parents who had a child, they lived in Long-Island. They didn't care for their child as much as most parents. One day, when the child was still a toddler his mother dropped him and he landed on his head. The child became brain-damaged and was slightly retarded, although still able to walk, eat, and function at a sub-par level. While his mother cared not for her child, she did like to take him to the park so she could talk to her other bad-mom friends. One day her retarded child wandered off and found a gentleman, dressed differently than he was used to, but looked just fine, smart and intelligent, sitting on a bench. The retarded child walked up to the person and through some sand on his shoes, the gentleman on the bench smiled and said hello. When the child got no response he went up to the man and attempted to bite his leg."

At this point I asked the guy...What would you do if you were the man on the bench? He sort of scoffed and looked around, visibly uneasy and said "can you believe this guy? what the f*** is he talking about?" So I said...

"Let me tell you what I would do, I would pick the kid up, sit him right down on the bench next to me, and tell him a story".

At this point the kid claimed to see someone he knew across the street, called me a name and walked off...his girlfriend turned her head back as they were walking off and very sweetly smiled at me.

Well done self.