Strange Hobbies Of Mine

One of my favorite things in the world is using my knowledge of trivia to convince people I'm...something. Psychic in some cases.

I was reminded of this by a post on Red's blog this morning:

He said, "So. Where do you think I'm from?"

Now this is where it gets really funny, if you think about it.

I surveyed his face...I saw olive skin, and dark black curly hair with a little grey on the sides. I saw very strong blunt features. I could not place his accent. I took the time to examine his face... So - I don't know - I got a very strong Balkan vibe from the guy.

So I guessed. Randomly. "Croatia?"

He put his coffee down with a look of utter shock. Obviously, I had hit the jackpot.

This can be a lot of fun.

In 1988, I was working at a really awful little bar in Rosemount - a south suburb of St. Paul which has since been absorbed into the Dakota county sprawl, but where back then you could smell cow dung even as you saw the townhouses of Apple Valley creeping over the nearby hill along County 42. It was the outskirts of the Twin Cities, out where redneck Minnesota meets suburban Minnesota.

One night, a short little guy walked up to the DJ booth. He had a georgia accent, and had a tattoo on his forearm - twin dolphins.

"Hah y'all doin'?", he asked.

"Not bad. Navy guy, huh?"

He grinned. "You guessed that, huh?"

"Sure. You were..." I remembered the dolpin tattoo, "...a bubblehead? In submarines?"

He looked mildly shocked. "Er, yeah, I was".

I nodded, and remembered the accent; there's a large submarine base in Georgia, serving ballistic missile subs. "You were in Boomers, right?"

He started looking a little worried. "Yeah?"

I thought for a very brief moment; I had a friend who'd served on the Ulysses S. Grant, and he'd told me he'd based out of King's Bay. "You were on the Grant, right?"

He started looking alarmed. "Yeah - how did you know...?"

"Er...lucky guess".

He requested "Talk Dirty To Me" by Poison, by the way. But he was almost too shaken up to bother...

Posted by Mitch at June 24, 2004 11:55 AM