A funny thing happened to me at the bar the other day.
I decided to stop in to Brutopia to do a little reading since I was already downtown on some other errand, and also to get the recipe for Laura's delectable veggie burgers. Laura is the owner of the "restaurant" that runs out of Brutopia. She's quite the character, maybe I'll talk more about her some other time.
Laura has a good friend called Cécile, who is the one that actually introduced me to veggie burgers. I had never had one before. I had the burger and it was delicious. I always make a point of having one if I am downtown around dinnertime. Cécile is black and somewhat mannish in appearance, and she has a low voice as well. Her hair is pretty much identical to mine.
About two weeks ago I was in there with Elizabeth. Laura and I were chatting away, rudely ignoring Liz, and suddenly this guy with a scratchy beard politely interrrupts, kisses Laura on both cheeks (he was leaving) and then proceeds to do the same thing...to me. That type of thing normally occurs in the Village. I was shocked to say the least, but for some reason I thought it best to play along. The guy left. Laura and I continued our conversation, and I immediately forgot about it until about 20 minutes later, when I exclaimed, "Who the hell WAS that guy??" I went to the back to talk to Laura about it. It was Mike. She figured that he was hammered and just playing a joke. A pretty risky joke, I think. If I were one of THOSE types of guys, I would have beaten the shit out of him. She couldn't explain.
So when I went in there on Tuesday, Laura saw me and said, "Oh, I'll get you your first beer! It's on Mike. Remember Mike?" I did, vaguely. As it turns out, this story has become known to all the staff members, and it cracks them all up. A couple of days later, Mike returned to the bar. When Laura asks him why he double-kissed me, he didn't know what she was talking about. When he finally put two and two together, he realized that he thought that I was Cécile. He thought he was simply being polite to someone he knew. He was so embarrassed that he asked that I get a free beer the next time I am in the bar.
That's shitty for Cécile. When drunk men can mistake other men for her. People must think she's a man regularly. I hope she's gay.
