Wednesday Festival.

On reflection and with benefit of hindsight, it is now clear the black jamaa is him. Used to seeing the man in normal movies. Its amazing what these hollywood guys can do.

Yesterday, I did the usual. Wednesday festival with one Eric and another guy. On my fifth beer or so, I talked to a woman. It was sudden, just turned and started talking, no pre-meditation. It was awesome. Soon she was bubbly, though tricky.

Somewhere down the line she innocently slipped "si you buy me a drink?" into the conversation, and pretended to be disgusted at another lady who was dancing, mouth in a smirk. I almost missed it. It was expertly done. The timing, its all about the timing. There are 3 steps they take:

1) X, where X is the prospective buyer, must be contemplating ( at the moment) buying another beer for himself. This manifests itself by X fiddling with the near empty bottle/glass.

2) Drop the "si you buy" line in soft tones, right in the thick of fast conversation.

3) Diversion. Pretend to be caught up in something. Silence is generally regarded as 'yes' in many quarters. Since she seems busy, you cannot talk to her for a short while. You are silent. You have intrinsically said yes. It basically becomes very hard to say no after a moment's pause. Your hide is nailed to the wall. Expertly.

But I was sharp last night. I had earlier told her that we were only taking one drink (the current one) then go. That saved the day. No sooner had she started her pitch about me buying her a drink than I came back with a swift rejoinder.
"So damn broke, thats why I am going home after this beer. Honestly wish I could". Expert rebuttal.

Can't be generous. These are hard times indeed.