copper and the art of keeping your mouth shut.
Yesterday I went to an Irish pub up in Wallingford with a bunch of friends, including shikattanai. Re-established my limit for drinks as 2 minimum (if one is a long island), and sat by this nice fireplace with comfy chairs. All in all, nice atmosphere, although difficult to hear conversation over the loud dance club-wannabe music.

In the middle of a rousing convo about WoW, this guy, slightly scruffy and a bit wide/wild-eyed, walks by our table, stops dead, and starts staring hard at us. After a minute or so, he sits down in the empty seat across from me, and starts touching the tabletop.

guy: Excuse me. Sorry, sorry. But is this table..... copper?
us: I think so. It looks like copper.
guy: I just had to ask, because... you see, I like copper. I *really* like copper.

He pulls up his sleeve, shows us coils of copper bracelets along his wrist. He then proceeds to start stroking the table.

everyone: o_O
guy: Copper is... without copper, humanity would not be where we are.
friend: Er... if you'd like, when we're done, you can sit here at the table...
guy (oblivious): No one seems to understand! Copper *made* us. Our tools, everything, comes from *copper*.

Me, being the smartass I am, couldn't keep my mouth shut. I need to work on that.

me: Well, tools were made of iron, too. I think we had bronze going on for a while.
guy: Ah, we have an anthropologist here? Yes, yes, iron and bronze, many metals. Do you study anthropology?
me: Er, no. I happen to know the names of a few precious metals.

So I ended up switching to English teacher mode and had an involuntary five minute conversation about copper and tools and how evidently copper aquaducts singlehandedly brought about the downfall of Rome, but China got it right because they made theirs out of clay, which is apparently ok.

I pointed out that there are types of clay that are poisonous too, but I think at this point I was making shit up to throw him off. But I suppose it didn't matter.

I was finally rescued when shikattanai and her coworker friend stood up and said to me, "We're going to the bathroom, yo. You wanna come along?"

Her friend added, "Yeah, that whole girls going to the bathroom in packs? Wanna come?"

At which point I was thinking, Thank god.

We left the guy with the coworker's fiancé to take care of. By the time we got back (laughing madly, because we're cruel that way :P) the guy was gone.

shikattanai insists the guy was making a pass at me. I sincerely hope not. If this is the best I'm going to get, I might as well get out of the running now and join the nunnery.

*shakes head* People are weird, yo.