The Blustery Brit

I have a little spot I frequent to enjoy the odd adult beverage.

The fact that some people tend to find it swanky is great, I tend to like it for its sparkling décor and friendly service.

It’s just icing on the cake that on any given night you can see local, national and international movers and shakers and the odd celebrity.

It makes for fascinating people watching.

I dropped in a few days ago and was chatting with the bartender when a gentleman who has been one of the newer regulars sat down a few stools over.

While I’ve been introduced, I don’t really pay him any mind. He seems to entertain many others so I’m sure the fact that he’s missing my rapier like wit won’t keep him up nights.

He mumbled something in my direction about a bus---but like I said, I wasn’t really paying attention to him.

Plus it seemed like he has a few too many already. Frankly speaking that’s not too unusual for this guy.

If the scuttlebutt is to be believed, he’s a mean and crass drunk.

Since he got no reaction from me, he turned and said, “You can’t afford to drink here.”

Taken aback, I asked him what he was talking about.

He repeated himself and said, “You can’t afford to drink here.”

Now it was my turn to repeat myself.

He went onto ask how can I have a $15 glass of wine in front of me but take a $2.00 bus ride home.

And for the record, the glass of wine wasn’t $15 dollars. It was way less. I also reminded him that I took two buses to get home, not just one.

I asked him why he cared?

The Blustery Brit replied that he didn’t care but he just couldn’t figure it out. It just confused him.

He further stated that he hadn’t been on a bus in 50 years.

Well ladies and gentlemen you have your gold standard. The mark has been set.

While my memory is a little foggy of what I said to him (I was drinking after all), he said something about “Not getting into nonsense” and huffed out of the bar.

As a black woman you tend to get used to people making erroneous judgments about you based on appearance and gender.

But this has to be a first.

I’ve never had someone give me the what for’s due to the fact I’m an active public transportation rider.

Usually I shun the CTA, now I’m proud to have it as my badge of honor with this jerk off.

But now comes the interesting part.

I mentioned this little episode to other friends in the hospitality industry.

The gossip is that the Blustery is a bit of a flim flam artist, a con man, a charlatan.

My little spies tell me that their law enforcement friends tell them that Blustery had to quickly pack several times (and in several countries might I add) to make a quick get away from several “business deals gone wrong.”

That was their nice way of saying he had to leave because he was about to be picked up by the law from scamming people out of their money.

Well go figure.

Come to think of it, I had never seen him before last winter and he did appear out of nowhere.

Then of course this could all be malicious gossip. Who knows?

But it does have the sheen of truth to it, no?

Those who try to belittle someone are usually hiding a secret or two of their own.