How to Subtly Steer the Dinner Party So That It Eventually Gets to You Being Able to Show Off That You Know Syd Barrett Lived in A. A. Milne’s Old House
A short possibly funny story by our Associate Scrivener, Dirk Voetberg.
A thing you know is that Syd Barrett, eccentric founding genius of Pink Floyd, lived out his life as kicked-out-of-Pink-Floyd genius at the English countryside house where A.A. Milne resided and wrote the Pooh stories decades earlier. But your girlfriend’s friends are still not aware of this marvelous side of you; the side that knows this fact.
These first months of dating Sahana, you keep finding yourself standing around, spritz in hand, with nothing to say during dinner parties but, “So awful,” “Too funny,” “Oh is that right?” or “Great name for a band,” whenever any of her friends brings up something from politics or pop culture that’s disturbing, kind of funny, sort of interesting, or is a plural noun and you haven’t yet said the great-band-name joke that night, respectively.
All the others are so effortlessly interesting. Serge particularly. He does not stop with the knowing of absolutely everything (e.g. “Well, sure, but Peter the Great very likely inflated people with bellows”).
So, tonight’s thing at Marian and Moe’s cannot end without everyone going home or to Buvette (“New late nite menu! Build yr own gratin dauphinois!”) impressed you know this thing. Sahana’s slipping away. The polite “Exactly”s you get in lieu of actual laughter per great-band-name joke do not a thriving relationship built on being impressive make.
And you can’t just blurt it out. That’s desperate. The moment needs to come organically. So, here are simple steps to force that organic moment:
— Bring two thimbles. Place one on the closed lid of the toilet at Marian and Moe’s; the other stays in your pocket. The toilet’s matte black, so the silver thimble will for sure be spotted before the lid’s flung open by the next person who wishes to urinate.
Of course, whoever discovers the thimble will bring it to the attention of Marian or Moe. Moe, who is the more outspoken of the couple (“You didn’t do ‘Video Games.’ I’d like to speak to your manager please.” — to Lana Del Rey at her Terminal 5 show) will then demand, “Um, whose thing is this?”
You have the other thimble in your pocket, so you can show it and say, “Still have mine.” Aside from maybe Serge, everyone else will be without thimbles. So, now you’ve got some good suspicion brewing.
— This will help ratchet the already significant stress Marian suffers through when cooking for company and make for an hour or so ripe for the next steps.
Marian relies on the NYT Cooking app to hold her hand. Any imprecise step in the recipe that assumes some modicum of cooking experience—“Add in a large pinch of salt”—will more or less end her.
Marian will jab at the Cooking app with one hand while stirring with the other. “Uh fuck me. ‘Cook until fragrant.’ So, is it fragrant now? I smell it a little but is that, like legally fragrant…or I see a little smoke, but am I confusing sight and smell? Oh my god! I’m— Somebody— Moe, is it fragrant? That smell! What do you mean ‘What’? IS IT FUCKING FRAGRANT?”
— Moe will once again bring out the Ouija Board. And since she has to move it to get to the Ouija at the back of the game shelf, Moe will also likely be wielding the battle ax Marian stole from that “House of the Dragon” set (“Holy shnickeys! You were on ‘House of the Dragon’? How many episodes?” “A YouTube parody of it, but yeah, two!”).
Marian will snatch the Ouij—as they call it—from Moe and get right on communicating with the soul of a previous tenant from the 1940s who was a pretty dang great cook. Marian’ll frantically push the now greasy planchette (Serge knew what that pointer thing’s called) to ask about the garlic.
The tenant spirit also enjoys spilling a bit of the tea. So, he’ll interrupt with “BTW Sahana’s beau is thimble bringer.” “Fr real?” Marian’ll planchette back. “Fairly skibidi” (this friggin’ ghost is always trying with the brainrot).
— Marian will now spin around, her eyes narrowed. “You! You did the thimble!” As she’s charging at you, Baron or Phoenix will bring up “Love Island” because it’s always brought up. The rehashing of the night vision footage of the last episode should sufficiently warp everyone’s, including Marian’s, moral compass such that she’ll swing the axe, you know, at you.
You’ll need to quickly utter, “Careful with that axe, Eugene!” before the blade strikes your chest.Now, you are dead, sure. But we’re almost where you get to say the thing.
— Among other things being discussed at this point, someone’ll ask, “Why did he say, ‘Careful with that axe, Eugene”? Serge will answer, “Seems he’s referencing the 1969 Pink Floyd song, ‘Careful with That Axe, Eugene.’ There’s probably an element too of he wanted you to be careful with the axe.”
“Sahana, I am like so sorry,” Marian will blubber. “Oh, it’s…” Sahana will smile politely. “No. No, Sahana? Remember what we talked about? About letting go of all that negative dark generosity? This was. My. Bad.”
— “You’re such an Eeyore,” Moe will groan. “Yeah, if Eeyore killed a guy!” Isaias will joke. Everyone’ll giggle because, oh right, good call back to when Marian killed you. “Murderer Eeyore!” someone’ll howl with a little clap. More laughs.
“I bet somebody has a little something to add,” Sahana will say smiling away tears. She’ll contact you on the Ouij and you’ll spell out “Murderer Eeyore. Great name for a band.”
— Alright here goes: while Sahana’s hands are still on the board, you’ll finally say, from you little spirit realm, “Speaking of Pink Floyd and Eeyore. Syd Barrett of Floyd actually lived at the house where Winnie the Pooh was written.”
Glory! Everyone is finally about to reply, “Oh neat!” “That’s kinda fire” or “Didn’t know that” to something yousaid! Ready? Here comes! Serge opens his mouth first…
“No, it was Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones who lived there.”
— fin—
