Man purse!
About five years ago, I had a “Corn and tie” party: I bought and served a ton of corn, and if you weren’t wearing a tie, you couldn’t come into the apartment. It was lots of fun; everyone loves fresh BC corn, and I picked up a bunch of extra ties from the BCSPCA Thrift Shop for anyone who thought I was joking about that requirement (I do not joke about theme parties).
I’d just finished playing bass for a run of Little Shop of Horrors at the Waterfront Theatre so a lot of the cast/band was there. I’d also just started a café job at a new Bean Around the World, and most of that staff also showed up. There was also a bunch of friends I’d met through my then-girlfriend, M, from UBC’s Music and Theatre depts; and the regular bunch of Vancouver people. Finally was my new roommate B and my other roommate N, who I’d known for years and had recently moved back to town after spending a couple years in Prince George. N brought his old roommate, whose name I can’t remember and possibly never did. N was a good friend, but had recently started working out way too much and walking around with his arms pointed out in that “look how big I am” way. I didn’t know anything about his friend, we’ll call him G, but he had a similar way about him.
The party went on, lots of people, lots of things to do, everyone getting happily intoxicated (corn being the perfect drunk/munchies food). People were playing music in my room, chatting/dancing in the living room, and at one point I play-wrestled my friend S—a heavy set half-Chinese/half-Native girl with a gorgeous face who I knew through a mutual friend—in the kitchen. I won. Like I said earlier, lots of fun.
At one point I came into the living room and plopped down on the couch between M and G and witnessed what I thought was a joke between G and my friend K. K is half-Japanese, has bones like a bird’s, and is possibly the prettiest boy I’ve ever met. Prettier than S; it’s ridiculous. Anyway, they were “joking” about fighting each other, with K laughing constantly per usual.
The atmosphere suddenly changes and everyone realizes that G isn’t joking; he was really drunk, and really angry. I try getting him to chill out and he turns the agression at me, getting really confrontational:
G: do you want to fight?
Me: no of course not. No one wants to fight here
G: what are you, a pussy? [to M] Do you think I can beat your boyfriend up?
M: [flabbergasted] um, probably?
G: [to me] what do you think about that, asshole? Your girlfriend thinks I can beat you up!
Me: um, I think she’s pretty observant? You outweigh me by about 100 pounds, dude
It goes on for a bit until I get annoyed and find N to calm his friend down. N comes out, apparently G gets like this often, and says something that really sets him up. Next thing I know I’m diving to stop my television from falling on the girl sitting in front of it, then grabbing one of the large men as they start primate-style chest bumps. As a few of us are getting them separated, G takes a swing and hits N in the mouth. People calm down, G leaves, and N heads off to his room.
The party got a little awkward from there. People starting filtering out until only a few were left. I notice that S is stumbling around finishing off half-drunk glasses of wine and bottles of beer—not a good sign. I tell her that everyone’s leaving and it’s time to go; she gets angry. Starts yelling and swearing at me: “fuck you Matthew, don’t tell me what to do!” Sigh. Calm her down, call a cab, and get her outside when it shows up; all the while getting yelled at. I get her in the cab, give the cabby directions to her place and some cash, and off they go. More on her later.
Everyone finally leaves and we go to bed. The next morning, I’m woken up by a phone call:
Me: hello?
Them: hello, this is the Vancouver Police. Please open up your front door
Me: um, ok…
I go to the front door, no one’s there. I check outside at the upstairs door, no one’s there either. No cop car anywhere. Confused I go back inside and figure it’s as good a time as any to start the day. I put on the coffee and start getting rid of anything on the coffee table that might get me arrested if the cops do show up. Post-coffee, I end up back in bed when the phone rings again. The cops again. This time, they are at the front door.
So I let them in and we’re talking—turns out N had called them to “teach G a lesson” since it’s not the first time they’ve come to blow. They get our statements one by one as the rest of us clean up, one of the cops helping us. At one point he comes into the kitchen: “I found a Bible and rolling papers on the coffee table—what kind of party did you guys have here last night?” he asks with a grin. It was actually an old edition of Shakespeare (theatre friends, remember? We may have definitely recited a few plays). I grabbed both immediately, made a joke, and went back to cleaning. He comes in a few minutes later with a carton of cream:
Him: oooh, you’ll probably want to throw this out…
Me: actually if you notice, it’s still cold, meaning that it’s only recently been taken out of the fridge and still good. But, good detective work there, buddy [gives him a thumbs up]
Him: [cocked, questioning, eyebrow]
Me: Oh my God, I’m so sorry…
A few years earlier I’d been work at Blenz Café and offered a cop the last ham and cheese scone, winking “ham… get it? Like bacon? Pigs…? Oh my God, I’m so sorry…” Smooth.
We’re finished giving our statements, the cops leave, and I’m sitting in the living room when it happens… B bursts out of his room, without a shred of irony or shame, and screams “SOMEONE STOLE MY MAN PURSE!” Not bag, not sack; not even murse. Man purse. I lost it. The idea that someone stole his stuff was shitty, but the conviction with which he yelled MAN PURSE! was amazing.
When the laughing stopped and my stomach stopped hurting enough to speak, we worked out the details. His bag was gone, but S’s was still there; they were almost identical. So I called her cell, it rang in my living room. Called her home phone, no answer, but another number to call in case of emergencies. I called that one and got through to her neighbour.
Details were hard to piece together, but it seemed like the cabby had dropped her off at the corner of 4th and Alma, near her apartment. She had been stumbling around, trying to get hit by a car, and was now at the VGH’s Psych ward, presumably with B’s stuff. I head down to the hospital to see if she’s OK and get the full story. Her blood alcohol level was at a near-fatal level, and she had been trying to kill herself. Apparently, it was near the anniversary of her mother’s suicide and this kind of thing had happened before. Since she was a friend of a friend, I had no idea about any of it (but it certainly explained the “finishing other people’s drinks” behaviour from the night before). Someone had seen her in the intersection and called 911 on her (actually B’s) phone. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt and she did have B’s stuff.
So we swapped her stuff with B’s and she headed back to bed. I visited her a few days later and things had gotten better; last I heard, she was doing pretty well.
Anyway, the point/reason behind this whole story is a bizarre dream I had last night. For some reason, I enrolled in a computer science class at UBC in the Hennings building, but not in a Hennings classroom. It wasn’t really computer science though, instead a really weird math class. The prof would put really simple algebraic equations on the boards, occasionally with students sneaking up and writing their own (which, when he noticed, would grade). The class was populated with old friends, and people whose faces I’ve only seen on the internet.
It was really confusing. They would “derive” complicated formulas I didn’t understand, but the “answer” was always a horrible pun based on the way the numbers/variable looked. They really loved using pi. It became a challenge for students to make puns out of “difficult to pun” equations. I was asked a question, but not paying attention, I didn’t know the answer. So I blurted out a number like 5.274 and was wrong (the answer was 5.275, which I missed by a rounding error); it was determined that I wasn’t a good fit for the class.
Class is over, we’re getting to leave, and I run into N. We chat for a bit, and he’s putting papers into his shoulder bag. I blurt out “MAN PURSE!”
Next thing I know I’m awake, it’s 4am, and I’m laughing aloud in my bed. Five years later and I still think it’s the funniest thing ever, enough to wake myself up from laughing too much! So ridiculous.
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