Brown Nuts are Tough to Crack

(Insert metaphor)

Tristan and I have now conceded that of all the colourful nuts out there, brown nuts are the toughest to crack. What leads us to this unholy, un-PC assertion?

So last night Tristan comes over, so we take him out for a night on the town. We’re shivering in line in the cold to get into Ceasar Martini’s for what seems like hours on end. I just can’t believe the shitty weather we’re having in Waterloo this term. But at one point though the herd in front of us is getting inside, and finally we reach the head of the line... only to have the bouncer shut the door on us. I don’t believe it – they make us freeze our nuts off like this here in the fucking COLD?! So COLD that a heavily intoxicated Laurier girl behind us literally collapses to the ground! ...Which also means it’s an early exit for her and her friends. And, lo and behold, there are now three brown girls and a petite Asian chick that move up and now stand directly behind us.

The blizzard actually proved to be an excellent conversational gambit. People’s guards were down, even if their pants weren’t yet. At this point we are literally at the head of the line, and I’m actually slightly boorish and hassling the bouncer for not letting us in already after promising to let us in within 5 minutes. He's actually apologetic.

I notice the brown girls behind us were shivering in the cold too - one in particular. She's in a skirt - crazy! - the lengths - or lack thereof - that girls go to get a bit of attention! So I nonchalantly ask one of the girls behind us how many are in her party – we’ll get us all in. She tells me the number. So I say Alright. Then I turn back to resume my conversation with Tristan. At this point though the girl says her name and introduces her friends. Now this would have been the perfect opportunity to interject with a clever playful quip like "Whoa, you’re forward aren’t you?" But the 4 shots of spiced rum and 2 pints of Kokanee and the subzero blizzard were really fucking up with my mental processes.

As they were South Asian, they all had interesting, exotic names (even to me), except the East Asian one whose name I think was Anne... right. One of the girls has a Tamil-sounding name, so I ask her if she’s Tamil. She says no. Well then I try to guess her ethnicity (Malayalee? Punjabi? Guju?) only because, well, I’m curious about shit like that. She says no to all my guesses; she’s from Delhi, the capital. I couldn’t believe how off I was. (Well she’s brown – how was I to see her in the din of night?) Forward girl promptly interjects with “I’m Marathi. From Bombay.” Well, who asked her? That would’ve been pimp, but I didn’t say it.

Two of the girls have very identical-sounding names, so I say "you guys have very similar names... it's like only one letter apart." But one of the girls goes "actually, no." Then I get into a really heated and ridiculous debate about the spelling of this girl’s name. So I attempt to spell her name, except that I’m off by two letters. She corrects me. I assert that her name should be spelled with a th and not a d. Like my name. Forward girl says she knows someone by my name too. But the other girl says NO, it’s with a D. I insist that th would be better, well at least if one was to say the name phonetically, that's how it would be spelled. She says no, this is the way it is, and she is totally firm and adamant about this. This goes on for a minute or two.The whole time I notice James out of the corner of my eye and he is totally cracking up at the ludicrousity of this whole exchange, but he pulls a Switzerland and stays out of it – why get into this shitstorm, he’s already got the one outside to deal with. Even Tristan isn't his usual loquacious argumentative self.

For the most part though I'm just messing. At one point even, one of the others actually excuses stubborn girl's behaviour and says “Oh, she didn’t have anything to drink.” Made sense – this girl was not in a playful mood. Probably some uptight repressed no-fun temple-going Hindu prude - I know the type very well, I used to be one. But when your own friends are making excuses for your cockblock behaviour... well, that’s a clear indication of shush, these guys are interesting, we’re interested, don't spoil it sentiment on their part. But none of that registered to us or her.

The odd part about this whole exchange was I didn’t feel much desire on my part. That's what I don't understand – these girls were clearly at least moderately attractive, and even coming on to us somewhat in a coy way (except forward one). One in particular was giving me heavy eye, even before the whole exchange (staring is a brown trait). But it was as if all my resentment towards the cultural baggage that comes with brown society – and its impediment towards my potential self-actualization – was getting in the way of my physical attraction towards brown girls in general.

Or maybe it was just that they would’ve been too easy (assuming I could disarm the cockblock), and a lot of the fun is the challenge.

The highlight of the night still though was James running across the street and popping into Shajee’s pad to take a wiz.

Anyhow, that's my interpretation of the events – admittedly my memory is hazy, and the drinks may have warped my perception a bit. More of the same shit happened inside - but that’s for later.