So Saturday night after a fairly successful poker tournament, Hunter, Chuck, Chris, Kelly and I headed down to The Outlook in the Highlands to meet up with some other revellers, including Hunter’s fine lady Jamie (whose birthday it was). As it normally conspires at The Outlook, we sat around, chatted a bit in a the dark and loud “back room”. There are no TV’s in the backroom, and eventually our attention was focused on the two large windows facing the street.

These windows had shown us many things in the past, and tonight was no exception. No one really paid much attention to the two motorcycles parked just in front of the windows. No one paid attention until one of the riders appeared, that is. His first few fitful minutes of attempting the simplest of operations like putting on gloves, finding keys, etc. were not noticed, until someone realized that this man was heavily intoxicated. We all made suppositions as to his next move – would he attempt to find the sunglasses there were on his head? Would he fumble for his house key, and attempt to ram it into the unforgiving ignition? Would he release the kickstand and be crushed? Unforunately for us and most fortunately for he, none of these things happened. The entertained were no longer so.

But wait! There is still one bike left, and a rider no doubt. 10 minutes pass, and the other rider greets his hog. Thought not as obviously pissed as the first rider, I did notice his multiple attempts to fasten and zip his leather jacket. After at least 5 minutes, I decided that I could stand it no longer, and offered a bounty of $40 to anyone seated at our table that would help that poor man put on his jacket.

It should be clear to the reader that I did not expect anyone to take me up on such a ridiculous quest.

But someone did – oh, they did. Hunter immediately stands up, and I realize that of all the people there, I could count on him to hold fast to his boast. However, seeing as how Hunter had spent most of his luck (perhaps over-spent) placing 2nd in the evening’s poker tourney, I thought for sure he couldn’t complete the deal. My second thought was: My god, Brian Walls is not here, and Hunter is most certainly going to be killed. My third thought was then, of course: At least I will still have my $40.

Moments later, after Hunter had exited the backroom (with Katy in tow) I saw his betoqued head appear on the other side of our window of disconnect. I saw him face the big man, who was still struggling with the jacket. A number of possible scenarios raced through my mind, the least of which was Hunter explaining this farce and offering the dude $20 to have him zip up his coat. The worst was Hunter being punched so hard that he flew backwards into the glass, no doubt expending his $40 in stitches. Shortly after that grisly premonition, Hunter turned about face, saluted to us in the back room, and strode off exit stage right. My challenge well met.

Hunter and I had shook hands before, and I was therefore obligated to complete the bet, which I did. Hunter graciously gave $20 of it to Katy, though frankly if I had had the balls to confront a drunken ogre, I would have kept that $40 for myself.

It’s fairly safe to say that my bets in the company of the Incorrigible Mr. Dixon will no doubt be of a smaller sort from now on. Kudos to you.