Sometimes it takes a big dog to show you when you’re being an ass
Simon and I were out on the lash in Paris. It had been a long night and we we ended up in a bar where we soon became the last customers.
We started playing a fruit machine. It was one of those that accumulated nudges and banked wins. And we were banking a lot of wins. We’d drunk enough to believe skill was playing a bigger part than luck.
The bar owner got on with cleaning and tidying. He probably shouted a couple of warnings that he wanted us to leave. We probably responded by asking for more beers. I don’t think we got them.
Suddenly, the electricity to the machine went off. The owner had simply unplugged it. He waved the plug at us. We were drunk enough to complain. There had been games and money in the machine owed to us, we told him. He did that Gallic shrug that is even more Gallic and insulting and indifferent in a Parisian bar at silly o’clock in the morning. I think we told him we weren’t leaving until we got our money.
Me being me, I may have suggested he could pay us in alcohol. He shrugged again and went through a door beside the counter.
When he returned a moment later he had a very large German Shepherd on a lead. It looked angry at being woken up. The owner said nothing but indicated the lead in his right hand. He was asking if we wanted to meet the dog without the lead.
We turned and walked to the door to the bar and waited for him to come and unlock it for us. The dog looked as if it hoped we might yet change our minds and stay.
I think the owner wished us good night as he closed the door behind us.
We recovered our nerve as we headed back towards République and joked about the night and moaned about the lost money. We made plans to go back and make a stand. If not the next night, then soon.
Needless to say, we never made it back to that bar. And as the hangover wore off the next day, it was hard to find fault with the dog’s judgement.
