January 2006. Santa Clara, California.
My roommate Anyoso and I had decided to take a getaway trip to Los Angeles on a long weekend. Unfortunately, Anyoso fell sick after reaching LA so she decided to stay back at the hotel and take a nap while I went out in the city for a stroll alone. It was already dark when I was on my way back to the hotel after a few hours of my excursion in the city and saw a bar on the way. I thought it was a good idea to grab a beer.
As soon as I entered, I went straight up to the bar counter to order my beer.
“What would you like?” The bartender asked casually.
“A lager please.” I said leaning against the counter with my elbows.
“That’d be 6 dollars.” The bartender said as she handed me my drink.
“Open the tab please.” I said handing out my credit card to her expecting to have more than one drink.
I pulled a stool, sat comfortably, took my first sip, kept the beer mug down, and looked around.
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5.” My mind silently counted the number of people at the bar as my head swiveled in both directions to scrutinize the ambiance.
“Slow day, boring music…shoulda picked a different bar.” I was regretting it.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry but can you tell me how much is 15% of 27$?” I hadn’t finished regretting it when I heard someone ask this question.
My ears followed the origin of the voice. It was a girl, probably in her early 20’s, sitting two stools away. She had just finished her drinks and was probably having a hard time calculating the tip for the bartender.
“Lemme find that for ya.” The bartender replied to the girl as she hunted for the calculator.
“Just when you need it, you don’t find it.” The bartender grumbled.
“That’d be 4 dollars and 5 cents.” I swanked like a boss as I started sipping in my beer in big gulps. I couldn’t resist my engineer impulse.
Their faces swung towards me, visibly shocked, as they waited for me to finish my big gulps. There was silence until then, for at least 5 seconds.
“You must be an engineer!” The girl said.
“Damn right. I am.” I replied grinning with pride as I wiped beer froth from the edge of my lips.
“Are you from India?” She asked.
“How did you guess?” Now it was my turn to get surprised.
“Because I know Indians are good at Math!” She clarified.
Flattered, I thought it was a good opportunity to boast about the great Indian education system where we are not allowed to use a calculator until we are grown-ass teenagers and that we are ready to spit out multiplication tables, square roots, heck, even the logarithmic tables on demand.
Ten minutes into the conversation, she had to leave so we exchanged phone numbers, promising to catch up again soon.
I was certain that I had impressed her enough with my high intelligent quotient that she would be looking forward to a date with me. So, I called her the next day.
No pickup.
A message. No response.
And guess what? I never heard from her again. Obviously, Einstein shit didn’t work!
