Is bluffing legal?
Early last week I saw a group of people involved in a pretty intense conversation. At first I assumed it was a business discussion, until I grew close enough to discern the subject matter:
Man: No, you play it with people.
Others: I don't understand.
Man: Okay, it goes like this. Say you get to work at eight in the morning. You step onto the elevator. There are five other people who get on with you. That's your hand, okay?
Others: Sure.
Man: Alright. Say it's one of those annoying mornings where people get off on all different floors. Then you got nothin'. BUT. If two of those people get off on the same floor, then you've got a pair, at least. And you go up from there.
Others: Okay, I see now, I think.
Man: And if three get off on one floor, and the remaining ones together on another floor, congratulations! You've got a full house! Those days are hard to beat.
Others: What if all five of them are Chinese — is that a flush?
Man: I don't think race matters.
Others: Oh come on! You've got to have a way of doing suits somehow. I mean, if exactly one person got off on 5 successive floors, I suppose you could call that a straight, but that's kind of stretching it. However, if they all belonged to the same ethnic group, too, then you're really talking.
Man: I never though of that.
Others: Yeah, because otherwise what's the difference between a flush and a . . . uh . . . five of a kind? . . . .
* * *
I nearly jumped out of my skin when leaving my apartment this morning. As I rounded the corner in the hallway, there was a guy, standing perfectly still in the middle of the elevator hallway, staring straight at me as if he were waiting for me.
I think I visibly jumped.
It turns out a condo on my floor was flooding, and the water had started dripping into his condo below. Multiple pages to the manager had yielded no results, and neither had frantic knocking on the apartment which seemed to be the source of the problem (I theorized that either the person prefers to wash the dishes while not at home, or else had keeled over dead while filling the bathtub — I hope it was the former, if either of them). I didn't know what to tell the guy.
"Uh, maybe check the bulletin board in the lobby to see if there's a backup emergency number? I mean, otherwise you're left with breaking down the door yourself, or calling 911 or something and getting reprimanded since it's not life-threatening."
"Maybe I could convince them someone really had died in the bathtub. That would work, right?"
* * *
If you're downtown, feeling a little kitschy, and looking for a tasty and entertaining dinner destination, you can put on your best pretend-tourist clothes and go check out Samba, a Brazilian churrascaria at Alberni and Thurlow.
Because, honestly, where else can you get served freshly grilled ostrich from the skewer by a Gaucho, while two bikini-clad dancing girls with 3ft high feathers on their heads teach an 80-year-old grandma a dance that goes "bum shakey shakey shakey HOP! HOP! HOP! [giggle]"?
Man: No, you play it with people.
Others: I don't understand.
Man: Okay, it goes like this. Say you get to work at eight in the morning. You step onto the elevator. There are five other people who get on with you. That's your hand, okay?
Others: Sure.
Man: Alright. Say it's one of those annoying mornings where people get off on all different floors. Then you got nothin'. BUT. If two of those people get off on the same floor, then you've got a pair, at least. And you go up from there.
Others: Okay, I see now, I think.
Man: And if three get off on one floor, and the remaining ones together on another floor, congratulations! You've got a full house! Those days are hard to beat.
Others: What if all five of them are Chinese — is that a flush?
Man: I don't think race matters.
Others: Oh come on! You've got to have a way of doing suits somehow. I mean, if exactly one person got off on 5 successive floors, I suppose you could call that a straight, but that's kind of stretching it. However, if they all belonged to the same ethnic group, too, then you're really talking.
Man: I never though of that.
Others: Yeah, because otherwise what's the difference between a flush and a . . . uh . . . five of a kind? . . . .
* * *
I nearly jumped out of my skin when leaving my apartment this morning. As I rounded the corner in the hallway, there was a guy, standing perfectly still in the middle of the elevator hallway, staring straight at me as if he were waiting for me.
I think I visibly jumped.
It turns out a condo on my floor was flooding, and the water had started dripping into his condo below. Multiple pages to the manager had yielded no results, and neither had frantic knocking on the apartment which seemed to be the source of the problem (I theorized that either the person prefers to wash the dishes while not at home, or else had keeled over dead while filling the bathtub — I hope it was the former, if either of them). I didn't know what to tell the guy.
"Uh, maybe check the bulletin board in the lobby to see if there's a backup emergency number? I mean, otherwise you're left with breaking down the door yourself, or calling 911 or something and getting reprimanded since it's not life-threatening."
"Maybe I could convince them someone really had died in the bathtub. That would work, right?"
* * *
If you're downtown, feeling a little kitschy, and looking for a tasty and entertaining dinner destination, you can put on your best pretend-tourist clothes and go check out Samba, a Brazilian churrascaria at Alberni and Thurlow.
Because, honestly, where else can you get served freshly grilled ostrich from the skewer by a Gaucho, while two bikini-clad dancing girls with 3ft high feathers on their heads teach an 80-year-old grandma a dance that goes "bum shakey shakey shakey HOP! HOP! HOP! [giggle]"?