edicate is not proper etiquette

one night we were running out of ice at the pub.

this happens on occasion. it happens more often when the ice machine is broken. for a week.

this particular night i was elected to go begging for ice from the neighbouring pubs, which isn't so much of a daunting task since it is ireland and neighbouring pubs are more numerous than numerousness itself. put more finitely: eight on mccurtian st which is about the length of two soccer football fields.

two weeks previous i was elected to go begging for brandy, gin and whiskey because we had none. a good enough reason to go looking for some. it is an even better reason to order and have it delivered, but who am i to judge the organizational skills of my employer? i'm the guy elected as the begging face of the pub, that's who. it puts me in no place to say anything.

on with the story brad
fine

on the search for liquor i ended up a Galaghers on the corner. they had one bottle of each. i returned to work victorious.

two weeks later i end up back at galaghers on the corner. knowing they helped me out before i was already planning my walk home: i would walk out the door and down the street fifty paces.

i asked her in a way one might expect a question involving the borrowing of ice from one person on behalf of another. her response resembled something one might expect of the devil him herself if Herself was pouring a pint of beer and asking where her booze was from two weeks ago.

my face went pink, my pants dampened and the entire bar turned to look at me as if i had a pink face and wet pants.

when she asked a second time i realized i hadn't answered and thought about how rude i must appear to be. after she asked the third time i replied in my best confrontation voice

i don't know.

her look told me that what i had said wasn't enough to get me the ice.

the walk was as unenjoyable as it could have been. i muttered to myself what most people mutter when they don't perform up to hollywood's standards of confrontational etiquette. if only we had one more take was i thought as i crossed the shel's threshold.