The answer
The answer is not in a bathrobe.  Â
Not even in a cool, blue, red and white diagonal-striped robe. With dreadlocks and a bandana.
I was disappointed.
Jordan the Bathrobe Guy. I’d seen him from a distance once or twice, and marveled at how confident he was, to walk into a bar dressed like he’d just gotten out of bed. I knew he would have the question to the answer of 42. I didn’t see his towel, but I was sure he would know where it was.
My friends and I marveled at how it must be a great conversation device, and a way to pick up independent-minded chicks.
Recently, we spotted him again. I cursed not having my camera. I want a picture of the Bathrobe Guy so badly. I think if I’d had my camera, I would’ve had the courage to ask. But no, I am shy, and could not hide behind a camera, a conversation piece on its own.
My friend, Sarah, has no problem approaching random people and say, asking them about the bathrobe. She just walks up and goes.
She comes back, says she got his story, and that he might be over to our table later. I’m ecstatic. What did he say?
He got the bathrobe from his dad, who wore it in the 60s.
Cool.
He got suspended for wearing it to school. Wearing little underneath.
Very cool.
Of course, in the bar, he appears to be wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt. Even this bar frowns on being so close to nudity. (Though the girl with the high-pitched squeal and barely there lace-up scrap of shirt might have skirted the edge.)
Jordan the Bathrobe Guy does come over to our table. I don’t want to sound like a dork, but I just have to ask.
What’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
What? (It’s loud in here.)
What’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
You mean, like, why we’re here?
Yes, I ask, expectant. Like waiting for the answer from Deep Thought after seven and a half million years.
His words come out slurred, and I’m disappointed in the answer.
To treat others as you’d want to be treated.
Good answer, but it’s not original, and it doesn’t equal 42, or tell us why we’re here.
He didn’t have much to say after that, and I don’t think I would’ve cared.
Surely, even if he was not a fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide, surely someone would have asked him if he was traveling the galaxy, or where his towel was.
But no.
There are no answers. Certainly not from an intoxicated guy in a bathrobe. I should’ve known better. And I guess I’ll just keep looking.
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Still, I think Bathrobe Man may be on to something. Doesn’t “To treat others as you’d want to be treated” mean something very different when a scantily clad man in a bathrobe says it to you? It sounds like a proposition to me. And it certainly is not a cliche in light of the context.
So his pick-up device, the bathrobe, didn’t work on you? Would it have worked if he’d understod the “Hitchhiker’s” reference?
I think the pickup device was meant for far prettier, thinner, drunker, alternative/trendy people than me. If he had understood the Hitchhiker’s reference, I would have, of course, nailed him down for a half-hour of boring nerdy conversation. Which is known universally to be a turnoff for 95 percent of men. The other 5 percent of which would probably bore me because they’d be even nerdier than I am.
I think it’s odd that for picking up chicks, the guy reversed the formula and instead of trying to look cool, he went for the nerd effect. Maybe he thinks nerd chicks are easy, but you have to speak the language of nerd, I guess.
Also, I wonder if he had a wingman. Was there a Ford who approached Heather and asked her to dance, shortly before the Hitchhiker approached you? Usually, men work in pairs: one to separate out the spare girl so that the other guy can go for the primary target. Divide and conquer.
Oh, no, no. See, there was no hittage on me involved, at all. This guy was not a nerd. I think it’s more like indie/cool.
And our friend, Sarah, is indie/cool. So any hittage was hittage on her. That’s how he came over in the first place. Because she asked him to come join us.
Nerd chicks, no. There’s a special breed of guy that would be interested in nerd chicks, but I bet this guy wasn’t one of them.
And I have this forcefield of unapproachablity that comes from shyness, akin to a someone else’s problem invisibility shield.
That’s funny about the wingman though. Ford over there with his towel.
Space, you have a problem with space (little women in SF come to mind; your aversion hugs come to mind). You would decidely not make a good Chewbacca.