An evening away from lab

I am not a fan the races, but when a few friends invited, for the lack of anything more exciting, I just decided to go and watch the Kentucky Derby. Besides, my friend assured me that there would be good food, and that is reason enough for any grad student to venture out of his lab. There were about 15 of us, and we all contributed 1$ each, and random chits with a horse number allocated to us. Whoever won, was supposed to get all the money. I had a ticket for No 9

The race was intense. No 5 was leading followed by 17. Imagine my surprise when we all discovered that "5" was actually 9! The jockey, the moron that he was was blocking the view partially.

Trifles apart, I was excited; my luck had never been any good, rather lady luck has always punched me in the face, and when I stumbled kicked me from behind. You get the idea. Only a few seconds of the race were left and I was eyeing the cash with glee. The horse was named "Join in the dance" and I did that with full abandon.

Then as people there would testify, lady luck came and did her part again, and I was left with my foot in my mouth. Now you know why I called him a moron in the first place!

After that, we went to short north, and it being the first Saturday of the month again, there was festivity everywhere. Open galleries, music, art, food and beauty; the atmosphere was ripe with such noble things. It was the stuff that made one's heart sing, and induced a spring in ones step. I and my Canadian friend roamed on the crowded streets and admired the beauty: natural, aesthetic as well as feminine. We went to a few art galleries, saw paintings, sculptures budding musicians on the street struggling to attract attention and discussed the trials and tribulations of a grad life.

We finally went to a bar where we had chicken wings and carried on our discussions. But that didn't go very far. After all a bunch of girls were having a bachelor's party beside us and an exciting ice hockey match was on the huge television. One of the girls from the group came to the table for a drink, and I noticed something sticking out of her cleavage! On careful observation, it turned out to be a small plastic replica of what Joey (in FRIENDS) refers to as a soldier or Little Joey.

I am a gentleman and all that, but I just couldn't control bursting into a guffaw. Thankfully she was drunk and just said "Hello."