Tell me about Detroit: Coat Check

We ate our food and waited for the line to get inside the concert to die down before walking out of the bar. We had to wait in line anyway and get our ID's checked. I got the, "You're a long way from home, California," line a couple times. As though California is my name. It's a cool name, I think, and in the absence of my native state, and the familiar, I will take it.

Walking through the threshold I take note of the locations of coat check, male and female bathrooms, exits, and the bar so I can forget about them later when I need them.

I wait in line at coat check to check my sweater behind a pair of drunk 28 year old Detroit-native girls. They smile at me before one of them says, " You're tall!" This seemed to be an important observation from a five foot seven girl in high heels to a boy of six foot four.

"I sure am. And you're drunk," I said.

"I am not," she said.

"Yeah you are Sammy," said the other girl. "You are drunk out of your skull."

"He doesn't need to know that," Sammy said in a slur.

"But I do," I said.

"Where you from?" asks the other girl, her name was Debbie. I found that out later, because I'm going to skip that part of the conversation.

"California, socal."

"Oh Cool! California. Can I hug you?" she asked as she hugged me.

"Sure," I said. I didn't have any time to respond. Drunk girls, in my limited experience have a tendency to hug at exceptional speeds. Also her question was more of a vocalization of her intent, which is nice when people do that, I think. Her friend took this opportunity to hug me too. They agreed I was tall.

Then the coat check guy looked at them expectantly because they were next.

"What do you want?" Sammy asked defensively.

"Coat?" the guy said.

"Oh Yeah." They took of their coats, joined their men fresh from the manroom and waved good bye to me. I waved back and handed the coat check guy my purple zip-up sweater and made small talk about drunk girls and if he checks sweaters at his coat check window. He smiled, said he would check just about anything.

"In fact, some broad asked me to check her purse with a dog inside," he said as he handed me a ticket and pointed to the paper by the window that said, "Don't lose your ticket. No ticket no coat. No exceptions." I made sure to tuck my ticket somewhere safe so I wouldn't lose it. I made sure it was so safe that it was even safe from me. At the end of the night I couldn't find it, and only because of my incredible ability of total-recall was I able to recount to the coat check guy the 2 minutes we shared when I gave him my sweater: the hug-happy drunk girls, my purple zip-up sweater, and the woman that tried to check her purse dog.

"Wow that was impressive. I normally don't remember stuff like that, but I remember you." I gave him five dollars in the tip jar.

But that happened at the end, later, and it was much more stressful because I saw people walk up without a ticket and get turned away by the coat check people pointing to the paper: No ticket no coat. No exceptions.

I was an exception.