6.
“I was going through what I considered my ‘art-challenged’ phase, where I mostly hung out with musicians and artists. So, one swipe right later, I met a French guy at a bar for a date. I arrived and couldn’t find him until I (conveniently) finished paying for my beer. There was a jazz band playing, and I asked if we could sit near them. He said we needed to sit somewhere else, explaining, ‘I’m a musician and people here know me. ‘ At that point, I just stayed to finish my beer, annoyed that he was asking me out just to try and hide. But against my better judgment, we sat in a corner. Now, for some reason, the idiot in me didn’t ask this guy what instrument he played before our date. Judging by his reaction when people recognized him, I thought he might be some kind of musical superstar. So, I asked him what instrument he played, and he started talking semi-sexually with the intent of getting me to guess his instrument.”
“To add context, this man had a strong, deep French accent and without exaggeration said, ‘When I was a kid, I had a little one. And I used my lips to suck and blow on it. When I became a man, I had a big one, so big it didn’t fit in my pocket. I could use my lips better and I loved to suck and blow on it. ‘ I’m literally sitting almost motionless, perhaps expecting it to be the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, And if I don’t move, he won’t see me. But I just stared at him in silence, speechless. And that’s when he told me he was a famous harmonica player.
It wasn’t a dumb thing, or I would have thought that maybe he was joking around to deny the fact that he was talking like he was in a porn movie. He meant it to be sexual and he kept repeating over and over that he was famous. Now, don’t get me wrong, harmonicas are beautiful. BUT BRO, you don’t play them on Willie Nelson songs or anything like that. Literally, nobody knows who you are.
Naturally, I asked him to play a song for me on the harmonica, but he said he didn’t have a harmonica with him. What kind of harmonica player doesn’t have his harmonica with him? But, being a friendly celebrity, he told me that his big harmonica was at home and that he could teach me how to play it if I came back to his apartment. I screamed inside, but told him it was my time to sleep. I grabbed my coat and left, really bewildered. Before we parted, he handed me a business card, which showed him trying to look melancholy and leaning against a brick wall, with a big harmonica in his shirt pocket.
As I know you’re wondering, no, he wasn’t “famous,” but yes, he played the harmonica well according to the videos I saw on his website. Obviously, I never spoke to him again, as he terrified me. But I still have the card as proof that this event actually happened.
—u/lindo_milkdud