Dealmaking

I went to Los Angeles this weekend to visit Ken and meet up with some other law school chums. We met up with a friend of his doing public interest work, and traded war stories while pre-partying aggressively at a film festival cocktail hour. Plans were made to meet more friends at a club nearby. However, we arrived to discover a problem. Ken's friend, the philanthropic slouch, was still wearing the traditional SoCal uniform below the waist: cargo shorts and a worn pair of Rainbows. The bouncers, black-clad and big as Oldsmobiles, didn't mind the sandals, but would not abide a short. We'd caught a ride over and our driver was already inside, eager to showcase his jumpy dancing style. We wheedled ineffectually and considered aloud whether we should take our custom elsewhere. They refused to budge on the pants, and suggested we try a Pick N' Save up the block.

We latched on to the suggestion immediately. We could buy pants right then - it was just crazy enough to work. But a quick troop up the street revealed that Pick N' Save was not crazy enough to be open past ten on a Friday night. We dashed over to the dollar store just in time to watch through the window as employees locked its accordion bars. We were crushed to learn that even CVS was closed, although nobody had a good idea about exactly what kind of pants we would have hoped to find inside. We trudged back in defeat, cursing the owners who put their swanky fancy-pants on a such a desolate street, completely deserted except for a 24-hour warehouse of a laundromat.

Inspiration struck. I strode purposefully through the entrance to address the assembled launderers. "Excuse me everyone! Does anyone have a pair of size thirty-six pants they would be willing to sell for twenty dollars?" The more objectively audacious your request, the more your affect must insist it is normal. I imagined myself as the host of a hidden-camera program, riding around the city with my crew in a panel van, making outrageous demands of strangers for some shameless program on E! "Size thirty-six? Anybody?"

"I will sell you pants," piped up a man unloading khakis from a dryer, "but for more than twenty bucks." I pointed at him like an auctioneer receiving a bid.

"How much more? Thirty?"

"Forty."

"Too much!" I cried, and wheeled away. A ruffled-looking hipster had a pair of loose thirty-fours. They fit! he refused to take a dollar over the originally offered twenty.

"And they're good pants?" Ken took charge of quality control. "You don't have crabs or anything?"

"If he had crabs, I wouldn't be dating him," joked the seller's girlfriend, pinching his butt.

"Excellent!" The deal was struck. Our problem proudly solved, we marched back next door. Charmed no doubt by our moxie, the bouncers waived our cover. Inside, we toasted our success.

"I can't believe we just bought pants off someone in a laundromat!"

"I know. I feel like such a dealmaker."

Our formerly beshorted companion, however, was the most pleased of all. "These pants fit really great! I would have paid more than twenty bucks for them. Like, in a store and everything!"