Son of Timatollah

Scenario 1, excerpted from this WaPo article, link via Progressive Pragmatist:

A grand feast of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp was winding down, and a group of friends was sitting on the back patio of a Capitol Hill home, sipping red wine. Suddenly, a hooded man slid in through an open gate and put the barrel of a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest.

"Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he demanded, according to D.C. police and witness accounts.

The five other guests, including the girls' parents, froze -- and then one spoke.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, blurted out. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder took a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

[Read the rest: It ends in a group hug.]

Scenario 2, from this American Scene post

Many months ago, I was going to see John Vanderslice at the Knitting Factory with one of my favorite friends. As it happens, this friend is the kind of woman who gives meaning to the word "striking": she is faultlessly beautiful, and she also has beautiful manners. Naturally you'd expect her to be incredibly intimidating, and she is from a distance. But once you get to talking, you discover the unnerving, tragic truth: apart from being gorgeous, she is also insanely intellectually curious and smart. Worse yet, she's genuinely kind: her generous nature, and her animal instinct for making those around her more comfortable, goes way beyond mere good manners.

So we were walking to the show and got to talking about something weighty and important (negritude?) when a familiar New York character, a drooling schizophrenic, decided to interrupt our conversation.

Panic set in.

[...]

What should I do? Can I defuse this situation artfully, and somehow manage to not mortify my dear friend? I tried. Oh, I tried. And then my friend intervened. She scolded our unwelcome interlocutor. Like a schoolmarm. And it worked. Boy, did it work. It should come as no surprise that she's a very well-regarded high school teacher.

Now for the question, maybe stupid, maybe not. (Hey, it's not daily, so don't get picky all of a sudden.)

Feel free to comment.

Labels: SBQotD