A Deal with the (Tiny) Devil

Roshni Gohil is the devil, albeit an itty-bitty devil.

For my Faithful Readers who haven’t been fortunate enough to meet Roshni, you can read various tiny glimpses into what she is like here, here and—ever-so-briefly—here.

Anyway, Roshni and I were chit-chatting at a going-away party for a colleague about a month ago and I learned that Roshni used to work at Ann Taylor Loft. My favorite part was when she informed me all about how the employees at Ann Taylor Loft are expected to dress all fancy-pants style, to pimp the products; a fact which resulted in uproarious laughter from yours truly.

This is amusing, because Roshni wears nothing but jeans, sneakers and hoodies. Like honestly, even in the middle of the summer, when it’s like 100 degrees…she’ll still be wearing jeans, sneakers and a hoodie.

As such, I had a hard time picturing Roshni trying to work in a skirt, high heels, fancy sweaters or business casual slacks…it just wouldn’t compute. So I requested that she dress all fancy-pants at work some day and she agreed, upon one condition.

Roshni: “Okay, I’ll wear my Ann Taylor get-up if you wear a suit for a day.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Sure no problem…”
Roshni: “Okay, but you’ve got to wear it on a Bibs game day and wear it all day.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Sure, Dude…you’ve got yourself a deal…you can even pick the day.”

At that we shook hands and the deal was set in stone.

Now, I assumed that her intention behind choosing a softball day for me to wear the suit was simply that it would be uncomfortable for me to be in a suit all day long and then have to change into my softball gear real quick at the end of the day. Especially since I usually like to wear my Bibliotechs jersey all day on game days, kinda like football players used to do in high school…but less douchey.

Well, it turns out we had a miscommunication.

See, when Roshni said she’d wanted me to wear it on a Bibs game day it was because she wanted to see me actually PLAY SOFTBALL in a freakin suit!! Of course I told her that was preposterous and I would not be taking part in any such lunacy.

Roshni then went on to point out that I’d agreed to wear the suit all day on a Bibs game day.

Now, to me, that logically meant I would wear it all day…at work. All work day. Not all day, all day!!

At this point Roshni and I were at an impasse and determined we needed a third-party to determine what the agreed upon deal had actually been. With that in mind we turned to the only other person at the table and, as such, the de facto arbitrator—Carol Robinson.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Carol hates me and has some sort of deep-rooted vendetta against me because she sided with Roshni. In fact, she went as far as to let out a deep, almost movie villain-like, laugh after siding with the tiny devil.

And with that, I was defeated. I realize I could rescind the entire offer, but I think if you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you know that I’m a man of my word and, in some twisted way, I now view this as a challenge of sorts, and I do love a good challenge.

So, Faithful Readers, if you’re in the greater Boston/Cambridge metro area on Thursday July 16…feel free to swing by the MIT athletic complex to watch a very unhappy, very sweaty, very uncomfortable dude play softball in a suit.