Fools rush in *

We were in the Chicago auto show last weekend, touted as the biggest one in the US. Wait, I am getting ahead of me. Here by "we", I meant me, my room-mate P, my friend from Ohio G and G's friend V. We having drooled over Ferrari, taken snaps with Golf then were roaming amidst the Lexus and Bentley cars area. It was more than an hour since we were in. And we had completed inspecting, around 5 percent of the cars on show, by then. Everybody know of certain objects that when had a mere look at, make one forget his friends who would be with him. Everybody would also agree that cars are one among them, those unlisted objects mentioned as a class.
There we were ogling at those cars oblivious to everything else. So it was sometime before, we realised that V was no longer with us. After that it was with difficulty that we went around watching cars having had to keep one eye for that lost guy. Ofcourse the part about keeping one eye for that guy, we didn't do it very well. So we in haste wound up our tour, had a team meeting (!), decided that we should go separate ways in search of Mr.V and come back and wait for another meeting in fromt of the Bridgestone stall. Meet again, we did, but without Mr.V. Then a casual look at my mobile told me that V has been trying to contact me. My friends P and G were mildly irritated at me (because they were only mildly interested in the search for V) for not listening to my mobile.
Cutting a long search short, we finally found our lost guy. But he was holding a bag bursting at its seams. I politely enquired whether he had managed to get hold of one of the car engines on display. That was not to be. It was full of only pamphlets and brochures. That's what we thought until he pulled out one tee shirt out of it. The tee shirt had the auto show's logo emblazoned on it. And our lad said he got it for free! That was it.
We forgot all the tiredness in our legs. Suddenly fresh energy flowed through every tired muscle and sinew of our bodies. Hearing the words "tee shirt for free" had that effect. We asked him the stall which gave them away. It was located in a remote corner far away from us, obeying Murphy's law. Undaunted, we all set on our quest for that tee shirt dragging that guy with us. There were two stalls having the t shirts on display. I rushed in one, asking for, actually demanding for that tee shirt. The salesperson told that we have to apply for a credit card to get one! Our heads turned in slow motion towards our wise guy standing behind holding the tee shirt. When we asked him whether he did apply for that credit card to get that tee shirt, he replied nonchalantly that the store people asked to put down some details for giving the tee shirt and he had done just that. Mr.V had'nt even realized he was applying for a credit card when he filled up the form for the tee shirt! We started kidding him a bit, just to get the jealousy out of our system.

The kicker came in last. Walking together later, suddenly something dawned on me. I turned towards V and asked how come he filled up for the credit card form when he didn't have a SSN number. The guy, casual as ever, replied that he just skipped that field. So much for the stall scrutinising the applications! Seemed the guy's been smart after all!

* - I dig the UB40 cover than the Elvis' one.