My laconic roommate Jim was the quickest wit in the west. I lived with the guy for about 10 years, and he never said much, but when he did, it always counted.

I got my first taste of this when I came to interview for the room and meet the roommates. We were all musicians, so the subject came up. I mentioned I was a Jethro Tull fan, talked about a few of the concerts. Jim, who hadn’t said much during the interview so far, said, “I always pictured a Jethro Tull concert as being something like a cross between a Dead show and the Renaissance Faire.” Which wasn’t much, but it was astute, and I noticed it.

Jim just turned 39. The day before his birthday, a friend of his asked him what he planned to do for it.

“Well, my favorite bartender gets on at 4 at the Toronodo so I’ll probably start by heading down there.”

“Oh,” his friend said,”you gonna get…” [here making a jaunty gesture] ” …fortified?”

“No,” said Jim, “that’s next year. Tomorrow I’m gonna get thirtyninified.”

Jim, he’s quick.

I used to have a chin-up bar across the doorway to my room. One night, having come home properly thirtynineified, as was his habit at the time, Jim and I were talking, and I invited him into my room to check something out. Jim was a tall guy, about 6’4″, and it turned out the chinup bar was the perfect height to smack him, in his inebriated state, hard, right in the forehead. He hadn’t even remotely noticed a bright chrome bar at almost eye-level in front of him. I felt terrible.

I had recently been to my favorite sushi restaurant, and they were giving away promotional calendars, full of photos of attractive sushi. So I had an idea.

I cut up the sushi photos, and pasted a bunch of photos of sushi on the chin-up bar.

I reasoned, whenever Jim came home inebriated, as was his habit at the time, he’d likely be hungry. So, next time I invited him into my room when he was in his cups, even if he wasn’t exactly observant, the brightly-colored and above all delicious-looking sushi photos would surely attract his attention as he approached, causing him to notice the chin-up bar and avoid another vicious smack right in the noggin.

Pleased with myself for my cleverness, I called him over next time I saw him, and showed him. I explained my reasoning and how, by covering it with cutouts of delicious sushi, I had ingeniously devised a way to make the chin-up bar far more noticeable to a tipsy person, and thereby forestall any future such accidents.

He looked at it, and without missing a beat, said, “Oh. I thought you just wanted a sushi bar in your room.”