Years back, I binge-watched "How I Met Your Mother" on Netflix. I had a lot going on in my life at the time and needed a distraction, so I chose streaming as Steeming wasn’t available yet.
Neil Patrick Harris played one of the main characters, Barney Stinson. Barney is a womanizing executive of a large corporate bank. Barney is obsessed with his appearance and is often found wearing a suit, even if the occasion in NO WAY calls for such fine attire. He treats the suits as if they were his best friends.
It stems back from his days when he was going through a rough patch (to be read: changing his entire life’s direction) where his girlfriend ran off and he lost everything. He saw an advertisement for a tailor that said, “Suit Up.” Barney in his emotionally-fragile state took this to be his life’s mantra. Whatever the situation, his response is pretty much, “Suit Up!”
That’s the backstory in case you didn’t know. Now, here’s my story.
Back in 2013 I went to a friend’s wedding. Ceremony was nice. Food was good, and I got to see a few friends I hadn’t seen in a while. After the bride and groom left, a few of us decided to go to a bar to get a drink and talk a little longer.
Since we had just been at a wedding, we were still dressed in our finery and thus stood out in a bar setting. However, the bar was fairly empty being Sunday night, and we sat at a table near the window. The bar was near a Navy base, so really the only people in there were sailors. One, who had already imbibed too much, had been sitting alone, but apparently he was lonely as he slowly inserted himself into our conversation, just making small talk.
Eventually he sauntered over, grabbing a chair and sitting down at our table. He commented on our clothes, particularly my suit. He said that the outfit would look a lot better if I had the suit jacket. He could see I was wearing suit pants, a dress shirt and a tie, but he couldn’t see I had taken the jacket off and hung it on the back of my chair so it wouldn’t get dirty or wrinkled.
“Challenge accepted!” I thought. (Another Barney Stinson quote).
I smiled, pushed the chair back, stood up while lifting the jacket from the chair, and slipped it on in one smooth motion. I tugged the front of it down emphatically and buttoned it. I leaned closer, looked him square in the eyes and said, “my friend, if there’s one thing that Barney Stinson taught me… it’s to ’suit up!’”
“YES!” he exclaimed, slamming his palm on the table. He pointed at me and said, “I am buying YOU a drink!” I thought it was going to be one drink, but he ended up paying for the whole round. I didn’t actually get to talk with my friends much, but we all ended up going different directions in life anyways and I haven’t seen them since. I did get a great story out of it though!
I don’t know the man’s name. I haven’t seen him since.
But that’s how Barney Stinson got me a drink.
And it didn’t take 10 seasons for you to find out. ;)
Barney loved his suits. If you want to know how I feel about some of my possessions, check out my story of my laptop dying
https://steemit.com/blog/@themanwithnoname/rip-old-friend