Enticing title, huh?

I've been sitting on this story for a couple of weeks, for reasons that will become apparent as you read on. It's the story of how I got a really good client, a client for whom I begin full-time work starting today at 9:30 a.m..

Like all good stories, it begins with a girl, and the accordion plays a key role.

It was the start to a particularly beautiful weekend in April. The weather was gorgeous, with cloudless skies every day and temperatures that would be the norm for July. My neighbourhood responded in kind, with the sidewalks packed with people in short sleeves, shorts and short skirts and the patios filled with people drinking beer late into the evening. I spent my days programming on my laptop with a wireless connection in my back deck under the the shade of a large tree with a cooler of Diet Coke at my side and The White Stripes on the stereo. I spent lazy summer-like evenings playing the accordion near the patios in exchange for beer, watching cute bands and getting drunk with my friends Will and Tina. Best of all, I had a date with someone very cute that Friday.

There've been a few people who've asked me if I actually bring along the accordion on dates. I do. It may seem like cheesy romantic comedy behaviour, but it's been my observation that people actually like being serenaded, even if only for laughs. (I'll admit that only one person has ever done the same for me. She spent a week learning to play Happy Birthday on the harmonica, and I damn near cried at the end. I'm a big fucking sap sometimes.)

Good things happen whenever I bring the accordion, and if there's a time when you want good things to happen, it's on a date. My luck, if you haven't noticed, tends to run to the bizarre. While I've had some really memorable someone-should-turn-this-into-a-movie dates, I've also had some absolute nightmare outings, including one where my date ended up in the fetal position, screaming her lungs out in the middle of University Avenue as a busload of horrified tourists looked on. Although it's very unlikely that something like that will ever happen again, I still try and shift the odds in my favour by packing a little accordion mojo.

My date, M., in addition to being cute and hilarious, was a cervisophile -- a beer connoiseur. Knowing this, I suggested that we visit a specialty beer bar after dinner, and she agreed. There were a dozen bars from which I could've chosen, and from these I chose Smokeless Joe's. It wasn't the closest choice -- Smokeless Joe's was a cab ride away -- but that's what popped into my head at the moment. I hadn't been there in a dog's age, they had one of the most extensive collections of exotic beers in the city, and it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

We were hoping to get a seat on the patio, but Joe told us that he was having some troubles getting it licensed. We took two stools at the end of the bar and proceeded to drink some expensive beers from the French section of the menu. I was having a great time, telling her stories about Burning Man and listening to her stories about her trips to the U.K.

As the end of the night drew near, the bartender, an Irish exchange student, asked if I would play the accordion after he announced last call.

"Go ahead," M. said, "I haven't heard you play all night."

"If you insist," I said, unsnapping the two straps that held the bellows shut. I played a quick riff to warm up the valves and broke into Roadhouse Blues. Joe (I'm referring to the bar's owner, not myself in the third person) favours bluesy music, followed by Born to be Wild. The bartender and patrons sang along, while M. couldn't stop laughing. After I was done, the bartender slid me a pint of draught ("on the house," he said) and M. nodded her approval.

Caught up in the moment, I didn't see the woman woalking towards us.

"That was great!" she said to me, completely taking me by surprise, as my back was to her.

"Uh, thanks!" I replied, pulling myself together.

She turned to M. "Your boyfriend is so cute and so talented," she said to her, "How long have you been going out?"

The fact that she thought we were a couple amused me to no end.

M. answered "I've only known him three weeks."

"Three weeks? You're just starting out! That's so cute!" she exclaimed, with increasing giddiness. She turned to face the other end of the room and call to her boyfriend. "Y.! Come over here!"

It was all falling into place. She was caucasian, with dark hair and Eastern European features, while her boyfriend X. was Chinese. In seeing M. -- who was also caucasian -- on a date with me, I guess that she saw in us an earlier version of her and her boyfriend. This was squeezebox synchronicity, and I recognized it immediately.

I introduced myself to Y., and then his girlfriend, X., introduced herself to me and M.

"You guys make such a cute couple!" said X. I threw a sideways glance and smile at M., who returned it.

"Well, cute couple," said Y., "please come and join us. I have an office just two doors down the street, and I've got more beer."

"Yes, please come!" said X.

I looked at M. and asked her what she thought. She nodded. "Sounds like fun," she said. "And who can refuse an offer of more beer?"

X. and Y. called to the other people who were sitting with them at the opposite end of the bar. We walked en masse out of Smokeless Joe's and into a brownstone two doors south. Y. unlocked the door and let us in.

I looked around. It looked as if they'd moved into the place recently. There were signs of recent renovation work, and the carpet looked new. The place was clean and sparsely furnished; being a recovering dot-commer, I immediately recognized the furniture as being from the IKEA Office line. Each desk had either a late-model Toshiba laptop or a desktop computer with a large monitor with a red Buddha statue perched atop it. I saw a copy of Visual Studio .NET on a desk, a couple of programming manuals on a chair and a skateboard leaning against the far wall. This place has all the earmarks of software development house, I realized. I wondered if they were looking for contractors.

"We're working on some trivia games for [insert impressive-but-not-technical company here]," Y. said, as he opened a closet to reveal a refrigerator full of beer. "If you're a contract programmer, we might have some work for you."

"Give me your card," I said, trying to give the appearance that I was taking all this improbably good fortune in stride. "I'll give you a call on Monday."

One of Y's friends turned on some music. Y. introduced me to him as B., and B.'s fiancee, A. While A. and B. asked me the standard set of questions ("How long have you been playing the accordion?" "Why accordion, anyway?" "Do you always carry it around with you?"), X. was hitting M. up for some details about our "relationship", asking about how we met, what I'm like, and so on. I was trying not to burst out laughing at how absurd this entire thing had become.

While conversing with Y., I found out that he and I had both gone to Queen's University. He graduated in 1995, and thanks to my Van Wilder-esque seven-and-a-half-year stint there, our academic careers overlapped for three years. He'd probably read at least one of my cartoons in the paper and attended at least one function where I was the DJ. The coincidences were piling at an unrealistic rate.

Meanwhile, X. was getting M.'s phone number. "I want us to stay in touch," she said to M., "I think it would be fun if the four of us went out together sometime."

She hasn't known us ten minutes and already she's scheduling a double date, I thought. Still, no one's screaming the the fetal position, so I'm still ahead of the game.

M. turned to me and said "Doesn't that sound like fun, Joey?"

I put my arm around her and replied "Sure does, honey." I hoped I wasn't sounding too smarmy. We were both trying not to burst our laughing, and nobody else in the room seemed to notice.

Y. turned to A. and said "Don't you think they make a handsome couple?"

"They do, Y. Really cute."

Y.'s eyes narrowed a little and with a little grin, he said "A., use your woman's intuition. Look at Joey and M. long and hard. They've been going out for just three weeks. D'you think they've had sex yet?"

Oh, sweet Jesus Christ.

M. and I looked at each other with a "Huh?" expression. A. leaned forward and squinted at us, as if focusing her sex-ray vision.

"I'd say there's been some fooling around, but I don't think they've technically had sex."

"Technically?" M. and I said, almost at the same time.

I raised both my hands. "Wait, wait, wait. I don't think you understand. M. and I...well, this is a first date."

There was a second's silence followed by a group "Ooooooooooohhhhhhh."

Y. saw an opportunity and slid beside M., putting an arm around her. "So," he said, "a first date, huh? What would you say the odds of Joey getting kissed tonight are?"

With the presence of mind that comes from years of being in the middle of situations that would make Franz Kafka run out of the room screaming, I just smiled. If Y. has completely ruined this date with that idiotic fucking question, I thought, I am coming back later tonight with a fucking can of gasoline and fucking torching this fucking place right down to the fucking ground.

"Wouldn't you like to know," M. said.

"Well, I think you should," said X. "He's handsome, he's talented, and he looks like a keeper."

Damn, I'd never had a cheering section on a date before. The double-date idea was sounding better and better all the time.

We all talked for another ten minutes, after which M. and I excused ourselves. We bade them goodbye and walked out into the cool night air.

"I swear," I said to M., between laughs, "I did not set that whole thing up."

She laughed.

---

I dropped Y. a line on Monday, thanking him for his hospitality and made an appointment to meet with him and his CTO later that week. We had a couple of meetings over beers, and as a result, I have a steady client with lots of future work, all thanks to a little accordion-powered serendipity.

As for how the date ended, I have to practice a little discretion. The insatiably curious might want to read the cryptic blog entry from that night.