Arthur walked into the bar, tripping neatly over the first step and stumbling into a waitress. She gave him a look that would have caused a bear to reconsider its position and stalked impressively off behind the bar.
“Thursdays,” muttered Arthur under his breath walking to the nearest barstool and inflicted himself himself upon it. Beside him sat a man having a staring contest with his pint. Ordering one himself, which was delivered with only mild loathing, he sat there with the other man for a few minutes, staring and drinking.
“Hello.” said Arthur, finally.
“Hello.” said Ford.
“My name is Arthur Dent.” said Arthur Dent completely truthfully.
“My name is Ford Prefect.” said Ford Prefect, completely untruthfully.
Their beers said nothing. It’s hypothesised that if beer could talk, it wouldn’t. It would instead attempt to spill itself due to the vast amount of horribly depressing, boring or wildly inaccurate things said around them. Instead it bubbled idly to itself in the pint glasses that sat in front of Arthur and Ford, like them, waiting to be drunk.
“I’m from Guildford,” said Ford, “Actor.”
“Oh,” said Arthur. “That must be interesting.”
“Must it?” asked Ford looking at Arthur a little strangely. “All right, it is then. I need another drink.”
Arthur looked at the half-empty pint glass in front of Ford. “You haven’t finished that one yet.”
Ford looked at the half-full pint glass in front of himself. “Right. That’s no reason to deny the next one a head start.” He waved a hand and then proceeded to assist his first pint on its way down. Two more beers arrived.
“Did you want another one too?” asked Ford, his hands grasping the handles as a consummate professional does.
“Er.. yes. In a minute.” said Arthur, taking a sip from his drink. “So acting. That’s..”
“Interesting, yes you said that.” interrupted Ford between drinks, he put them down on the table, trying to ensure that the liquid in both was level, drinking some from this one, some from that in the process. Arthur didn’t know it then, but this was a game that Ford had played for years in the seedier bars of the naughtier places in the Galaxy.
Quite simply, if your drinks weren’t level to the standard of your opponent, you had to drink some from each and try and level them. This of course led to both players just drinking their heads off, using the unevenness as an excuse to order two more pints without looking like an alcoholic. It didn’t work. Especially when Ford played against himself.
Arthur was having trouble with this conversation. He was midway through deciding whether or not the other man was a bore, a drunkard or a simpleton when Ford put his drinks down and turned to him.
“What do you know about flying saucers?”
Arthur was nearly run over by his train of thought. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Never mind. Listen, I’m going to drink these beers. Then I’m going to drink more. If you want to help, Arthur, I wouldn’t mind the company.” He turned back to his beers, paying great attention to getting most of them into his mouth.
Looking at his own beer, Arthur hesitated, but only for a moment. This man was clearly out of someone’s mind, but it hadn’t been a particularly enjoyable Thursday and Arthur figured that he might as well join in. “All right.” he said, and made a valiant effort to catch Ford up.