Last week I mentioned a bet that had been made on the NFC championship game between Colin, one of the operating partners of the Blind Bear, and his friend Raj. I knew that Raj, loser of the bet, had to stand on the corner of Second and Peabody place for an hour holding a sign. What I did not know was that there was much more to the bet than just that.
I led off at the Blind Bear at noon yesterday, as I normally do for Sunday brunch. I found Colin sitting at one of the poker tables, blowing up helium balloons in Seahawks colors. In the back was a hideous green and plaid suit with enormous green shoes, and a clown wig. That was what Raj had to wear as he held his sign. “This is going to take shame bets to a whole new level,” Colin said.
A lot of people would have tried to weasel their way out of paying off the bet, but not Raj. About 2:40 PM he came in. They closed the curtains to the dining room and Raj changed into the clown suit. Once Raj was dressed, Colin escorted him to the corner of Second and Peabody, where he stood in front of the former Primetime Sports Bar and held his sign.
Raj was a good sport about the whole thing. He danced around holding the sign and wearing his size-40 green clown shoes. I watched the show from the Flying Saucer across the street. Colin came in and invited the Saucer girls to walk across the street and have their photo taken with Raj. Several people driving down Second stopped to pose with Raj too.
Due to the rain, Raj’s sign fell apart about 35 minutes into the hour, and Colin decided he had been through enough humiliation and called it a day. I had taken several pics and posted them to Facebook, and within a couple of hours I was getting “permission to use this photo?” texts and emails from the media. “I’m already planning for next year,” Colin said. “It’s going to be even bigger and better. Funny thing is, I will probably be the one dressed as a clown next year.”
Congrats to Colin on winning the bet, and to Raj for being an incredibly good sport who paid his bet off in full.