A newlywed man was talking to me, saying that he and his wife had just become homeowners yesterday.
"Last night was our first time in our new house, but I didn't close the wood stove right... It burned to the ground in the middle of the night"
He was clearly intoxicated, downtrodden and red-eyed. It was 10:17 am in an airport bar, and I was four beers deep waiting for my 12:26 pm flight as he was telling me this. I looked away from the clock and into his eyes and said:
"Well it must have been a great housewarming."
I killed the rest of my beer and went for a cigarette, and never saw him again.