A bizarre request...

During one of my lectures this morning, someone sitting beside decided to convince those around him that I was a well-established drug dealer in Peterborough. This was done solely to amuse this one guy, who of course did not think anything would come of it. I passively ignored him, assuming the same thing and thinking his dire need for attention would slip through the cracks.

Before too long I was approached by an interested 'customer'. In a quiet and careful manner, he asked me whether I sold drugs. I very quickly told him no and he is asking the wrong guy. Hoping the topic would be dropped, I returned to my notes and listened to the professor give his lecture. The original perpetrator of this bizarre little situation was cracking up emphatically, perhaps trying to attract more attention to himself.

The 'customer' returned a second time, this time considerably more interested and little irritable. He claimed that he was told that I would say that I don't sell drugs because I deal only in highly illicit and expensive ones and do not wish to expand my market too large. He then went on to ask me for two types of hard drugs: MDMA (which I hadn't heard of at the time, but later learned is similar to ecstasy) and heroin. I was rightly amazed to be asked about these drugs and quite shocked, immediately telling him that he should go away and that I was sorry I couldn't help him out, but I wasn't the guy he wanted to talk to, nor did I know who would be. 

He was a little upset and fairly embarrassed. Justly so. The guy who started it all was laughing his head off. What an asshole. And to top it all off, this all occurred while the professor was speaking and the rest of the class was silent, perhaps catching every word of this bizarre encounter.

A few issues to mention:

1) The last thing I want is other people catching bits and pieces of that conversation and walking away assuming I'm a dealer of hard narcotics. It's not a good thing for one's reputation.

2)  I don't want to generalize, but people who are itching for heroin might very well be a little more, say, aggressive in their search. The last thing I need is an angry heroin addict coming after me for someone else's stupid prank.

3) I don't deal drugs. But even if I did, that's not how I would go about it, especially with something as illicit as heroin or MDMA. Silent, public places don't seem like a good spot for negotiations of that magnitude.

4) Jesus Christ! Heroin?!?