San Francisco is a very small city. Sometimes too small. Dangerously so. There you'll be, enjoying the company of a good friend or two, having a drink and then blammo- the Last Person in the World You Want to see walks in. Fear it.

And yes, as you can guess, I'm writing this because it happened tonight. I was at a bar half-a-block from the ballpark, having a drink with a friend I haven't seen in a long time, having a merry ole time of it when the Last Person in the World I Want to See walked into the bar. We're even talking about someone worse than someone I might have dated/struck out with. We're talking about my good ole boss from the Web Agency days.

He strolled on in, all short and munchkiny, to meet a friend of his for a drink before the game and walked right past me. He then stood and talked to his friend, his back right to me. Now I'm pretty sure he never saw me- I'm good at being stealthy when I want to be- but at some point, it's gonna happen. He was so close his man-purse would occasionally brush me in the back.

This guy is SO the Last Person in the World I Want to See. He hired me to work at that awful place, fired me without having the guts to do it in person, read my trashing him and everything about his company, and then sent a nasty e-mail about what I wrote. It's easy enough to make extremely uncomfortable small-talk with someone you dated, but it's not so easy with someone who very subtly threatened to sue you.

So I did what anyone else would do in a situation like that- completely and totally panicked. Did the ole deer in the headlights thing. I tugged at my friend's sleeve, whispered in her ear that I had to go-now, that I'd explain later and then quickly ran off to the other side of the bar where luckily some coworkers had gathered for some drinks. I left before she even had time to react.

I made it, he didn't see me. Or at least, I don't think he did. Still, I have to remember this simple little fact- do not ever go to Curve before a Giants game.