Dan The Man

[Barbasiewiczfan]

DAN THE MAN

By Bruce Stark

19 Feb 2026​

I was working in Seville, Spain at the time. It was 1991 and I was working on the worlds' fair. I was responsible for the show-control systems for three of the pavilions.

One of my co-workers was a guy named Dan, who used to go out to lunch with me where we split a whole roasted chicken. Dan was perpetually low on funds and would always "borrow" a few Pesetas to pay for his lunch. We hung around together while off work to go to the local swap-meet, pubs, restaurants and historic tourist locations. As always, Dan would "borrow" money for a variety of ever changing reasons. He never made any effort to pay me back and got mad if I brought up the subject of what he owed me.

I had been in Spain in the early seventies for two years just outside Madrid. While there I frequented a large swap-meet in Madrid called the Rostro.

During a Spanish holiday, we decided to take a train to Madrid to go to the Rostro. We bought our tickets and I had to "loan" Dan a few Pesetas for him to buy his ticket. I brought a small note-book that I kept in my shirt pocket. I pulled out the book and noted the time, date, what was bought and the amount loaned to Dan. He saw me writing in the book but never asked what I was writing.

Throughout the trip he was constantly asking for money and I made an entry in the book every time.

When we left Madrid to go back to Seville, the ticket-master in the train station told us that if we bought a ticket to the end of the line, we could save about twenty dollars and just get off the train in Seville which was two stops before the end of the line.

We boarded the train and showed our tickets to the conductor. The train was late in leaving the station so Dan got off of the train to ask a French woman when the train was going to leave the station. We had been watching the woman who was reviewing peoples tickets and was being very loud and rude to people. I told Dan she was trouble and not to make me part of any problem she would make.

The first thing she did was ask Dan where he was going. He told her Seville. She asked to see his ticket and said it was not for Seville but for two stations further on, the end of the line. She said he had to go to the ticket master and get a new ticket or he couldn't get back on the train. Dan says what about my friend who also has a ticket to the end of the line. I was listening to all of this through an open window and he turned around and pointed me out to the woman. She came on the train and had me escorted off of the train to go see the ticket master. We had to buy new tickets for almost twenty dollars more.

When we got to Seville Dan paid for the taxi to his apartment that was only a few blocks from where I lived.

Dan said I guess we are even money wise because he had paid for the taxi. I took out my book and added the twenty dollars for the new ticket and deducted half the amount for the taxi ride.

I showed Dan that he owed me $49.75 ! I handed him the book and said he could keep it to review the numbers.

The next day at work he gave me fifty dollars. He kept his hand out after I took the money. He demanded his twenty five cents. I gave it to him. He then called me a cheap bastard and would not speak to me after that.

He tried to drum-up some sympathy by telling our co-workers this story but only received laughter and "It serves you right" from them. HA