A MAN walks into a bar. He’s carrying a carpet under his arm. He wraps himself in the carpet, lies on the floor, covers his face and waits for people to step on him. A sign taped to the bar reads: “Step on carpet.”

People step on the carpet — dozens, in fact. The more people who step on the carpet, particularly if they are women in heels, the happier the man is. Some are timid, others are audacious. Some dance on the man. Some step on him while ordering their drinks, completely unaware that a live body is underfoot. Some just stand there, frozen, looking totally freaked out.

Four hours later, the man slips out from beneath his carpet, folds it up, tucks it under his arm and heads home. “It was a nice party,” he says cheerily, as if he were talking about something far more ordinary, like, say, a backyard barbecue....