Many of you don’t know me. Actually, you probably do. Just in CASE you don’t, you might learn a little bit about me if you understand my Friday night ritual. In fact, you may find it amusing. And if you DO know me, you’ll find it hysterical.
This is the chronicle of my friends trying to have a meal together.
It begins with a group of teenagers, JUST enough teenagers to have the tip included in our check at our local restaurant (because, you know, 6 teenagers can’t divide a bill by .15 without help. Even if they do have a TI-86). Sitting down requires the skillful maneuvering of tables and place settings until each person has a seat, a menu, and a fork. Then, everyone gets up to let the people who are on the extreme INSIDE of the booth go to the bathroom. When they return, they are now on the extreme outside. This happens continually until the waitress is really confused about who ordered what.
The waitress pleasantly gives everyone their food.
"Grilled chicken salad?"
"Chicken?" Graham asks, as if it was an unreasonable request in a restaurant. Our typical type of conversation ensues.
I, of course, laugh hysterically at Graham’s comment. That causes Matt to laugh, and he launches us further into the realm of hysterics. Graham continues.
"That is, of course, the chicken of the LAND."
More Laughter. This inspires Craig to burst out into song:
"I’m going down to chicken town, chickens are friends to me. Live beneath the ocean, that’s where I will be beneath the waves, the waves, that’s where I will be, I’m going to see the chicken beneath the sea."
"OH! Chicken of the sea! I get it now!"
By this point, Matt can no longer breathe and the only contributions he makes to the conversation are these gorging choking laughter noises and the occasional wind-down sigh.
"Wait," Graham says with the utmost urgency as Matt looks as if he might catch his breath. We all wait silent for him to ask his important question, "Is there any ketchup?"
We lose Matt again, and he can not catch enough air to eat his smart cookie. Yes, he ordered something called a Smart Cookie. Or, if you were Bostonian, it’d be a smaaat cookie.
"I think you forgot the smart part." Graham finally notices that I’m writing bits and pieces of our conversation on paper, thanks to Matt, who is now the color of the ketchup that Graham worked so hard to get.
"What are you writing," he asks
"What happened."
"To who?"
Matt erupts into more laughter. Graham, who has an obvious story to tell, tells Matt, "Stop laughing because you have to laugh at the next thing!"
Matt breaths, "You don’t know how much Ice Cream I have up my nose!"
That makes Graham choke on a french fry. "You don’t know how much potato I have stuck in my nose."
"Potato?"
"Yeah, these are made of Fried Potatoes!" Graham shows Craig the french fry, and Craig pretends it came out of his nose. Then we talked about the State of the Union address and comparing the satirical works of Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift. Well, not really.
Check comes. Everyone realizes that they only have large bills, and a fist fight breaks out about who will be sent to the bar to get change. Not really a fist fight, but one of those Campy things where everybody puts their finger on their nose and the last one to notice has to go. Amanda knows we all have our fingers on our noses, but regards it with suspicion and does not follow. She is sent to go get change.
"That should teach you, when you see a group of people doing something, you should ALWAYS do the same thing!"
Amanda comes back with money. Complicated mathematical theorems are employed to evade the inevitable long-division that comes with splitting a check. ("Graham, did you pay?" "Yeah." "We’re 20 dollars short!" "Oh, I didn’t pay. I wasn’t paying attention, I was just nodding"). In the end, we take all of the singles and exchange them for fives, take two fives and make a ten, take a ten and exchange it for singles, throw the remaining money in the air and whatever lands in the circle is the tip. Everybody in the restaurant is relieved that we leave.
That is a long description of Friday night dinner with my friends. Did I mention that we actually eat, too?
The Past Stranger Than Fictions
Why Not? I'm nice, really!
© 1997
