Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Dinner with the Mental Defective League


I went out to dinner with Vicki, on our 8Th anniversary. It was looking to be a nice quiet dinner when all of a sudden, JACKPOT!, a mental defective freak show of a family was seated next to us. Vicki had her back to them but I had a full view. There were two families on vacation. A party of thirteen. There were two younger couples(early twenties), and by far, the most normal of the group. They didn't say much. The rest of the "crew" were couples from about 55-95 years of age. The oldest, a James Arness/Marshal Dillon lookalike, sat at the head of the table. The gentleman sitting to his left was in his mid-nineties and had on a yellow t-shirt with STAFF written on the back. His belt, I am not exaggerating was just under his armpits. I call him "Ace". Facing "Ace", on Marshal Dillon's right was "He who laughs like a woman", he babbled almost incoherently throughout the whole dinner and he would brake out into the loudest Nathan Lane laugh at just about every joke he told, and his jokes lasted about 10 minutes and made no sense. So, right off the bat, as soon as they were seated, a waitress was carrying some steaks to a nearby table. Marshal Dillon, upon seeing a steak for the first time in his life, gets up and leans over OUR table to get a closer look at the steak that has landed on the table behind us. At first he was glaring at the steak, like it offended him in some way, then as he started to back off, he caught me staring at him and he gave me a very "That steak looks delicious" nod, and started to go back to his seat, only he turned away and headed off at the last second. I watched him walk away, then open the bathroom door, close it without going in, the disappear around the corner. He came back with a giant plate of cheese and crackers, sat down and started to gnaw. "Ace" just sat there with his head sticking out of his his waist. I think he was the muscle of the group, probably stormed the beaches at Normandy. "He who laughs like a woman" also giggled himself to the cheese and crackers. Just as he sat down, a waitress was walking by with a tray full of huge ice cream sundaes, at the sight of this, the whole table got really excited, they were like a bunch of monkeys, all bouncing up and down in their chairs, pointing to the ice cream and chattering amongst themselves, I half expected them to start eating bugs out of each others hair. The Nathan Lane laughter echoed throughout the restaurant. Before ordering dinner, Marshal Dillon asked for separate checks. Then they ordered dinner. "Is it clam season"?
"What's a potato"? "My napkin tastes funny" They got their food just as we were finishing our desert.

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