Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The Drunk and the Overworked Love Me, or, I'm Huge in Anaheim

First, in reference to the title, if you think that by saying "huge" I'm talking about my weight, and you think that it be more correct to say that I am "huge" everywhere and not just in Anaheim, then I am not your friend anymore, and I will club a baby seal and blame it on you.

Now that we have that unpleasantness behind us, let us consider the following scenario: on Saturday, I, my fiance, a couple of friends, and a bunch of people that I don't know all decided to go to Medieval Times in Anaheim. Seriously, there were literally dozens of people there. Also, I'm the one who counted men at the million man march and came up with 500,000. My seat ended up being on the aisle, which I was excited about because, as some of you snarkily pointed out from my title, I am huge everywhere, but I am particularly huge above the place that I need to sit down with. Therefore, being on the aisle is always a good thing as it provides the excess AC to roam wild and free, and, in this particular instance, it provided me with several opportunities for people to know and love me.

1) Our waitress, who looked a little small for all of the heavy metal plates that she has to carry around, seemed to thoroughly enjoy the fact that I said thank you every time she provided a service for me. This enjoyment on her part lead her to bend the rules so that, instead of only filling my glass twice without paying extra, she filled it two and half times. As you can imagine, I said thank you. Our only confusion stemmed from the fact that at one point I asked her how they decided which knight won from night to night, and she, though appearing to have heard me, answered my question by saying that on weekends in the summer they have three shows, but as demand dies out from fall through spring, they go down to one show a night. For my part, I nodded vigorously as if she had answered my question exactly, which seems to be my M.O. for situations like that. Lesson for the world to learn: politeness will pay off in the form of half of a free beverage refill, and it's better not to question when it's loud and she's busy, no matter how smily she is.

2) As a large, young man passed by aisle seat, he felt the need to introduce himself to me with a "Hi! I'm Chris!" and a hand shake. I shook his hand and said hello, and he said, "Is your name Chris too?" Not sure why he made that leap in logic, I replied that it wasn't and gave him my name, to which he replied, "Well, you should say that!" He then explained that he was fairly wasted, and then he then wandered off, likely to the restroom, with a buddy that was trailing behind him. Lesson for the world to learn: regardless of how drunk you are, if there are knights battling to their fictional deaths behind you, I probably don't care what your name is, nor do I care to introduce myself.

3) For part of the evening, I sat with my right leg crossed over my left one, with my right foot resting on my left knee. This proved to be confusing to two young women who were likely pretty inebriated, and this was evidenced by the fact that they used my foot as if it were a railing for the stairs that they were walking down. The first one didn't notice at all, and I suspect that the second one wouldn't have noticed if not for the fact that I opted to change seating positions. She laughed and apologized. Lesson for the world to learn: when shoes start looking like railings, you should maybe consider not having another super grande margarita.

So, as you can see, specific types of people love me, as well they should. Now I just need to work on the non-drunk and the non-overworked. Then, I can please all the people all the time, and I can prove that self-righteous Abraham Lincoln wrong. Maybe then he won't feel like he should look so smugly at me on the five dollar bill. He's always like, "I freed the slaves; what did you do today, AC?" and I'll be like, "I pleased all the the people, all the time; how you like me now?"