2/9/07

John saw the thing of ultimate coolness last night. He took some pictures of it and I hope will post them, or at least links, in here now. What it is is a solid pewter belt buckle that looks just like Mr. Wiggly! I've got to go buy a new belt now because the only one I own comes up about six inches short of circumventing my equator. He and I are in discussions with a dude about buying motorcycles, unless that is a secret in which we aren’t doing that at all. Perhaps I should ask him before putting that last bit in here. Oh well, he can edit that if he wants to. I’m pretty sure my mom doesn’t read this and she’s the only one I'd have to hide a bike from. Well, that’s not entirely true. She said she wouldn’t have a problem with me buying a bike as long as I bought a coffin at the same time. I suppose I could do that. It would be kind of neat to… no; it would be kind of weird to own my own final resting place. Hmm, I may have to give that some more thought. Anyhoo, I don’t care if most people know I'm thinking about looking into the possibility of considering buying a bike. I'm not sure if he’s hiding it though is my point. [ Only from my wife, and she's not reading this... - SM ] Anyhoo, we had an interesting encounter yesterday. No, interesting doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was a totally “wheels off” situation. We decided to go see a movie, which wasn’t to start for a while after the time we arrived downtown. We went to our usual downtown dining locale: Razoo’s. As we walked in the door, a dude followed us in. The hostitute asked, “Is it three in your party?” to which I replied, “Two.” The dude piped in with a very slurred, “Three!” I looked back to see two women had also come in after us so I assumed he meant himself and those two. I turned back to the hostitute to say, “We’re two, his party is three,” but the two ladies walked past us to join some other folks and we were asked our smoking preference. The hostitute grabbed three menus and started walking us to a table. John asked the dude if he were joining us so I assumed it might be someone he knew that happened to run into us. I walked past the table to the bathroom for a quick pee hoping John would set the hostitute straight that the dude wasn’t with us, unless he was the aforementioned accidental run-into friend. I almost called him from the bathroom to ask but decided to fight through. I returned to the table to find them sitting there. John said, “Tim, this is Merv,” or something to that effect. I shook his hand and he said, “Merlingly bleel frabap oogle smarl.” Then he laughed a little “Heh heh” and gave a little raspberry, which will henceforth be annotated as **. I looked at John who said, “We were just discussing Anna Nicole Smith’s death. Had you heard?” I replied that I had and Merv said, “Mezzly faranger oslong smeeble tooz.”** I nodded my head and said, “Um, yeah.” I decided right then that this was some drunk-assed dude who had latched on to us. Great. I began to pick up on whatever language he was speaking after a few moments. “Wher-zat baffroom agin?” he asked and John pointed him to the head. When he left I asked, “Do you know him?” “Never met him in my life,” was John's reply. I gave him a “what the fuck” look and he shrugged. I was flabbergasted. Merv returned to the table and the waiter asked what we wanted. “Uh kegga beer,” Merve sloshed. I ordered a Dr. Pepper and John did the same. The waiter asked Merv again what he wanted and was given the same answer, “Uh kegga beer!” “What kind, sir?” the waiter patiently asked. “Oh, howza budmillerlitecoor…” and he trailed off. “Miller lite?” was the suggestion made by the waiter to which Merv said, “Frazimarlible.” John and I ordered fried crawfish and gator tail then John asked Merv if he was eating. “I’m washin’ my figger.** Heh heh heh! Mebby I'll jush hava salad.” The waiter, picking up on the state of mind of this guy, asked what kind of dressing he’d like. “Aw, jus whaddever you fee…” and he trailed off again. “How about Ranch?” was the waiter’s suggestion to which Merv replied, “Yeah, ransh.” While we waited for the food to arrive, we found out that Merv’s mom, who is 87 by the way, is giving him trouble. I didn’t quite catch the nature of the problem but assumed it was typical grown child parental driving-one-craziness. We also found out that Merv is in his sixties, 61 I think he said, and that he works at Wal-Mart. He asked several times, “Avyoo evah been down Jasburra hiway?” which I assumed meant Jacksboro Highway so I said yes. “Thenyoo knowere I'm talkin’ bout.”** Of course I didn’t know WHAT he was talking about but I had the location narrowed down a bit. “You know Marbilliglyfron?” he continued. “Um, I think so. Out past the lake towards Azle?” I guessed. “Yeah! Yeah! Marbilliglyfron was inna framtazzle boolyfrock.”** “Oh, right!” I said. “Yeah, yooknow wad I’m talkin’ bout.”** John was annoyingly quiet and enjoying this too much so I began to watch the TV report about football and NASCAR. Yeah, it was that bad. The food came so John and I ate as quick as we could. John told Merv we had an appointment at six so we wouldn’t have to entertain this wacko all evening. John paid the check and we hauled ass out of there. John told the waiter something as we left and we finally had a good laugh outside. Since no one asked for a release signature, I'm going to assume we weren’t victims of a hidden camera prank. But I was left wondering if the guy was really drunk, really crazy, crazy drunk, crazy and drunk, or just putting on an act to see if he could get away with it. John defended his allowing the guy to sit with us by saying, “Look, the guy was clean, adequately dressed, groomed, and didn’t seem like a transient. What’s the worst that could happen?” I had to reply, “Well, THAT, I suppose. That dinner was the worst that could happen.” He pointed out that we’d have a good story to tell now and I guess he’s right there. We finally decided that we have met someone who makes our George look normal. Way to go Merv!**