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It turns out, reports of my death or abandonment of this blog are premature. :) I've just been . . . I was going to say 'too busy,' but that's both true and misleading. I've been busy doing other things. Not too busy; I simply haven't made time for blogging.
Last night (Christmas night), my housemate and I drove back from my mother's house where we spent Christmas, and hit Atlanta at just the right time for dinner. Sure, it was a Wednesday night, which is usually not all that crowded. But it was also Christmas night, meaning there were only a few places open, and they would all be crawling alive with people.
Still, we thought, "What the heck?" and tried one of the ones we knew to be open.
Upon hearing, "There's approximately a ninety-minute wait," we high-tailed it out of there and across town to our favorite Chinese restaurant, Golden Palace.
It was also "crawling alive" in that, instead of ours being one of maybe four tables occupied, there were three times that. (They do most of their business in take-out and delivery.)
We sat directly under the TV, which was blaring sitcoms that I neither recognized or cared to recognize. As we walked past "our" table (we almost always sit in the same place), I noticed it was occupied by a scruffy-looking guy in green pants, a red-and-green jacket, and a hat.
A few minutes after we ordered and shortly before we got our food, I heard it. Over the sound of the TV above our table. Over the sound of the canned music. Over the sound of the small TV behind the counter that the owners' (grand)kids watch ("WHOOOO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEEEEEEA? SPONGEBOB! SQUAREPANTS!")
"Oh! Oh, this is the best food!" Followed by a lot of other exclamations of similar manner. It was the man in green pants I had noticed in "our" booth.
Mr. Stonedbob Greenpants.
Within five minutes, the entire restaurant had cleared. Yvonne and I were the only people left other than him. The kids behind the counter had been shuttled into the back of the restaurant and the Spongebob Squarepants episode turned off.
His exclamations turned to having a conversation with . . . no one. I half-stood in our booth and looked: no one was sitting with him. But he was clearly hearing and having a three-way conversation with voices that the rest of us couldn't hear. In these days of ubiquitous cell phones and Bluetooth, I reluctantly wrote it off as him being on the phone.
It was pretty innocuous. Until.
He started trying to drag the poor lady behind the counter into his "conversation." I noticed he didn't have his phone out, nor was he wearing anything easily identifiable as a Bluetooth accessory.
He addressed the cashier, tried to talk to her, but by this point, it was gibberish. Something about a war (he wasn't old enough for it to have been Vietnam or Korea, so maybe it's the recent stuff). One of his other voices apparently was getting agitated. Which agitated him. The girl behind the counter went and got her sister and maybe a nephew, younger brother, or cousin (it's a family business). The young man tried politely to encourage the man to leave the restaurant, but he would go out and come right back in. This happened a couple of times. He switched between praising the food, the restaurant, and the owners to muttering about war.
He paid, but didn't leave, instead attempting again and again to engage the owners in conversation. They avoided eye contact, and pretended he wasn't there. Every time he so much as glanced in my direction, I managed to find something on my plate of shredded beef Szechuan style extremely interesting (it was very tasty). Yvonne had her back to him and was safely out of range.
Then a family came in. Mom, Dad, a young boy and an even younger girl.
That's when Stonedbob Greenpants started to get a little worrisome. The 'war' conversation had been continuing, with more agitation. Now, he looked directly at the family sitting in a booth across the restaurant from him and began crying, "Give me your boy! Give me your boy, and I'll teach him! I'll teach him in my school! He'll really learn something!" And then devolved into muttering in his three-way conversation. I think I heard something that suggested the 'war' conversation and the 'teach the boy' conversation were tangentially related.
It was at this point that the girl behind the counter came around to the two remaining occupied tables and apologized. We brushed it off, but I was beginning to get concerned. What if he didn't leave? Did I need to call the cops and tell them a crazy man was potentially threatening a child in a public restaurant? He hadn't done anything physical, yet . . .
He was at the bar by this point, and I eased my phone out and was pondering what to do when Stonedbob Greenpants took out a cell phone and started to take pictures of us, the other family, the people behind the counter and the restaurant in general, including himself, several times, and the mirror behind the bar. All the while muttering.
He ate his fortune cookie, then left.
We were done by this point, and the restaurant suddenly felt a lot less tense. We tipped massively. I asked, "Was he OK?" and the cashier replied, "He is not OK! He was drunk or something before he came in!"
I offered to call the police, but she didn't want me to, so I didn't.
Yvonne and I left, and I looked off to our right. I could see him, staggering along the strip mall parking lot toward the busy cross street. As I watched, he was still audibly having a conversation with voices unseen, but it was now at full volume. He stepped out into the street in front of a car, which swerved and honked at him. He swung his fists at the car, as though trying to fight it. Still yelling. Then, it looked like he might have been throwing invisible snowballs.
Then he lurched and staggered out into the street, mercifully devoid of cars, and disappeared into the parking lot of a CVS drug store across the street from the strip mall.
I can't help but wonder what happened after that.
So, that was how I spent my Christmas evening. How was yours? :)
Last night (Christmas night), my housemate and I drove back from my mother's house where we spent Christmas, and hit Atlanta at just the right time for dinner. Sure, it was a Wednesday night, which is usually not all that crowded. But it was also Christmas night, meaning there were only a few places open, and they would all be crawling alive with people.
Still, we thought, "What the heck?" and tried one of the ones we knew to be open.
Upon hearing, "There's approximately a ninety-minute wait," we high-tailed it out of there and across town to our favorite Chinese restaurant, Golden Palace.
It was also "crawling alive" in that, instead of ours being one of maybe four tables occupied, there were three times that. (They do most of their business in take-out and delivery.)
We sat directly under the TV, which was blaring sitcoms that I neither recognized or cared to recognize. As we walked past "our" table (we almost always sit in the same place), I noticed it was occupied by a scruffy-looking guy in green pants, a red-and-green jacket, and a hat.
A few minutes after we ordered and shortly before we got our food, I heard it. Over the sound of the TV above our table. Over the sound of the canned music. Over the sound of the small TV behind the counter that the owners' (grand)kids watch ("WHOOOO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEEEEEEA? SPONGEBOB! SQUAREPANTS!")
"Oh! Oh, this is the best food!" Followed by a lot of other exclamations of similar manner. It was the man in green pants I had noticed in "our" booth.
Mr. Stonedbob Greenpants.
Within five minutes, the entire restaurant had cleared. Yvonne and I were the only people left other than him. The kids behind the counter had been shuttled into the back of the restaurant and the Spongebob Squarepants episode turned off.
His exclamations turned to having a conversation with . . . no one. I half-stood in our booth and looked: no one was sitting with him. But he was clearly hearing and having a three-way conversation with voices that the rest of us couldn't hear. In these days of ubiquitous cell phones and Bluetooth, I reluctantly wrote it off as him being on the phone.
It was pretty innocuous. Until.
He started trying to drag the poor lady behind the counter into his "conversation." I noticed he didn't have his phone out, nor was he wearing anything easily identifiable as a Bluetooth accessory.
He addressed the cashier, tried to talk to her, but by this point, it was gibberish. Something about a war (he wasn't old enough for it to have been Vietnam or Korea, so maybe it's the recent stuff). One of his other voices apparently was getting agitated. Which agitated him. The girl behind the counter went and got her sister and maybe a nephew, younger brother, or cousin (it's a family business). The young man tried politely to encourage the man to leave the restaurant, but he would go out and come right back in. This happened a couple of times. He switched between praising the food, the restaurant, and the owners to muttering about war.
He paid, but didn't leave, instead attempting again and again to engage the owners in conversation. They avoided eye contact, and pretended he wasn't there. Every time he so much as glanced in my direction, I managed to find something on my plate of shredded beef Szechuan style extremely interesting (it was very tasty). Yvonne had her back to him and was safely out of range.
Then a family came in. Mom, Dad, a young boy and an even younger girl.
That's when Stonedbob Greenpants started to get a little worrisome. The 'war' conversation had been continuing, with more agitation. Now, he looked directly at the family sitting in a booth across the restaurant from him and began crying, "Give me your boy! Give me your boy, and I'll teach him! I'll teach him in my school! He'll really learn something!" And then devolved into muttering in his three-way conversation. I think I heard something that suggested the 'war' conversation and the 'teach the boy' conversation were tangentially related.
It was at this point that the girl behind the counter came around to the two remaining occupied tables and apologized. We brushed it off, but I was beginning to get concerned. What if he didn't leave? Did I need to call the cops and tell them a crazy man was potentially threatening a child in a public restaurant? He hadn't done anything physical, yet . . .
He was at the bar by this point, and I eased my phone out and was pondering what to do when Stonedbob Greenpants took out a cell phone and started to take pictures of us, the other family, the people behind the counter and the restaurant in general, including himself, several times, and the mirror behind the bar. All the while muttering.
He ate his fortune cookie, then left.
We were done by this point, and the restaurant suddenly felt a lot less tense. We tipped massively. I asked, "Was he OK?" and the cashier replied, "He is not OK! He was drunk or something before he came in!"
I offered to call the police, but she didn't want me to, so I didn't.
Yvonne and I left, and I looked off to our right. I could see him, staggering along the strip mall parking lot toward the busy cross street. As I watched, he was still audibly having a conversation with voices unseen, but it was now at full volume. He stepped out into the street in front of a car, which swerved and honked at him. He swung his fists at the car, as though trying to fight it. Still yelling. Then, it looked like he might have been throwing invisible snowballs.
Then he lurched and staggered out into the street, mercifully devoid of cars, and disappeared into the parking lot of a CVS drug store across the street from the strip mall.
I can't help but wonder what happened after that.
So, that was how I spent my Christmas evening. How was yours? :)
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My Christmas evening was spent lazing about watching movies with homemade stuffed shells that someone else cooked. Not too bad!
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I hope he made it home, if he has a home. And that he didn't creep out the people at the CVS too much.
♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸I like New York in June, how about you? I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?