More than I expected

It all started this morning/afternoon when my alarm went off and I decided I was still kinda tired. I reached over, pushed the “set alarm” button, then the “hour” button—according to past experience, that was supposed to make the radio turn itself back on in another hour. I’m still not sure what happened, but when I woke up three hours later…

Some friends invited me to Buffalo Wild Wings this afternoon for some wings and trivia, but I’d already made plans with my brother, his wife and one of their friends to have dinner at Chili’s, then see Ralphie May perform tonight. I truly was tempted—BW3’s rules!—but I thought about how it’d be a half-hour drive each way, the meeting times were 2:00 for lunch and 6:30 for dinner and I’d get bloating from eating uber-calories at two restaurants… the temptation didn’t go away until after 3:00 or so, but as it turned out, I got enough uber-calories at dinner.

Brent, Gail, and their friend Ben were driving from western Wisconsin to Burnsville, which probably takes about 45 minutes. They were planning on leaving an hour ahead of time, so I decided to head to the restaurant a little early as well. On my way, I got a call from Brent to let me know that they’d be about 15-20 minutes late. It wasn’t because they had trouble leaving the house or got caught in traffic—it’s because they pulled off the freeway to follow another car. The car they were following wasn’t having any problems, but the chickens in the truck bed were.

For some unknown reason, this person put a cage full of chickens in the back of the truck, but the cage was sitting up over the top of the cab, so when he was driving 70 miles an hour, that basically turned it into a wind tunnel and the chickens were getting smooshed into the back. If you want to look at it another way, think about the movie Spaceballs and imagine Rick Moranis is covered in feathers ten seconds after he shouts out, “Ludicrous Speed, GO!!!” And the chickens didn’t have any large feathery helmets to cushion the impact when the driver hit the brakes at a stop light and they all got smooshed into the front of the cage.

So they followed this truck for a while, called the police and eventually gave them the address where the driver finally stopped and let the chickens get up and stumble around in a post-smoosh stupor. Meanwhile, Brent was shifting into a “We’re gonna be late!” and “Where the hell are we?” stupor. He figured it out fast enough and they got back on course, but whether the driver got back on course or got attacked by pissed-off chickens when they regained their senses… the world may never know.

Since the others were going to be late, I considered heading to a nearby store and just wandering around for about 20 minutes to give them time to catch up, but I went into the restaurant, put my name on the waiting list and sat down for longer than I expected—I got to the table less than five minutes before the others. Given the time (or lack thereof) when they got there, we all decided to get appetizers instead of full meals.

Chili’s has these appetizer samplers where you can get three items from a list of six options. Our plan was to get two samplers so we’d get one of everything. Due to some miscommunication, they ended up bringing us four samplers with two of everything. So much for needing BW3’s to help me get bloated. And perhaps the saddest part is that we finished everything on our plates except for some of the artichoke and spinach dip, so I brought that home with the chips. And the dip is gone now. Buuuuuurp… (As a side note, thanks to the Chili’s management for only charging us for two samplers—you guys rock almost as much as BW3’s!)

Then we jumped in the car, drove to the Burnsville Performing Arts Center and got into our seats right in the middle of the 11th row. Even if Ralphie May didn’t weigh over 350 pounds, we would have had a good view of him. The show was a blast, I had a lot of fun and got an extra chuckle out of one of his jokes.

For those of you who have never heard of Ralphie May, he was on the first season of Last Comic Standing, a reality show for stand-up comedians. I watched most of the first season (so it was obviously the best) and the final episode was kinda like an Aftermath where they were talking to the last five comics about stuff and slowly sending them off the stage, one by one. Surprisingly, I called them in the order they went off. Except for the last two. Ralphie May lost. To… Dat Phan or some dude like that. The guy won the show, he appeared on Leno and I’ve never heard about him since then. Meanwhile, Ralphie May has a fourth album coming out in about a month… yeah.

So he was onstage talking about girls oughta be willing to give blowjobs since some guys were taking them out for a night on the town, bringing them out to an steak dinner that costs 150 bucks, then spending 40 dollars on tickets and they have no idea who he is, but their girlfriends like watching reality TV… yeah. (I might not have made any blowjob jokes on TV, but I never bought food for anyone out there, either.)

In the middle of everything, he looked at his watch and said he was a little surprised that no one had chased him off the stage yet since he’d been out there for an hour and fifteen minutes and his contract was for only 45 minutes. Hell, we weren’t gonna stop him, so he kept going. And going. And going. Overall, it was an awesome show that ended up lasting about two hours.

When we headed outside to get back to Brent’s truck, it was snowing. Not the nice, powdery kind of snow, though—this was the sloppy wet goop that sticks to everything. And it started coming down hard by the time they drove me to my car and I headed out onto the interstate to get home. After a mile or so, the windshield wipers were getting packed with snow and I couldn’t really see the lines on the road anymore.

Now I’m sitting on my bed and thinking about how my expectations were exceeded today. I slept longer, I waited at the restaurant longer, I ate a lot more food, I saw a lot more of Ralphie May than planned (both duration and size) and I drove through crappier weather than the forecast predicted, but of all the nights to not have a girlfriend to make out with after getting home…