That’s Entertainment

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

So I know you all missed me yesterday when I didn’t blog.  Well you can put the shattered pieces of your life back together now; here I am.  Last night I spent the evening at The Birchmere at an Aimee Mann concert.  I’ve seen her probably a half-dozen times, and she never disappoints.  Last night Aimee was a crowd-pleaser not just musically but also in the fun banter arena.  The band seemed to be having some problems with their equipment and they kept stopping to tune their guitars between every song, so there was more banter than usual.  Let there be no mistake about where Aimee stands politically; there was some enthusiastic Romney/Ryan bashing that most of us found amusing.  She picked on Joe Biden a bit in good fun; and told us a great joke that I’m afraid I can’t really repeat here.

Aimee switched back and forth from political humor to a spoof of the kind of show you’d see on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel.  She started off just singing a rambling song about cats while she finished tuning, and then she segued into a mock narration of  “Abyssinian Cats Around the World”.  She noted that Abyssinians are ancient cats.  Very, very ancient Egyptian cats.  Very special.  Very revered.  Abyssinians have unique fur.  It is ancient Egyptian fur; different from the more modern fur you see on say, an orange tabby.  She was using a Very Serious Narrator voice and you could practically picture the show.  Given my deep and abiding love for cats, the whole thing was up my alley, and I was especially excited that she was talking about Abyssinians.  Dan and I sort of inherited a red Abyssinian early in our marriage; it was our first cat together.  Awwww.

We were listening to all this banter from the communal table we shared with 4 strangers; and you know how I enjoy eavesdropping.  These folks weren’t strangers at all because they were all 4 lawyers.  Not a problem in and of itself, but the two couples weren’t just lawyers, they were Lawyers.  Wildly Important Smart People (WISPs).  I couldn’t believe our luck at landing a table with the 4 smartest people to ever roam the earth.  Humbling, huh?  I’m not really sure why there were at the concert because they didn’t seem at all familiar with Aimee’s music and never so much as nodded their heads or tapped their feet to the rhythm, which in my book is freakish.  One of the women kept leaving the table for long periods of time, and when she came back she was sniffling a lot and guzzled one glass of wine after another.  Just sayin’.

The WISPS all seemed to have lost their funny bones in some sort of accident, because not once did any of them crack a smile.  The rest of the crowd was in hysterics and they just sat there with their arms folded on their chests. During dinner and breaks, they critiqued recent Oral Arguments in Supreme Court cases and discussed what they would have done if they were arguing the case.  This was really something considering they looked to me to be maybe 4th years (4-5 years away from even sniffing a promotion to partner.)   I couldn’t help but think of an expression a former colleague coined; making partner in a law firm is like winning a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie.  

I looked at these 4 pathetic people and thought, Let Them Eat Pie.

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What Did You Just Call Me?

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Pretty please let me indulge in a quick post about another television show. Anyone remember the show Ally McBeal?  It was a quirky show about quirky characters who worked at a quirky law firm, and was very funny until they eventually “jumped the shark” and went a little too far.  It happens.

There were two senior partners, Cage & Fish,

and a bevy of young, attractive associates, including Ally McBeal.  Actually, she became a partner the very last season because they were really desperate by then, but that’s not the point; I am  digressing as usual.

Fish was strangely charming despite being dumb as a rock and completely lecherous.  True to form, he began dating one of the associates, and she made him to work for the privilege.

One of her dating conditions was that the only terms of endearment Fish could use were food products.  For example, honey, sugar and muffin were fine, but dear, darling and baby were out.  My international gay husband (not Dan) and I used to watch it together all the time and adopted the same policy.  Sooner or later all the obvious foods got boring and we had to up the ante.  For example, it didn’t take long until “my cupcake” got old and I would move to something like “my German chocolate cupcake” (uh, he’s German and all) or he would move to “my frosted chocolate donut”, and it really snowballed from there.

Obviously, I had to draw the line when it came to him referring to me as anything that wasn’t vegetarian, but he is a carnivore so I branched out to calling him “my double cut pork chop with applesauce” or “my lamb chop with mint jelly.”

It was great fun, but we actually both gained some weight with all that talk of food all the time making us hungry.  The thing is, I’m 5’3” and he is 6’5” so he wore it way better.  He also went to the gym and that sort of thing.

I guess all I’m trying to say is happy 39th birthday (for the 5th year in a row) to my favorite Chocolate Bavarian Cream pie.

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Going, Going, Gone to New York

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

When my sister-in-law was just a little girl, her ballet teacher died; trying not to upset her, her mom told her that the teacher had gone to New York.  We all embraced that concept, and “went to New York” has become my family’s euphemism for dying.  I think this is much better than “she’s gone to a better place” or “she went to a farm where she can run free with other ballet teachers.”

I like New York, although I wouldn’t want to spend an eternity.  I wonder if Lisa’s mom just used the quickest place she could think of, or if she actually thought going to New York was a fate as bad as death.  I kind of like the way “she went to Paris” rolls off the tongue, but “she went to California” would certainly work too.  I guess “she went to West Virginia” would sort of be the ultimate; no one comes back from West Virginia.

When Dan and I had our wills drawn up, I was very tempted to use the family euphemism in the paperwork, but the lawyer stared at me and then pretended I hadn’t said anything.  That happens a lot though.  My  mom called one day to tell me she was going to New York, and I assumed she had a fatal illness or something.  Really, she was just going to visit my niece at NYU.

You may be familiar with the Darwin Awards, presented posthumously to people who die doing really idiotic things.  Their mission is clearly stated on their website:

 The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it.

I’m a big fan of vacuuming the bottom of the gene pool, and as I always say; if you can’t laugh about death and devastation, what can you laugh about?  I think the funniest death of all (if you find that kind of thing funny) is an ironic death.  For example, a Darwin Award was given to a gentleman who, while riding his motorcycle bare-headed, flipped over his handlebars and “went to New York.”  What’s ironic is that this happened while he was riding in protest of helmet laws.  According to the man’s brother, he cared so much about eliminating helmet laws he would probably do it again if he could.

Another story reports that a man died of electric shock after forgetting to turn off the invisible fence around his car.  He didn’t want the car to get stolen, but I’m guessing he would have preferred that than dying at the hands of his own booby trap.

Another of my favorites is a man who died when he was skydiving-his parachute got caught up in the airplane prop.  If it weren’t for that pesky plane, everything would have been fine.  You can read about all kinds of idiot-related deaths at http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/

Frankly, I’ve done some pretty idiotic things in my life; I’ve just been lucky.  When I was in college I moved into an apartment that had a gas oven.  The one time I tried to use it in the year that I lived there, I was having some difficulty understanding how the whole thing worked.  Gas on, I lit a match and tried to light the oven, but nothing.  Two more tries, nothing.  It never occurred to me that there was a bit of gas accumulating in the oven, so I went in for a 3rd time and kaboom!  Do you know how bad I look without eyebrows?  Really bad.  Do you know how long it takes for eyebrows to grow back?  A really long time.  I learned my lesson and never tried to use the oven again.  I just ate the cookie dough raw, which worked out OK.

I’ve also been known to be a tad insensitive on death related matters, but it is not intentional I can assure you.  I have this way of saying exactly what I’m trying not to say in a given situation.  For example, if I’d known the family of the motorcycle rider, something would come out of my mouth like “it takes a long time to get over this, but you just have to ride it out.”  I would say something equally stupid to the family of the invisible fence guy, like “he always had such an electric personality.”  Not even something I would ordinarily say in any context, but it just comes flying out of the trap.

The worst, and the one no one will ever let me live down, is when I was 2 or 3 days into a new job and someone in my department died.  I had barely met her, but I did feel bad and all.  The problem is I got a little too focused on work and emails and sort of forgot to tell anyone.  Late in the morning someone asked me if she was feeling better, or coming in that day, and barely turning around from my keyboard I said “Definitely not.  She died.”  Naturally the person who was standing in my doorway and had worked with the other person for quite some time burst into tears and moments too late I realized I could have phrased it a little differently.

Then there I was with this woman I didn’t know sitting on the floor of my office sobbing, and me the picture of awkward.  I believe I patted her on the back a few times and actually said “there, there, it’s OK” as if I was in a movie where that might sound even a little natural.

I learned my lesson.  If I had it to do over I would have just said “She went to New York.”

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Coming Through, Loud And Clear

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Let’s get it straight at the outset that I don’t believe in psychics, fortune tellers, tarot card readers or mediums (I guess in this case the plural isn’t media?)  I do believe there are people who, motivated by profit, are very good at reading people and taking calculated guesses as to what’s happening in their lives.

Medium:  I feel that you’ve lost someone you love

Sucker: How do you know that? (sobbing)

Medium:  It was someone very close to you, a name that starts with an M, I’m getting an M (furtively glances at sucker’s face), no maybe it’s a W that came through upside down…

Sucker:  OMG, is that William?  Is that William coming through?

Medium:  Yes, that’s it, William.  He wants to tell you that he loves you and he forgives you for everything

Sucker:  Really?

Medium:  He’s talking about a deck of cards, something about cards or games…

Sucker:  OMG, we used to play board games together!  How could you possibly know that?

We all believe what we want to believe, right?  One of my former bosses was big into the psychic thing.  I was complaining one day about my cat peeing on the carpet, and he said I had to try his animal psychic.  She had helped him with his dog and she knew things she would have no way of knowing, like that his dog liked to take long walks on the beach, and then sleep really close to him!  Huh.  Impressive.

Just for the heck of it I decided to go ahead and call her for a phone reading.  I just said I had a problem with my cat Mukki, and didn’t describe the problem at all.  She’s the psychic, she should figure it out!  She told me she was getting close to reaching my cat.  The orange tabby, right?  Nope.  Oh there she is!  A little black and white tuxedo cat.  Nope.  Uhh, tell me what she looks like so I can find her; she’s hiding from me.  I noted that Mukki was a tortoise shell.  Oh!  I see her now.  She’s telling me she feels bad about certain things.  What kind of things?  Umm, scratching?  No.  Killing a bird?  No.  A mouse maybe?  No.  Oh!  I get it now, she broke something very valuable.  No.

Long pause.  I think I know what the problem is.  She is refusing to talk to me.  Your cat has some deep rooted issues.

But when I got home, I saw that the real issue was that Mukki had no time for psychics…

 

 

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The Stars Were Bright On That Baltimore Night

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Once everyone was happily settled in with crab soup and crab fluffs and crab cakes and crabs, do you think everyone could just relax and eat?  Not until everyone at the table had offered to share everything they were eating with everyone else, even if the other person was eating the same thing.  In any kind of decent Jewish family, you have to do this when the food first arrives; somewhere in the middle of the meal, and before you take the last bite of anything.

If there are no takers, you can eat the last morsel of food, but you are obligated to feel guilty about it for a full 5 minutes.  To enforce this someone will say “are there any more fries?” right as you’re gnawing on the very last one.

Most of Baltimore is populated by my mom’s aunts, uncles and cousins.  So there are a lot of relatives to discuss, starting of course with the deadest. There was an Aunt Dot who had shoes with clear heels that lit up when she walked.  Whole families known solely by their trade, for example, the “Chicken Ehrlichs” whom I suppose raised chickens.  Baltimore might as well have been Little Minsk back then for all its eccentric occupants.

Apparently two of my distant relatives or friends (hard to say sometimes) stopped speaking in 1958; of course my mom took it upon herself to call one of them to tell her she was absolutely wrong about everything.  From the little pieces I heard, the fight was over mink coats; who got one, who didn’t get one, who got one but didn’t deserve it, who couldn’t afford one, etc.  It sounded like a lot of animals were harmed in the making of this little family drama.

My mom and Bonnye discussed a long gone restaurant that they both believed (insert dramatic music here) was a front for “something.”  I think they both watch a little too much television.

Then mom and Bonnye started reminiscing about their camp days.  I really wish my cousin Myrna had been there so she and my mom could serenade us with old camp songs.  We really relish those moments.  My mom said that the “talent” she planned to showcase at parents’ day one year was how to upright a capsized canoe and get back in it or something.  She was good to go until they were out on the lake and she suddenly realized there were fish in the lake.  She did not care to swim with the fishes.  At least she pulled it off when they put the canoe in the pool instead.

This being October, the conversation across my parents and some of their friends was when everyone was leaving for Florida.  There is a superstition that if an old Jewish couple doesn’t leave for Florida by the first frost, their family will be subjected to 20 years of them kvetching about it.  I’ve seen it happen.

Our server was terrific, but the dessert order was a final test of her patience and perseverance.  Before we could order anything they actually had, we had to discuss the Nutty Buddies that traditionally conclude such a meal.  Then, because no one was listening, the server had to describe each dessert, in detail, no fewer than 8 times.  When the delicious desserts arrived at the table, we had to go through the whole “who wants a bite of this?” ritual again before anyone could pick up their fork and eat their own frackin’ dessert.

Big thank you to Chris; when I met him recently at a business function and found out his parents own the restaurant Bo Brooks, I was incredibly impressed.  I’m not worthy!  Thanks to Chris all of us enjoyed super indulgent desserts on the house.  Everyone at the table was very impressed with my high-placed connections, and now they love me-they really really love me.

Of course as I suspected, there were two high points of the evening.  First, my mom opening crabs without harming her manicure (yes she is wearing her very own fashionable crab bib):

The ceremonial Counting of the Money for the Check is the final ritual.

Mom is an expert, but after she counted the money two accountants from Ernst & Young came in to verify the results.  They were fine until one of them scarfed down the very last bite of cake.

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An Evening in Baltimore

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

We made history tonight!  The very first table was just fine!  Yes, we did the seat assignment shuffle as anticipated, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.  We mostly did what my family does best, eat eat eat.

Available at Bo Brooks tonight were large crabs and extra-large crabs.  Ordering the crabs involved cross- examining our server as if she were a serial killer.  There were questions about the weight of the crabs; were the large crabs heavier than the extra-large crabs?  If we ordered the large crabs and they weren’t heavy, then what?  The server assured us that she would replace any anorexic crabs with morbidly obese crabs.  Everyone seemed satisfied with that.

Then there was a philosophical discussion about the Maryland crab soup v. the cream of crab soup; before anyone ordered soup, my parents had to report on a new threat.  They live in Ocean City, MD, and while the Maryland crab soup at most restaurants used to be quite good, there was some kind of killer black pepper invasion and the soup at all the restaurants in Ocean City is inedible now.

Apparently this is an African species of pepper that was smuggled into the country and has grown in strength and numbers and will soon be taking over the world.  Just in the last year alone there have been 14 pepper-related deaths on the east coast.  There is clearly a major government cover-up going on, because it certainly hasn’t been on the news. You heard it here first.  Despite the dire warnings, some of us took a walk on the wild side and ordered the soup anyway.

In my family, once all the food is ordered, it’s time to talk about the food you just ordered,  what you had the last time you ate there, where else you’ve eaten recently, where you used to eat when you were a child, and how that place had been gone for 40 years now.  But second only to food, our favorite family activity is a game I like to call Name That Jew.

To get your bearings, Baltimore is the exact center of the universe, and everything good and right happened there 35-45  years ago.  Either my mom or my cousin Bonnye will ask if the other ever hears from so and so.  Ultimately, every single Jew in the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan area is separated by no more than 2 degrees.  And we talk about every last one of them.

My mom has an extraordinary ability to travel across the space-time continuum.  She will answer the phone to hear a friend she hasn’t spoken to in 30 years calling to catch up.  The boy she dated in high school calls just to see how the last 60 years have been going.  She may get a call from the girl who shared her bunk at sleep-away camp when they were 8.  It is quite the phenomenon.

After that, the conversation took all kinds of strange twists and turns.  Tune in tomorrow to hear the rest…I need to go sleep off all this food…

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Heartwarming Family Traditions

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Look, I hate to keep picking on my mom, but if she keeps handing me blog topics on a silver platter what can I do?  We’re meeting my parents and an assortment of friends and family for dinner tomorrow night, and exchanged a couple of back and forth emails about who/where/when.

Apparently my mom’s primary concern was if Dan and I would be able to wend our way to the restaurant without adult supervision.  She called me the other day and said that she had printed out Mapquest directions, and did I want her to fax them to me?  I can’t make this stuff up–it just lands in my lap.  I’m going to have to find a way to gently break it to my mom that what I do all day is sit at a desk and work on a computer.  The kind that has the interweb and Mapquest. 

My mom is younger than springtime, so we are not going to dinner at some ridiculous time, like 4:30.  We’re not in Florida after all!  We will be eating fashionably late at 5:00.  The sun won’t have set yet, so it will nice to all be together as we usher out the Sabbath in the ancient Jewish crab eating ritual.  Did you know that all crabs and other shellfish consumed in the state of Maryland are considered Kosher?  Just ask anyone in my family, they will confirm. 

In the meanwhile, as I gazed into my crystal ball this evening, I started to get a clear picture of how tomorrow evening will unfold…

As I’ve mentioned before, my mom fully expects me to be the entertainment for the evening at any gathering.  So the very minute I’m in the door it will be “do a funny thing!  Be funny!”  Then she will announce to the entire restaurant “That’s my daughter.  She’s funny.  She’s going to be funny any minute now.”  That puts a lot of pressure on me.  Fortunately, as clumsy as I am, it’s fairly likely that I will make a big entrance by falling on a step and rolling into the dining room, which will get the evening off to a jovial start. 

 Moving right along to the next event, seating assignments.  We’ll all mill about for a bit before we start shuffling around the table to preliminarily select a seat, while being completely non-committal and open to suggestions.  Someone (usually Dan) will actually go right ahead and sit down in a chair, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.  This will be cause for subtle reprimand, like, “oh, so you’re going to sit there?  I was going to…never mind, that’s OK, you’re already comfortable.”  The reprimand will be issued by either my mom or my cousin Bonnye.  I hate to throw Bonnye right under the bus on my blog, because I really love her, but I need to mix it up a little and not just pick on my mom all the time.

Because Dan only married into the family, he has no fear and will just keep his butt right in the chair as if it was OK because he’s already comfortable.  I will glare at him while I wait for instruction about where I’m going to be most comfortable.  Eventually we will all be seated, at which point someone or other will decide the table is in an area that’s too hot or too cold or too close to the kitchen or too far away from the restrooms, and we will all be shuffled off to a table that seemed like it was going to be much better, but really isn’t that great.  We pray for a table set-up the same way as the first one so we can go directly to our assigned seats, but if not we have to go through the whole ritual again.

Then it’s time for the server to take our drink order, which will involve a serious and lengthy discussion about whether they have Caffeine Free Diet Coke or just Diet Coke; but that will be nothing compared to the repeated warning from my mom about putting lemons in or near her drink or her person.  Many more antics will ensue, but I need to leave a little more to the imagination and then fill in the details after the fact.  I can tell you though, that the highlight of the evening will be watching my mom open crabs with freshly painted nails, with nary a chip.

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Which Way Do You Roll?

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I went out to dinner with a couple of friends tonight; one of the friends is, of course, a gay man.  He bowls in a gay bowling league, which I could only dream of joining.

They’ve been looking for a 4th man to round out the team, and where else to find a gay bowler than on Craig’s List?  So they get a response from a gentleman (let’s call him Bob), and one of the teammates (let’s call him Sam) arranges for them to meet.  Bob responds by asking Sam to send a picture of himself so he’ll be able to spot him at the coffee shop.  A little stalky-creepy, right?  How hard is it, really, to find a gay bowler in a coffee shop?  Wait, don’t answer that!  It sounds like a rhetorical question that will end in a punch line.  Bear with me, still trying to think of one.

So Bob’s a great guy.  A family man in fact; he is married.  To a woman.  Now, we all love a straight man secure in his masculinity, but it’s a little over the top to think that he’s so darn secure that he’s going to join a gay bowling league.  Nonetheless, my friend pointed out they would never exclude someone just because he was straight (although morally it should be illegal for straight people to marry; fortunately the team members are very tolerant).

We’re sort of guessing he told his wife he is joining a league, but left out the part about it being a gay league, and we started imagining the sort of sitcom hilarity that could ensue.  Like the wife telling Bob to invite his bowling friends and their wives over for dinner.  She’s expecting beer-swilling bowling buddies

but these are the men who show up

impeccably dressed and asking a lot of questions about the window treatments, calling her honey, sweetie and doll and asking who she’s wearing that evening.

[Yes, this is me stereotyping gay men just like I stereotype Jews and lawyers and everyone else.  Otherwise it’s not funny.  Get it?]

It could be a lot of fun to watch, but thinking that when the wife asks about the team name, and they say Four Shades of Gay, she might have to wonder.

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One Too Many…

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Nothing is quite so interesting as a business function where alcohol is flowing like water (which has always been my experience).  For some reason people repeatedly forget that they are at a business function and not a frat party, and they do stupid things I refer to as CLM (Career Limiting Moves).  There are a few particularly memorable gaffes.  At a party years ago one of my colleagues, drunk as a skunk, started going on and on about what a jerk our boss was (and if only he had just said jerk instead of the term he actually used) and when our boss appeared behind him, all of my desperate efforts to get him to shut up were foiled until I finally said (way too loudly) “Oh wow, look who’s here!” and spun him around by his shoulders.  I don’t think he remembered any of it on Monday morning, but our boss sure did.

I was on a retreat years ago where the social event one evening was karaoke.  Harmless and fun, until everyone is smashed.  At 8:00 in the evening we were all singing American Pie together, awesome.  By 11:00 one of my colleagues was singing Wind Beneath My Wings to her boss, and they were both sobbing and hugging.  I’m not saying it wasn’t touching…I’m just saying it wasn’t…well I guess I am indeed saying it wasn’t touching.  So that’s that.

I had only been at one of my firms a couple of weeks when one of the other managers came back from lunch slurring his words.  I told him to leave before anyone else saw him, and I would cover for him with our boss.  He burst out laughing and said “who do you think took me out drinking today?”  Oh.  That’s how I discovered that my boss not only tolerated drinking lunches, she very seriously encouraged them.  I’ll say this much, it was a fun crowd.

Sometimes alcohol isn’t even part of the equation.  At that same firm, all of the managers were on one floor lined up in a string of offices.  There were not attorneys on our floor, so sometimes we indulged in a little fun.  Unfortunately, our boss walked into the hallway when we were having a particularly brutal marshmallow fight, and someone may have even clipped her with one before they realized she was there.  Drinking, A-OK.  Marshmallow fights?  Not so much.  Not long after we all got a terse email from her about the “dorm-like” environment on our floor.  I hung on to that email for a while, because it was extra special; one of the main reasons I worked there was because of the “dorm-like” environment.  We all worked really hard, what’s a harmless little food fight every now and again?

Several firms later I encountered the worst social event ever, and there was absolutely no booze involved.  It was the firm’s Thanksgiving lunch, and I was running a few minutes late.  When I finally got to the conference room, all the lights were down and everyone was holding hands praying to Jesus.  I left the room, incredulous, and found myself with the Muslim partner who had recently joined the firm.  We literally stood there with our mouths hanging open until I excused myself to call the HR Director, who thought I was playing a practical joke on her because it was such a far-fetched story.  The best part of that story is that one of the staff asked why I didn’t attend, and I mentioned I was Jewish and it had made me uncomfortable, and she said “oh, I didn’t realize Jews don’t pray.”  Au contraire mon ami!  I began praying fervently that I could quickly find a job at a firm that didn’t suck.

Booze or not, I really love observing the social behavior of employees in their natural habitat.  What prey do they stalk?  Are they nocturnal?  Can they make tools, and fire?  What are their mating habits?  I’m almost as curious as Jane Goodall.  Almost.

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Ye Olde Giggles

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

In the last few weeks we’ve attended three weddings.  All three couples were so beautiful and so clearly in love; gazing into each other’s eyes with affection.  It is a wonderful thing to witness.

Dan and I love each other a lot, but we’re really bad on the eye-gazing, handholding romantic stuff.  A number of years ago, we spent the day in historic Leesburg, enjoying Ye Olde Shoppes and Ye Olde Stuff all the Ye Olde Day.

In the evening we settled in to Ye Olde Restaurant for dinner.  The restaurant was very dimly lit, with candles on each table and a lovely colonial décor.

We were seated at a lovely table right by the front window.  We noticed a gentleman roaming around the restaurant playing very lovely melodies on a flute; Ye Olde Flautist.  Shortly after we ordered, the flautist came over to our table.  We smiled politely and shook our heads in time with the music.

It was pleasant enough for a while, but then we realized our flautist friend showed no signs of ever leaving our table.  Our smiles wore thin, and we were feeling awkward.  I looked at Dan for help and we realized perhaps we were supposed to be gazing in to each other’s eyes while listening to the music.  We tried that for a minute but Dan can cross his eyes like nobody’s business, and I started to giggle.  Looking to gain my composure, I turned and looked out the front window.

The fates were conspiring against me that night, because just as I glanced out the window, a very, very large gentleman was walking by, and his pants were down to the point where I could see plenty of, umm, Ye Olde Butt Crack.

So picture the scene again-candlelit restaurant, sincere flautist, trying to be romantic, and…this!  It did me in completely.  I started in on one of those laughs that takes on a life of its own and cannot be stopped.  I kicked Dan under the table and nodded my head at the scene outside, and he started laughing uncontrollably as well.  We were trying not to make eye contact with the flautist but our shoulders were shaking, tears were rolling down our cheeks, and at some point I started snorting with laughter, which just set us both off again.

Still, Ye Olde Flautist continued to play as if nothing was going on.  It finally dawned on me that he was hanging out waiting for Ye Olde Tippe, and I managed to signal that to Dan.  He reached in his wallet and pulled out what would normally be a nice tip, but I nodded my head upward to indicate he pull out more money.  Once he had pulled out about twice as much as anyone could expect, I nodded my consent.  Nothing pays as well as a guilt tip, that’s for sure.

Barely able to breathe from laughing so hard, I tried to explain to the flautist that his playing was beautiful but, umm, there was a funny scene outside and , umm…scrambling for words, I realized the only thing that could make this moment even more awkward was if I started talking about butt cracks, so I just shut up (for once in my life).

The flautist nodded and smiled politely, then moved on to the next table.  We laughed until our stomachs hurt but still managed to scarf down Ye Olde Foode.

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