A Weekend With Two Dwarves And A Fury Warrior. (Part 3)
I walked into the lobby of the AmeriSuites in Overland Park with my hands in my pockets and taking the Lord's name in vain. The woman behind the counter took one look at me in my shorts and t-shirt and chuckled and said...
"You ain't from around here, huh?"
So it's late as hell when I get to my hotel. It's actually after midnight. Since I'd paid for a Friday through Tuesday stay, and technically it was now Saturday, I asked the gal behind the counter if that meant I could have a day back. Of course, I knew what the answer was.
jeni_chan had called me on my cell phone to let me know that even though it was late, everyone was up playing card games and that I should still come over. So I stopped up in my room long enough to put on some jeans and a long sleeved shirt and went to meet everyone. I did an awesome job picking my hotel because it was literally five minutes down the street. However, I didn't know *exactly* which house it was. I did have my awesome GPS unit, which was much more functional once I figured out how to get it to stop using the metric system. I plugged Jen's address in and..well...it got me to the right street at least.
The GPS goes "DING DONG! You've arrived at your destination." So I park the truck on the curb and cautiously venture out into the night. I just know I'm in front of the wrong house, and I'm looking all over for the number. There's no lights on. In fact, there's no lights on anywhere. Being confused and lost can also look a lot like you're up to no good at first glance. Every block has that one busy-body douchebag who's always looking out their window to see what their neighbors are up to, and one glance is probably all that person needs to call the cops on the suspicious looking guy lurking in the dark and sneaking up to everyone's front door.
So I get back in the truck and swear some more. I cuss. A lot. What a shock, I know. So I drive around the block again and I check the street number to make sure I'm in the right spot. I circle back and look for a house with lights on, and I see one. so I pull over again and, feeling only slightly more confident, walk up the driveway past this hideous purple car and look at the number on the front of the house.
THIS IS IT!
I ring the doorbell and Jen answers the door and greets me with a hug. I'm told that, because of the last entry I wrote here before I left, there was much speculation on whether or not I had shaved, and I was informed that
banjo_di would not hug me unless I had. Well, I did. Sort of. I had a pretty decent five o'clock (well, by now it was 1AM) shadow going on. But nobody could complain because Elrin's hairy enough to need a permit to keep indoors, and I'm going to assume he got a hug anyway.
So despite my unkempt appearance, Di jumped up and gave me a hug. A hug worthy of a dwarf. I will admit now, and I don't know if the expression on my face gave it away (it usually does), but I was quite surprised by the ferocity of the hug I was on the receiving end of. It was a full on bear hug. I think Di almost trampled the dog in the process. Or maybe it was Elrin. Hard to tell them apart with all the fur.
Oh, right. The dog's the one with shorter hair.
Either way, it was quite a warm welcome. I now know how Hulk Hogan felt when he almost tapped out to Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania 3. But don't let my flippant attitude fool you. It was one of the bestest hugs ever. :)
I plop down on the couch next to Jen's dog George and proceed to watch them play a card game called Munchkin. I'm not a table top gamer at all, nor have I ever been into card games that didn't involve deuces wild and stripping. That being said, as near as I could tell, the game of Munchkin is a complete and utter clusterfuck, and you make the rules up as you go along. It is kind of amusing though because kneepads and restraining orders are involved.
Come to think of it, that sounds exactly like how most of my relationships start, and ultimately end.
It was good to finally be in the same room with real live people that I've counted among my best friends in life, though I've only known them through text on a screen, whether it be in WoW or the chatbox or here in LJ. It was really nice to get real live hugs instead of emote hugs. And it was all a little surreal too. I went back to my hotel room that night, not very tired (thank you three hour time difference!), and more than a little in awe of it all.
(...to be continued.)
"You ain't from around here, huh?"
So it's late as hell when I get to my hotel. It's actually after midnight. Since I'd paid for a Friday through Tuesday stay, and technically it was now Saturday, I asked the gal behind the counter if that meant I could have a day back. Of course, I knew what the answer was.
jeni_chan had called me on my cell phone to let me know that even though it was late, everyone was up playing card games and that I should still come over. So I stopped up in my room long enough to put on some jeans and a long sleeved shirt and went to meet everyone. I did an awesome job picking my hotel because it was literally five minutes down the street. However, I didn't know *exactly* which house it was. I did have my awesome GPS unit, which was much more functional once I figured out how to get it to stop using the metric system. I plugged Jen's address in and..well...it got me to the right street at least.
The GPS goes "DING DONG! You've arrived at your destination." So I park the truck on the curb and cautiously venture out into the night. I just know I'm in front of the wrong house, and I'm looking all over for the number. There's no lights on. In fact, there's no lights on anywhere. Being confused and lost can also look a lot like you're up to no good at first glance. Every block has that one busy-body douchebag who's always looking out their window to see what their neighbors are up to, and one glance is probably all that person needs to call the cops on the suspicious looking guy lurking in the dark and sneaking up to everyone's front door.
So I get back in the truck and swear some more. I cuss. A lot. What a shock, I know. So I drive around the block again and I check the street number to make sure I'm in the right spot. I circle back and look for a house with lights on, and I see one. so I pull over again and, feeling only slightly more confident, walk up the driveway past this hideous purple car and look at the number on the front of the house.
THIS IS IT!
I ring the doorbell and Jen answers the door and greets me with a hug. I'm told that, because of the last entry I wrote here before I left, there was much speculation on whether or not I had shaved, and I was informed that
banjo_di would not hug me unless I had. Well, I did. Sort of. I had a pretty decent five o'clock (well, by now it was 1AM) shadow going on. But nobody could complain because Elrin's hairy enough to need a permit to keep indoors, and I'm going to assume he got a hug anyway.
So despite my unkempt appearance, Di jumped up and gave me a hug. A hug worthy of a dwarf. I will admit now, and I don't know if the expression on my face gave it away (it usually does), but I was quite surprised by the ferocity of the hug I was on the receiving end of. It was a full on bear hug. I think Di almost trampled the dog in the process. Or maybe it was Elrin. Hard to tell them apart with all the fur.
Oh, right. The dog's the one with shorter hair.
Either way, it was quite a warm welcome. I now know how Hulk Hogan felt when he almost tapped out to Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania 3. But don't let my flippant attitude fool you. It was one of the bestest hugs ever. :)
I plop down on the couch next to Jen's dog George and proceed to watch them play a card game called Munchkin. I'm not a table top gamer at all, nor have I ever been into card games that didn't involve deuces wild and stripping. That being said, as near as I could tell, the game of Munchkin is a complete and utter clusterfuck, and you make the rules up as you go along. It is kind of amusing though because kneepads and restraining orders are involved.
Come to think of it, that sounds exactly like how most of my relationships start, and ultimately end.
It was good to finally be in the same room with real live people that I've counted among my best friends in life, though I've only known them through text on a screen, whether it be in WoW or the chatbox or here in LJ. It was really nice to get real live hugs instead of emote hugs. And it was all a little surreal too. I went back to my hotel room that night, not very tired (thank you three hour time difference!), and more than a little in awe of it all.
(...to be continued.)