hey homer, i gotta story to tell ya
I think it's worthwhile to do a run down of the PAX Tabletop Party, if only because of how weird the whole thing got.
Kristin picked up Kelly and they worked on librarian wonk whilst I read an excellent pictorial history of punk from Warhol to the dawn of 1980 simply entitled Punk. When Ed got there we decided on our plane there. We decided that Team Awesome would all go on one flight there and one flight back. Because we waited a touch too long, we would up having an all-night flight back home. It ought to be fine, so long as we can sleep on the way back...or DS it up. While Ed was putting in his information, we mentioned that Kristin's suitcase might one day swallow the universe like a black hole. In fact, it decided to start with Kristin.
Once we all managed to get our tickets (the flight was nearly booked!), we sat around and discussed whether we should go grab something to eat. Eventually, it was decided that we'd go to Mickey D's. The fact that we were listening to London Calling seemed slightly dissonant to me, but off we went. I wore my blue suede shoes and I thought that I needed more excellent odd footwear. We sat down and proceeded chomping away. We discussed Snakes On a Plane, a Catholic-themed strategy card game and that I might concurrently suffer from alcoholism and encephalitis.
We walked out and the car was still running. This struck us as being unusual. Then we realized that we had managed to lock the keys inside the car. I tried to keep cool, with mixed results. In all seriousness, we decided to make the best of the situation. Some douche over at Target said he couldn't do anything to help us, so we tried Schnucks as well. He suggested insurance company, and this was sage advice. We got an auto emergency company to come out. Meanwhile, we had to find ways to amuse ourselves. We decided to give music a chance. I played nearly empty Tic-Tac maracas and Kelly took to playing her hamburger. It was beautiful in a sort of avant-garde way. In fact, I think Heaven itself smiled upon our use of fast food as musical instruments. After being whooped at by drunk high schoolers and our fear that a hoosier with a dirt-stache in a rape van was the locksmith, the real deal came and got us back in the car lickety-split.
As a side note, doesn't lickety-split sound horrendously obscene? Like some sort of euphemism for a sexual act? You want to talk about repression bubbling right under the surface, that's the 50's in a nutshell right there. And what about everything being "swell"? You could take it that sort of direction as well. But I digress...
We went back to the apartment and finally started our tabletop. We played an excellent game called Primetime Adventures, a heavily narrative game based on the idea of creating our own television show. We created a show called "Ghost Bay," which was an odd mixture of cooking/mystery/absurdist, Big Lebowski style humor starring an ex-punk Brit maintenance man, a disgraced French chef and a slutty would-be pop star who's a maid by day. It was the kind of show that was quirky and funny that would last half a season and get canceled before it had any sort of resolution that I wouldn't see until it was on DVD and become obsessed with as a cult classic. Luckily, we can continue "Ghost Bay" for as long as we like.
When it was all over, I loaned Ed my copy of "Neverwhere" on DVD and we took Kelly home. On the middle of 170 cutting through Ladue, the front passenger tire starts making a weird noise. We pull over, throw on the hazards and I get out to check it. It's flat. We limp a half-mile, get off the highway and pull into the parking lot of the Ladue Crossing Schnucks in the hope they're open 24-7. They're not; we can't even get in to use the pay phone. A parking lot sweeping truck pulled in to let us know the store was closed. We told him we had a flat and we didn't have a cell phone. He didn't say anything; he just whipped out his cell phone and Kelly called her dad. He asked if we had a donut. I hadn't seen one, but I went to take a better look. Under the things in Kristin's trunk, we found the donut. Not only was this man (Cary) kind enough to lend us his cell phone, he actually changed the flat! It was amazing in a sort of "I didn't know people were kind to one another like this any more" sort of way. We thanked him profusely and we headed back home, gingerly, using only city streets. Kelly's father had come right as the tire was put on, so he took her home.
We left the car in the parking lot of Dobbs' (which apparently is elitist enough to believe that they needn't call back when they're done with their work) and walked home. I leaned on Kristin, me in my blue suede shoes. The night had gone so that when we heard emergency sirens behind us we both hoped that the apartment hadn't caught fire. It hadn't. Despite it all, no one lost their temper that night. No one got snippy or bitchy or any of that. It just goes to show that no matter how much goes wrong, when you're with the right people, it makes all the difference.
Kristin picked up Kelly and they worked on librarian wonk whilst I read an excellent pictorial history of punk from Warhol to the dawn of 1980 simply entitled Punk. When Ed got there we decided on our plane there. We decided that Team Awesome would all go on one flight there and one flight back. Because we waited a touch too long, we would up having an all-night flight back home. It ought to be fine, so long as we can sleep on the way back...or DS it up. While Ed was putting in his information, we mentioned that Kristin's suitcase might one day swallow the universe like a black hole. In fact, it decided to start with Kristin.
Once we all managed to get our tickets (the flight was nearly booked!), we sat around and discussed whether we should go grab something to eat. Eventually, it was decided that we'd go to Mickey D's. The fact that we were listening to London Calling seemed slightly dissonant to me, but off we went. I wore my blue suede shoes and I thought that I needed more excellent odd footwear. We sat down and proceeded chomping away. We discussed Snakes On a Plane, a Catholic-themed strategy card game and that I might concurrently suffer from alcoholism and encephalitis.
We walked out and the car was still running. This struck us as being unusual. Then we realized that we had managed to lock the keys inside the car. I tried to keep cool, with mixed results. In all seriousness, we decided to make the best of the situation. Some douche over at Target said he couldn't do anything to help us, so we tried Schnucks as well. He suggested insurance company, and this was sage advice. We got an auto emergency company to come out. Meanwhile, we had to find ways to amuse ourselves. We decided to give music a chance. I played nearly empty Tic-Tac maracas and Kelly took to playing her hamburger. It was beautiful in a sort of avant-garde way. In fact, I think Heaven itself smiled upon our use of fast food as musical instruments. After being whooped at by drunk high schoolers and our fear that a hoosier with a dirt-stache in a rape van was the locksmith, the real deal came and got us back in the car lickety-split.
As a side note, doesn't lickety-split sound horrendously obscene? Like some sort of euphemism for a sexual act? You want to talk about repression bubbling right under the surface, that's the 50's in a nutshell right there. And what about everything being "swell"? You could take it that sort of direction as well. But I digress...
We went back to the apartment and finally started our tabletop. We played an excellent game called Primetime Adventures, a heavily narrative game based on the idea of creating our own television show. We created a show called "Ghost Bay," which was an odd mixture of cooking/mystery/absurdist, Big Lebowski style humor starring an ex-punk Brit maintenance man, a disgraced French chef and a slutty would-be pop star who's a maid by day. It was the kind of show that was quirky and funny that would last half a season and get canceled before it had any sort of resolution that I wouldn't see until it was on DVD and become obsessed with as a cult classic. Luckily, we can continue "Ghost Bay" for as long as we like.
When it was all over, I loaned Ed my copy of "Neverwhere" on DVD and we took Kelly home. On the middle of 170 cutting through Ladue, the front passenger tire starts making a weird noise. We pull over, throw on the hazards and I get out to check it. It's flat. We limp a half-mile, get off the highway and pull into the parking lot of the Ladue Crossing Schnucks in the hope they're open 24-7. They're not; we can't even get in to use the pay phone. A parking lot sweeping truck pulled in to let us know the store was closed. We told him we had a flat and we didn't have a cell phone. He didn't say anything; he just whipped out his cell phone and Kelly called her dad. He asked if we had a donut. I hadn't seen one, but I went to take a better look. Under the things in Kristin's trunk, we found the donut. Not only was this man (Cary) kind enough to lend us his cell phone, he actually changed the flat! It was amazing in a sort of "I didn't know people were kind to one another like this any more" sort of way. We thanked him profusely and we headed back home, gingerly, using only city streets. Kelly's father had come right as the tire was put on, so he took her home.
We left the car in the parking lot of Dobbs' (which apparently is elitist enough to believe that they needn't call back when they're done with their work) and walked home. I leaned on Kristin, me in my blue suede shoes. The night had gone so that when we heard emergency sirens behind us we both hoped that the apartment hadn't caught fire. It hadn't. Despite it all, no one lost their temper that night. No one got snippy or bitchy or any of that. It just goes to show that no matter how much goes wrong, when you're with the right people, it makes all the difference.