(no subject)
This weekend, I went to our annual labor day weekend LARP event held in Prince William Forest park. The weekend was great for some, disappointing for others, completely crammed with drama for a few. Personally I ended up having a good weekend of RP, and am especially proud of the group of Nos we had there, I think this was the best year for Nos at Nonclave since I started going in 2004.
Saturday night, we had a big party at the campgrounds, which are in Dumfries, VA off of 234. Fun was had, people demonstrated their own bits of performance, singing was done, dancing was done, I spent a large amount of time watching the Maltese Falcon and part of Casablanca. Had a great Invisible Man costume, which was horribly uncomfortable. But this story isn't about that.
This is the story of the Waffle House.
It began when Kris and Kate Maxwell decided at about 2:30 AM Sunday morning, as things were winding down for the night, that they were hungry. Me and the Madness were hungry too. So Kate suggests we go to the Waffle House that is about five minutes away from the campsite. I'm not thrilled with Waffle House, haven't been there since I was a teenager, but we're hungry, and we want to go hang out with friends before we drive home and sleep. Figure we'll be out by 4 AM, we can get home and collaspe in our nice warm bed and hibernate for 8 or 9 hours. A newer Nos player named Daniel asks if he can come along, which is fine, hey, more the merrier, right?
So I drive my car with Mad, Daniel drives his with Kris and Kate, we go park and notice two motorcycles, which we park next to. We go in and sit at the open table that is the furthest back, next to the restrooms and also, the only exit. Not that we were trying to prepare for a quick getaway, just that was the only open table we saw. It's about 3 AM. So we wait to order, waitress comes over, acts like she's going to take orders, then wanders off. Comes back nearby, we mention we're ready to order. She wanders off. Comes back, we mention we're ready to order. She wanders off. This happens a few times, and then we hear some yelling and things start banging into the windows of the place from the outside. I later find out that this was a group of drunk guys who decide to pick a fight with one of the bikers, who proceeds to take on all five of them, armed only with his motorcycle helmet. The way the waitresses react to this, it can be assumed that this kind of thing is a normal occurance. The drunk guys and the bikers leave. A police car comes, cop comes in, looks around, then circles the building, and finding no disturbance at the time, leaves.
This was fight number one.
Our waitress comes back, finally takes our orders at about 3:30. We get our food shortly thereafter, except some orders are missing items, some are given to the wrong people, and some orders are missing entirely. We finally get our bill about 4:15 and proceed to discuss how we're paying. It is decided that everyone will give me money, and I will go up and pay with my card. I prepare to do so, when I hear more yelling from an entirely different group toward the front of the store, where the cash register is. So I continue to sit, figuring this will blow over like the last one, they'll go out into the parking lot and yell at each other some more, and leave, and then I can pay our bill.
One guy calls the other guy a very racially insensitive word that I don't use. The other makes some comment about Kool-ade, and they begin shouting about kicking each others asses. One of the waitresses, who is a short, skinny white chick, gets between these two big black guys and begins yelling "This is not happening in here, get out!" One of the guys looks at her and says "I will pimp smack you out of my way." The restaurant goes dead silent for half a second after he says this. It becomes increasingly apparent that this is going to get worse before it gets better.
The waitress continues to tell them to leave, one of them turns, says "I'll get you in here, or I'll get you when you come outside." They continue yelling back and forth about how one is going to get the other. He gets halfway out the door, and then turns and comes back in. He walks back up to where he was before and again has the waitress between himself and the other guy who he is yelling at. One of the two guys punches the other *around* the waitress. I am, at this point, not watching the fight, as I'd have to turn completely around, and I'm just not the kind of guy who likes to gawk at these things. So I am hearing all of the yelling, but not seeing the action.
At this point, the chaos truly begins. I first notice that the situation has upgraded when I hear the loud noise of something breaking, probably glass. In fact, as soon as the fight began, these two guys and their friends had proceeded to throw everything that wasn't nailed down at each other, at the waitresses, and pretty much at any moving target. Plates, silverware, glasses, sugar shakers, chairs, etc. As soon as this happens, I see Kris and Kate across from me get out of their seats, so me and Mad jump out of our seats too, and we all move toward the bathrooms, as the fight is rapidly moving toward us, blocking the exit, and the bathrooms are the only place to go that isn't right into the fray. Kris opens the door to the women's room and Mad and Kate go inside and lock the door. Kris and I stand in front of the door to keep anyone from getting into that bathroom. As I turn, I see a guy run up and throw a glass sugar shaker at the waitresses, which hits the light fixture above the table we were sitting in 30 seconds before, covering the area in glass and sugar.
As I stood there, three thought went through my mind.
1. Is this actually, in fact, occurring? Seriously?
2. I am not letting anything hurt my wife.
3. Someone is going to hit me in the face with a bottle and kill me.
The entire place is pretty much busted. Everyone involved in the fight at most of the other patrons run out. One waitress yells for another to lock the front door. She responds "They don't lock." We open the door once it's safe and check to make sure everyone in our group is safe. Fortunately the only injury sustained was that Mad scraped her wrist jumping out of her seat. At first I saw it and thought she'd been cut by something thrown during the fight, but she explained and said she was fine.
I still, at this point, am holding the check and my card in my hands. I attempt to pay my check, solely because I figure the waitiresses here have had enough to deal with without somebody skipping out on the bill. The short waitress tells me not to worry about it and takes the check away from me. We now realize that there is blood on the floor, not surprising considering, but then it is mentioned that one of the guys got stabbed. We go outside, and there are four steakknives laying in the parking lot. Somebody says one of the fighters may have lost a finger. The police come. It is about 4:30 AM. They begin taping off the parking lot, and tells us we can't leave until the detectives come.
The detectives come and say we need to wait for the CSIs to get there, as the parking lot is still a crime scene. We speak to the police about what we saw, give our info, and sit on the curb, waiting to go home. People drive by, seeing the police tape, employees and patrons outside on the curb, and five or six police cars, and ask if the Waffle House is closed. This happens several times. At one point a guy is told it is closed, drives off, and tries to drive around to the back entrance. As if that will magically cause him to be able to get his waffle fix.
We wait. And wait. And wait more. At some point a few hours after the cops get there, they notice a baggie of weed on the ground nearby, that someone has obviously dropped out of fear the cops will search us all or something. We wait more, the CSI van gets there. One guy starts taking photos. One woman video tapes the entire parking lot. And another guy goes around with a metal detector checking the grass by the 7-11. We finally are told we can leave but "Don't go near the sidewalk", at about 9:15 AM. Kris, Kate and Daniel drive back to the campground, and me and Mad rive back home to sleep in our own bed. We get home at about 10 AM, five hours later than we'd hope to be home.
We sleep until about 4 PM, get ready, and head back to the camp for the last night of the event. As we arrive, the story has spread enough that other people are telling the story, I am asked about it multiple times and as I tell the story, have others come up and say "Yeah, I've heard this story five times now." I've been told it was being added to the PODcast. Some have told me that this will go down as an OWbn tale of legend. More than once the story was being discussed and told to those who had not heard, only to have others stop us to say "Wait, this really happened? I thought you were telling a story about a scene that happened IC."
I can, however, essentially sum it all up with the following picture I took while we waited to leave:
Saturday night, we had a big party at the campgrounds, which are in Dumfries, VA off of 234. Fun was had, people demonstrated their own bits of performance, singing was done, dancing was done, I spent a large amount of time watching the Maltese Falcon and part of Casablanca. Had a great Invisible Man costume, which was horribly uncomfortable. But this story isn't about that.
This is the story of the Waffle House.
It began when Kris and Kate Maxwell decided at about 2:30 AM Sunday morning, as things were winding down for the night, that they were hungry. Me and the Madness were hungry too. So Kate suggests we go to the Waffle House that is about five minutes away from the campsite. I'm not thrilled with Waffle House, haven't been there since I was a teenager, but we're hungry, and we want to go hang out with friends before we drive home and sleep. Figure we'll be out by 4 AM, we can get home and collaspe in our nice warm bed and hibernate for 8 or 9 hours. A newer Nos player named Daniel asks if he can come along, which is fine, hey, more the merrier, right?
So I drive my car with Mad, Daniel drives his with Kris and Kate, we go park and notice two motorcycles, which we park next to. We go in and sit at the open table that is the furthest back, next to the restrooms and also, the only exit. Not that we were trying to prepare for a quick getaway, just that was the only open table we saw. It's about 3 AM. So we wait to order, waitress comes over, acts like she's going to take orders, then wanders off. Comes back nearby, we mention we're ready to order. She wanders off. Comes back, we mention we're ready to order. She wanders off. This happens a few times, and then we hear some yelling and things start banging into the windows of the place from the outside. I later find out that this was a group of drunk guys who decide to pick a fight with one of the bikers, who proceeds to take on all five of them, armed only with his motorcycle helmet. The way the waitresses react to this, it can be assumed that this kind of thing is a normal occurance. The drunk guys and the bikers leave. A police car comes, cop comes in, looks around, then circles the building, and finding no disturbance at the time, leaves.
This was fight number one.
Our waitress comes back, finally takes our orders at about 3:30. We get our food shortly thereafter, except some orders are missing items, some are given to the wrong people, and some orders are missing entirely. We finally get our bill about 4:15 and proceed to discuss how we're paying. It is decided that everyone will give me money, and I will go up and pay with my card. I prepare to do so, when I hear more yelling from an entirely different group toward the front of the store, where the cash register is. So I continue to sit, figuring this will blow over like the last one, they'll go out into the parking lot and yell at each other some more, and leave, and then I can pay our bill.
One guy calls the other guy a very racially insensitive word that I don't use. The other makes some comment about Kool-ade, and they begin shouting about kicking each others asses. One of the waitresses, who is a short, skinny white chick, gets between these two big black guys and begins yelling "This is not happening in here, get out!" One of the guys looks at her and says "I will pimp smack you out of my way." The restaurant goes dead silent for half a second after he says this. It becomes increasingly apparent that this is going to get worse before it gets better.
The waitress continues to tell them to leave, one of them turns, says "I'll get you in here, or I'll get you when you come outside." They continue yelling back and forth about how one is going to get the other. He gets halfway out the door, and then turns and comes back in. He walks back up to where he was before and again has the waitress between himself and the other guy who he is yelling at. One of the two guys punches the other *around* the waitress. I am, at this point, not watching the fight, as I'd have to turn completely around, and I'm just not the kind of guy who likes to gawk at these things. So I am hearing all of the yelling, but not seeing the action.
At this point, the chaos truly begins. I first notice that the situation has upgraded when I hear the loud noise of something breaking, probably glass. In fact, as soon as the fight began, these two guys and their friends had proceeded to throw everything that wasn't nailed down at each other, at the waitresses, and pretty much at any moving target. Plates, silverware, glasses, sugar shakers, chairs, etc. As soon as this happens, I see Kris and Kate across from me get out of their seats, so me and Mad jump out of our seats too, and we all move toward the bathrooms, as the fight is rapidly moving toward us, blocking the exit, and the bathrooms are the only place to go that isn't right into the fray. Kris opens the door to the women's room and Mad and Kate go inside and lock the door. Kris and I stand in front of the door to keep anyone from getting into that bathroom. As I turn, I see a guy run up and throw a glass sugar shaker at the waitresses, which hits the light fixture above the table we were sitting in 30 seconds before, covering the area in glass and sugar.
As I stood there, three thought went through my mind.
1. Is this actually, in fact, occurring? Seriously?
2. I am not letting anything hurt my wife.
3. Someone is going to hit me in the face with a bottle and kill me.
The entire place is pretty much busted. Everyone involved in the fight at most of the other patrons run out. One waitress yells for another to lock the front door. She responds "They don't lock." We open the door once it's safe and check to make sure everyone in our group is safe. Fortunately the only injury sustained was that Mad scraped her wrist jumping out of her seat. At first I saw it and thought she'd been cut by something thrown during the fight, but she explained and said she was fine.
I still, at this point, am holding the check and my card in my hands. I attempt to pay my check, solely because I figure the waitiresses here have had enough to deal with without somebody skipping out on the bill. The short waitress tells me not to worry about it and takes the check away from me. We now realize that there is blood on the floor, not surprising considering, but then it is mentioned that one of the guys got stabbed. We go outside, and there are four steakknives laying in the parking lot. Somebody says one of the fighters may have lost a finger. The police come. It is about 4:30 AM. They begin taping off the parking lot, and tells us we can't leave until the detectives come.
The detectives come and say we need to wait for the CSIs to get there, as the parking lot is still a crime scene. We speak to the police about what we saw, give our info, and sit on the curb, waiting to go home. People drive by, seeing the police tape, employees and patrons outside on the curb, and five or six police cars, and ask if the Waffle House is closed. This happens several times. At one point a guy is told it is closed, drives off, and tries to drive around to the back entrance. As if that will magically cause him to be able to get his waffle fix.
We wait. And wait. And wait more. At some point a few hours after the cops get there, they notice a baggie of weed on the ground nearby, that someone has obviously dropped out of fear the cops will search us all or something. We wait more, the CSI van gets there. One guy starts taking photos. One woman video tapes the entire parking lot. And another guy goes around with a metal detector checking the grass by the 7-11. We finally are told we can leave but "Don't go near the sidewalk", at about 9:15 AM. Kris, Kate and Daniel drive back to the campground, and me and Mad rive back home to sleep in our own bed. We get home at about 10 AM, five hours later than we'd hope to be home.
We sleep until about 4 PM, get ready, and head back to the camp for the last night of the event. As we arrive, the story has spread enough that other people are telling the story, I am asked about it multiple times and as I tell the story, have others come up and say "Yeah, I've heard this story five times now." I've been told it was being added to the PODcast. Some have told me that this will go down as an OWbn tale of legend. More than once the story was being discussed and told to those who had not heard, only to have others stop us to say "Wait, this really happened? I thought you were telling a story about a scene that happened IC."
I can, however, essentially sum it all up with the following picture I took while we waited to leave: