Last week I went a bit batty . . .

and yes – the obvious joke there is of course the “Batty Bumpercar” one – but come on – are we really comfortable enough around each other at this point to start throwing around nicknames?!

I will start it off with the easiest one. It is a simple illustration of a fairly typical interaction between me and (basically any person that I have any potential to chat with over the course of a day or so) . . . There I was sitting at the counter at (Taqueria del Sol) which just so happens to be one of my favorite restaurants in the whole wide world when the waitress walks past and says something to me . . .

I should have prefaced this by pointing out that this on this particular day, I was in a serious fog a kind of haze – a rolling stupor which was induced by it being one (1) day after driving eighteen (18) hours “straight” from the city of Newburgh, NY back to home base – which I am in no way building up to be construed as an excuse – I just figured that it would be polite of me to give you an illustration for my state of mind at the time . . .

Back to the waitress – who as you all remember had just said something to me – which I failed to hear or understand . . . Normally I would have enough composure to manage a polite “Excuse me miss, but could you please repeat what you just said . . . I am terribly sorry, but I wasn’t able to hear you.” Or something as erudite as that . . . but on this day all i could manage was an “E-ummel jimber plackle?”

The waitress stopped dead in her tracks tilted her head got a questioning look in her eye and said “What did you just say?”

At which point my belly turned to ice – what had I just said – I wasn’t even sure of it myself. So I did the only logical thing that I could muster under such circumstances . . . I turned it right back onto her with a well placed “Uhm – well what was it that you had just said – ah – well – there?” Which I realized had “deftly” ducked past the fact that I was clearly the one that started the ball of confusion rolling when she started back towards me and said “I just asked how everything was.” And that should have been that – except this was the point where my brain really decided to focus on if “everything” was all right – and we are talking not just the plate of food, or me, or the restaurant, or the street, or on and on and on – which then led this conversation:

Me – “Yeah – I’m just really really tired . . .”

Her – “I worked twelve (12) hours yesterday – I’m pretty tired too.”

Me – “Well I drove eighteen (18) hours yesterday . . .”

Her – “Oh.”

Me – “Uhm – and I was with my dog . . .”

Her – “Then you must be more tired.”

Me – “But . . . you are on your feet all day . . .”

Then she just kind of walked away. I got up, left my money on the counter and wandered back to my car trying to figure out what exactly had just happened . . .

[That was just the first instance of the ridiculousness . . . a tiny minor bubble . . . but instead of going on and on right now – I will tease a bit – and follow up with more to come – so stay tuned!]