XXVII

A few weeks ago, my mom saved everyone's hash at her work. In gratitude, the salesman she works for gave her a hundred dollar gift certificate to a fancy restaurant. The very same restaurant my family had dinner in Sunday night.

First we saw The DaVinci Code, which left me a little disappointed. Not because I didn't like the movie, but because I did. It was a perfectly good movie, maybe not the best work ever put onto film, but certainly not the worst. What was with all the bad reviews? All I heard in the week leading up to it's release was how bad it was, so I went in expecting the worst. Instead, I was entertained and engaged. One reviewer wrote that the theater he was in burst out in laughter at pivotal dramatic moments. I kept waiting to see what moment that might have been, but it didn't happen at my theater. I guess the theater that guy saw the movie in was filled with a bunch of cynical assholes.

Anyway, after the movie, we went to Tosca, the kind of restaurant you take your girlfriend to on the first couple of dates until you're "in" with her, at which point you can switch to Chili's. It was pouring when we pulled into the parking lot, and my brothers and I, who were all wearing shorts and no coats, made a mad dash to the door. Michele was dressed for a North Pole expedition so she took her time.

We all ordered our drinks, which invoked the time-honored tradition of asking "Coke or Pepsi?" with the answer being Pepsi. Everyone ordered either a ginger ale or Mountain Dew, except my dad, who looked up from his menu and said "Coke." He was informed (again) that they had Pepsi and asked if that was okay. He scrunched up his face in disapproval and ordered a ginger ale.

The drinks came, and the waiter placed them all carefully one by one on the table. First Brianna, then my parents' then Ryan and Glenn, and then walked around to Michele and me. And that's when he tripped, knocking uncola all over the better part of my and part of my better half. He apologized, and gave us some napkins to clean ourselves off with. Michele's sleeve got wet, as well as part of shirt and most of the seat of my pants. It's as if I was still out in the rain.

Wait. I guess I should go back to earlier in the day, before we left for the movie. I had just tried on some new khaki pants I got for my birthday, and my mom told me to take them off so they don't get wrecked. It's not like I was going to be rolling around in the dirt or getting finger paint all over them, but I decided to appease her. Besides, it was still warm out, so I put on some shorts. Several hours later, it wasn't so warm, and it was raining buckets. The shorts didn't seem like such a good idea.

And then, in a twist even M. Night Shyamalan couldn't have thought up, an otherwise competent waiter spills Mountain Dew all over my shorts, which is much better than getting Mountain Dew on all over new pants. Perhaps fate was smiling down on me that day. But not enough to keep Mountain Dew from soaking into my underwear, which even on it's own wouldn't have been so bad it the place didn't have the air conditioner on.

That's it for today.