Yesterday around 12:45AM, I went with Kate to Steak & Shake. It probably wasn’t the best of ideas considering I had to pull an all-nighter to study for my Finite and K201 Practical midterms but it was fun.
We entered the restaurant soon after a guy (let’s call him J-Bob) who was soon to become object of humor in the near future. The guy appeared to be in the mid 40′s, wore a cheap leather jacket, worn truckers hat, yet underneath he had some sort of silk shirt on and black slacks. He was lanky, not groomed, but definitely not homeless. He was a regular there since the waiter who seated us asked the guy ‘Are you going to seat yourself again tonight?’
Anyway, she seats us next to him from where it was possible to look over on his table. He pulled out this chess board and starts setting it up. This isn’t a wooden board or elegant board. Rather the types we used to use back in the day in the $10 chess competitions in middle school. It’s the nylon-plastic full size ones with the oversize pieces. I glanced over at it and figured he was meeting someone. Meanwhile, Kate and I look over the menu, and I keep stealing glances over at this curious character.
The guy makes his first move against an imaginary opponent. I glance over and think to myself either this guy is good or crappy. I let it go another few minutes, and I asked, “You play chess often?”
You had to be there to understand better: I asked a question which warranted a single sentence answer, but even a yes/no would have been sufficient. But J-Bob, starts out not with ‘Yes I play often’ or ‘Yeah, I play occasionally’ but rather:
“I’m 51 years old and I’ve been playing chess since I was 5. My aunt showed me the game, and I distinctly remember her showing me the game. You know I’ll never forget this in my entire life. It just came to me, the game. The only thing I asked her was the manual said black/white while the pieces on the chess board we had were red/green. I beat her in like 5 min and she couldn’t believe it. Right now I’m a 2250 rated chess player. Until then my family just thought I was a dumbass but then afterwards they respected me. I deserved that respect”.
This was about the time I realized I just made a mistake. There in front of me I have someone interesting, fun, and hilarious, yet I just asked this random bum who was playing chess with himself if he played chess often.
J-Bob said this all in a very fashionably hip but tragically common slur that is stereotypical of both insane geniuses and common crack heads in Hollywood movies. Well, one would imagine that his answer was more then sufficient but he keeps going. I can’t recall anymore of it, because at this point, Kate and I both had our hands over out mouths trying to prevent ourselves from laughing aloud. This went on for another 9-10 minutes. J-Bob kept rambling about his prison days (which is when Kate, very noticeably, moved her purse to the other side of her bench), his speed-chess days, his tournaments, his drunken driving days, and his love life; all in a babble which would have taken a dozen of the CIA’s best translators to make coherent.
How we got him to stop? Kate went and got her cell phone from my car and I started talking to the waiter. He still kept talking for another 2-3 minutes but then got back to his chess.
So now you know.
I’ve had stuff like that happen to me before. Thank god it wasn’t during dinner, but it happens at parties all the time.
I would have just said, ‘hey i’m trying to eat here. stfu’
I keep putting Jen from Class! I hope you know who this is. Anyway funny story. I’ve had crap like that happen before and you have be in a good mood to laugh about it. it would get annoying really fast. Btw, who is Kate? Do I know her?
The EXACT same thing happened to me a few days ago. It wasn’t a bum playing chess but it was in a resturant.
Funny. Why are you eating at steak and shake? I thought you were vegitarian?
Why didn’t you play him chess? Seen if he really was good!
That isn’t even the best steak and shake story. This summer after a fun night my friend of sipping on some drinks we both went to steak and shake to hang out (around 3:40 a.m.). We got there sat down and observed there was not many people in the joint but a couple guys at one table and a couple girls at the other. At the guys table one was noticably one guy drunk. He was talking very loud and saying funny phrases. At one point in the night after our food arrived he became outraged stood up dialed a number on his cell phone at put it to his ear. Someone answered on the other line and the drunk said “LET ME SPEAK TO HOWARD”…”WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE”s NOT THERE??!!!”. Apparently Howards dad answered and was half asleep talking to this druken man at steak and shake. The conversation preceeded when the Drunk guy started talking shit to Howards dad. He said “YOUR SONS A FUCKUP LIKE YOU!” and “YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED THAT YOU HAD A KID LIKE HOWARD”. While this was going on everyone including the staff was basically on the floor laughing. The drunk guys friends realized that everyone was cracking up, so they decided they better leave.
I have a funnier story. I don’t know what steak and shake is but this was quasi-formal resturant in Italy. This is walking with 2 trays full of drinks in a extremely small and busy resturant. Someone back into him, he falls and everything falls on the floor. Some liquid spills onto this woman in 40′s. She gets up and starts cursing at the guy. She starts going towards the bathroom and runs into another waiter. This time getting completly drenched by very expensive drinks. The enitre resturatnw as lauging.
The “rambler” is usually pretty egotistical in that they always try to impose their life story (with embellishments) upon you. I always like to say, “Great story, You should think about writing a book!” right before turning back to whatever I was doing beforehand.