Several years ago, in the bay area, when my father had hair on his head and I wasn’t even a thought, he and his friends were bored, hungry, and drinking. They had gone to a restaurant, a relatively nice restaurant, to drink at the downstairs bar and have a good time. After an hour or so of drinking and joking around, the men decided that it was time to walk back home to the apartment, and maybe make some food.
“All we’ve got is pasta,” my dad remarked to the other three men.
He was met with a grumble and a weary nod as if to say, it’s better than nothing, but we’re still going to hate it.
They all stood up from their tall bar table, drunkenly pushed their stools back to where they found them (sort of), and trudged out of the bar doing their best not to knock anything over.
Heading back up the stairs into the restaurant area of the building, in a semi-drunken stupor, my dad noticed a large lobster tank in the middle of the foyer. Or, should I say he noticed a prospect that sounded better than pasta.
“I don’t think we’ll be eating pasta tonight, guys,” my dad remarked.
His friends looked back at him with confused stares and blank faces. He pointed to the tank, and suddenly as if holy light had shone down upon the large aquarium his friends’ faces went completely aglow and excitement filled their eyes. So, they began to plan.
After what seemed like several minutes of superior planning, which was probably a couple seconds of drunken ideas, my dad’s friend, Rich, went to the host to strike up a conversation.
Rich was a smooth-talking Italian man who would later grow up to be a very profitable real estate agent. If you needed anyone to talk, and to talk well, Rich was certainly your man. He could probably make conversation with a mute.
While Rich distracted the host talking of being a restaurateur and expressing great interest in the business, my dad sneakily waltzed over to the lobsters’ tank. After looking several times in all directions to make sure that the coast was clear, he rolled up his sleeve and reached in. This must have looked extremely odd and extremely illegal to anyone around, but fortunately for my dad as well as his friends it was a busy night and few people were actually paying any attention. After a second he snatched up a very large lobster and held it dancing in his hand. He flashed it at his friends by the stairs and mouthed a silent “WOW!” as they giggled and tried to keep their cool.
Upon noticing my dad’s fresh catch, Rich started to finish his conversation with the host as the rest of the crew made their escape. My dad and “dinner” hid within the group as they passed the host giggling and mouthing a “thank you” to the preoccupied host. I’m sure the host never knew how thankful they actually were. The men then regrouped outside with Rich and paused for a secret victory dance.
They sprinted back home and rejoiced that at least for tonight, they wouldn’t be eating pasta.
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