Far Out Son of Lung...

Naan impressive evening

After we rode I headed back home to clean-up, eat something and get myself together for an evening out with Lee and a bunch of single, attractive women. I completely missed out on one major opportunity though, because the girls all met up at the pool for some sunbathing before getting ready for dinner. I had no way of getting all the way across town in enough time to view the scenery, but Lee assures me I missed out on a good show. Thanks.

Dinner is to be at Naan, an Asian fusion type joint with a modern interior and posh, ritzy, FriscPlanUptown-O kind of feel to it. Spirits were high, the girls were gorgeous and the restraunt had managed to lose a rservation for 11 people. From there, it all went downhill.

After a 15 minute wait we found ourselves seated at a large round table that was probably designed to comfortably seat 8 people. With guests slowly trickling in all evening we all got to know each other better and better. Tanya, a former runner up on The Bachelor, was the birthday girl. She was pretty, somewhat talkative and relatively nice although difficult to engage in conversation. Her friends (those I can remember) were Mandi (cute), Kristin (hot), Christina (x2)(1 hot, 1 not), Chris (nice dude), Nancy (smoked, not so hot) and some other woman who's name I never caught. Mandi's boyfriend was about 1.5 hours late and, once he did show up, a complete tool. Something I found interesting was that, despite having a boyfriend (the tool) Mandi seemed to spend a reasonable amount of time looking me up and down while we sat at the dinner table. It would, of course, lead no where.

Our waitress was some asian chic with Buddy Holly glasses, a mousey voice and a memory worse than most alzheimer's patients. Most of the conversations went something like this:

In a near whisper that only two of 10 people could hear, "Drink?"
"Uhm, sure. She'll have a vodka and soda and I'll have a Kierin Light..."
But before anyone else could order or stop conversation she'd be gone for 10 minutes before returning with what was hopefully the correct order. Then, it was someone else's turn, if they were so lucky.

This continued throughout the evening and got worse when we tried to order. They ordered sushi (which I tried and enjoyed), then 9 out of ten people ordered dinner before someone threw a wrench in the works by ordering another round of drinks. Somehow, this simple act stopped the presses and I was left out of the odering process. Not to mention the fact that it took 5 tries to explain to the waitress which drinks were being ordered.
Chris: "Yes. This was a vodka & soda and we want another one of those. I would also like another Kierin Light. See, just like this one."
Waitress: "Oh, you wan two of those?"
Chris: "No. Look, we want another one of these and another one of these.
Waitresss: no response.

This continued for a few minutes before she disappeared, and I was eventually able to order my main dish. In the meantime, however, conversation was sparse. Chris was sitting to my left and was cool as hell. He was a deep south boy from Alabama that had a lot to say and was easy to chat with, but the rest of the table seemed a bit stale. Lee couldn't relate to either of the people around him and suffered most of the evening in silence, but I made due with a few shouted conversations across the table before the night was through. The ladies were, for the most part, hollow. Pretty? Yes. Conversable and willing to talk? Not really.

To make a long story short, mostly because I'm tired of typing... the food was bland, the service atrocious and the company stale. Then the check came.
Us: "Can you split this up for us?"
Her:
Us: "It'd be a rela help, you know, because no one has cash and we could just split it up."
Her:
Us: "... or ... I guess we could just write it down and give you different credit cards so you know how much to put on each one?"
Her: "Uh, no. I cannot do that."

This went on for a few minutes until Chris convinced the waitress to split his and Christina's bill off the main group. We figured this would light the fuse in her head and bring her back to reality. Unfortunately, rather than running the card for $50 as requested, she charged the full amount to Christina's debit card. Wonderful.

Then she charged it again for $50, but didn't credit the card back for the $272 she'd charged only a few minutes earlier. Even more wonderful. At this point they left the table and Chris found the manager or owner, but we didn't know it. So we start compiling credit cards and writing down how much each person owes to make it easier on her. Then we find a mistake on the bill. She's charged us for some sushi we didn't order, which just so happened to be the most expensive sushi on the menu. We're not even sure if we ate it, all we know is that we didn't order it. A complaint is sent out to the manager. Enter: The restrautn owner.

Owner: "Everyone, don't worry about it, we have everything under control. The whole table is on me."
Us: "HUH?!"
Owner: "Please come back and try us again, but tonight your whole meal is on me."

We didn't argue much and were a bit lost for words. She passed out some business cards and just as we were ready to leave... the waitress comes over begging for her job. Sorry kid, this isn't up to us. Now, some of the girls told the owner that everything was wonderful and it wasn't the waitress's fault, but I think that was a waste of time. The woman was inept, there's no other way to describe it.

Are we done? Is that the end of it? No, of course not.

Then we're off to Sherlock's in Addison. Sherlock's is a British themed "pub" that looks like a Chili's level attempt at a British pub, which is to say that it resembles a bar with green paint on it. There's a live band, some pool tables, a back patio... and the ability to comfortably host about 300 people. By my estimate, after navigating the entire place twice in search of the girls, there were about 700,000 drunken, smoking party goers packed into the place. I was, immediately, on guard. I hate this shit. Seriously, if I can't hear the person next to me or maneuver through a place without having to excuse myself every 3 seconds, I'm not happy. The only plus side was that in the act of squeezing through in search of four specific women, I was rubbed, bumped and pinched between more sets of boobs than I thought possible. And that was within 50 feet of the door.

Once we'd found the ladies, hovering by a bar in the loudest, tightest packed and smokiest portion of the entire place... conversation ceased to exist. I tried, I really did. I can talk to anyone, but the other person needs to give me something more to go on than one word answers. I didn't mind too much, I mean, I hate yelling in people's ears anyway, but then the mosquitos came. Not the type that suck your blood and make you itch, just the type that instantly gravitate toward and crawl all over any mildly attractive woman in the room. Tanya, being as hot as she is, draws them like flies to the world's largest manure depot.

So, with Lee and I more or less shuffled aside and forgotten about, we left. I lasted a grand total of 30 minutes, which is about 10 minutes more than I ever thought possible under the circumstances.

posted by GreSam @ 08:30