I'm Mad. Gotta get back. Need some getback. Payback.

Hey!!!!

Was what both Will and Rick yelled when I came in. You got to love a place like this. I came in for a full meal before meeting J. for pool. I sit down to this setting: Sinatra singing on the PA, IceHockey on one screen(NCAA final, Denver vs. UND), World Poker Tour on the one other screen, and two great guys on the other side of the counter. Heaven. Will and Rick are both cinemaphiles and gamers. More so even than LBG, because they are in the service industry and can do both all night long because they are not due back at work until any following evening. As soon as I sit down, I am met with a short stack of DVD's; one I loaned out, Poolhall Junkies, and a few of Rick's that I just must see. Next to that is a magazine turned to an article with screen shots from the game StarWars: Revenge of the Sith. These guys are great. Both are bantering and working each other when the following story comes out.

So I give my number to this one cute girl at blockbuster.
She wasn't that cute.
Yeah she was. Anyway, I give her my number.
The next night I hit the nudie bar.
And He hooks up with a stripper. We turn to find him macking on her in the corner.
So on Sunday I'm half in the bag when the phone rings and I pick it up.
A girl on the other end says "Hey, how are ya?"
I say "Hey, are you that chick from the strip club last night?"
"Um, no. I'm the girl from the Blockbuster you gave your number to."
"Wow, isn't this awkward?"
"Yes. It is, isn't it?"

I am crying I am laughing so hard.

One medium rare filet marsala later I ramble out of the place and head over to The Main Event to meet J. for pool.

Nope, not firing any air-barrels here.

J and I played 8ball for about an hour, but because he has the whole family and child thing, after an urgent phonecall he had to scoot at a time when I was rolling, so I kept the table and racked 9ball for myself.

You want a game?

It was inevitable. A guy playing alone on a table in a poolhall will have comers. I just knew this would happen, though since this particular billiard room was smack-dab in the middle of suburbia, I was hoping this would not happen. Oh, Well. Some well dressed black guy invited me to a game. We shook hands and I learned his name was Phil. I also told him I was playing 9ball. After his proposition, I got to use a great line:

Something cheap. I'm just learning.

I ran him on two races to five games. He was no hustler. He was more gracious than any of the heathens in the place. He commented on every nice shot, commented on every leave(on either of our shots, we would both eyeball it and we would give advice on shot possibilities to each other), and he always shook hands with genuine enthusiasm after every game. Halfway through the first set, during one of my shots, he walked over to another table where a woman and a teenaged girl were playing and conversed with them. This guy was a family man. His wife and daughter were on another table. He just wanted a good game and was willing to pay for it!

Forty What?!

The games concluded, I proceded to pay out. The Uber-hot register girl said my damage for the table and two beers was forty two dollars. I freaked out. There is no way a table occupied for two hours can be worth more than forty bucks. Then I remembered that I just picked up two hundred bucks off of the guy I played.

Ok.

I think I just hit on a supplementary source of income....

Nah......