Standing By

Pep, Zip, Zing, and Pizzazz

(Tim)

Something was not agreeing with me.  I'd started feeling a little rumbly in Elliott's office, not enough to send me flying into the bathroom, but enough to let me know I might be fixing to have impending issues.  I was more than a little hesitant when Elliott had sprung this one last thing on me, to a freaking Pizza Barn, of all places.  I was like, "dude, really?  I'm barely holding my shit together and you wanna go for pizza?"  He had no idea how literally I'd meant that.  Every bump on the ride over had me nervous, but things stayed where they belonged, thankfully.  Just a little...rumbly.  Then I smelled beer when we walked in and started to smile.

    "I told you, Elliott, I'm not hungry," Austin said for the five hundredth time.   

    Eyeing the ample selection of beer available, I moved over to the ordering line.  My desire to drink my troubles away was outweighing my rumbly tumbly tummy.  "Well, clearly, we're here for beer.  So I'mma have one"

    Chance shrugged at that.  "Hell, I'm game.  I can always go for beer.  Um, what's that smell?"

    Oops.  I angled my body away from him.  "Remind me not to order meat here. It smells disgusting."  I made a face, hoping he'd buy it.

    "Ugh," Austin agreed.  "I'm not even hungry anyway.  Pizza, bleh."

    "Well, me either, but I'm going to have a beer.  Do you want one?" I asked him.

    "Hey, check out that dessert pizza," Chance said, pointing to the second panel from the right on the overhead menu screens.  "Anyone want to share?"

    I squinted at it before yanking out a copy of the paper menu from the menu-holder.  Ooo.  Caramel, chocolate, nuts, marshmallow cream... "Sure."

    "Mmf," Austin grunted disinterestedly.  "Not hungry."

    "Go for it," Elliott encouraged.

    Chance stepped forward to the register.  "We want the dessert pizza, and we all want draft beer."

    She nodded and rung us up quickly, all of us tossing cash into the mix. It was like a stripper club with cash flying.  I was, without a doubt, sticking to cash and maybe debit now.  I was officially scared of my own credit card.

    I accepted our order number eighteen on a long wooden stick, held in place with a clothespin shaped like a piece of pizza, and turned around.  "Where do y'all want to sit?"  Place was moderately busy, but I did see a few empty tables we could use.

    "Bed," Chance suggested.  "And I'd prefer to lie in it rather than sit."

    Austin nodded towards the back where a group of teenagers, both guys and girls, were cutting up.  "Avoid the teenagers by the back door."  His eyes moved to the right, at several groups of women staring at us wide-eyed, then glanced across the restaurant, sweeping back and forth.  "Avoid the three groups of women gawking at us."

    I didn't know what those women been looking at.  I glanced over where they'd been watching only to see a large table full of older women with big red hats adorning white and grey hairdos.  "Avoid the grannies in their red hats."  Ugh.  I groaned, seeing another hat nearby them.  A big, fat, overbearing, and obnoxious cowboy hat.  Tourists.  Not wanting repeat of the Mexican restaurant, I added another stipulation.  "Avoid the guy with the cowboy hat.  You know they're tourists."

    Apparently actually hearing me, the cowboy hat was yanked off quickly.  Damn, dude had good hearing.  Embarrassedly, I looked away to avoid a scene.

    "Avoid the dude that looks like Rubeus Hagrid from Harry Potter with blood all over his face," Chance advised, somewhat loudly.  I patted at his arm to get him to quiet down.