Let's Get Ready to Rummmmmmmbullllll!!!!!

Well, yesterday was interesting.

More of the usual at school. Kids a little goofy and the adults having not much to come back with. More on that another time.

School's over and (were supposed to) have an afternoon to plan, but we had a meeting with a kid and parent. It was...uh...time of my life I'll never get back. When they were gone I made the suggestion that our kids would get a lot out of me teaching sign language a couple hours a week. They can't spell, need something more kinestetic and are getting no foreign languages. That idea seemed to go over like a lead balloon, at least for the lead teacher. More on that another time as well.

That night was our kids' school play. They were doing a play followed by the high schoolers doing one. Fortunately they were not holiday themed. So a couple of my co-workers and I went out for dinner then to the play. It was a pretty typical school play - we couldn't hear what any of the actors were saying because they didn't project their voices, but they had a good time. And I saw some potential stuff to use at school. Not a single high school teacher went. It was conspicuous.

After the show I went home. As soon as I got in I got a text from Jill. I ended up meeting her at Charlie's in Paia. Now if you've been listening to the show you've heard Jill talking about the infamous bar fights there. I had been there a few times and just wasn't picturing it...little did I know. [Oh, and if you're not listening to the show, what's wrong with you?]

So the night went well, there was some overpriced jam band from the mainland. The place was pretty full and it was a good night for people-watching. I met a few interesting people through Jill including this one young couple who as we talked to them I felt my brain getting smoother and smoother. And then there was gay, drunk and legally blind guy. He was so funny, we decided to use that as our MySpace headline.

It's coming up to the end of the evening. I literally had my last sip of beer ready to go when Jill said something like "Here we go." Behind me, this pretty big-ass fight started. It wasn't posturing. There were huge punches being thrown, more and more people started to get involved in it and the range of the fight swelled to take up more and more of the room - like ripples in a pond. People are backing up, trying to find a way out of the place. Then I saw bar stools starting to get swung. It wasn't cool anymore. I followed a few people out the emergency exit and noticed that it had already spilled out into the parking lot. So I waited for a few minutes, Jill caught up with me then we weaved our way out of there. I walked with her to her truck then was about to go back to my car, which was right where the fight had spilled out onto the street. I was thinking that it was going to suck if some asshole started bleeding all over my fly-ass Ford Focus.

As I started walking back I saw our little brainsmoothers walking on the other side of the street. They kind of looked like they were homeless or looking for a way to get home. Uh, no thank you, Gandalf. I wasn't looking for any more adventures. I got to the car and instead of the fight my car was surrounded by 7 cop cars. So I carefully got into my car and went home.

So that was my first real bar fight. I tend to hang at more sedate places. I was a little disappointed that Jill didn't change into her cape and tights and bust that fight up. Maybe next time.