As Rich Would Blog...

Oops, we did it again.

Last night, the Coffee Crew proved once more the wise and absolute truth inherent in the maxim (no, Paul, not the issue with Jessica Alba on the cover -- this is "maxim" without the capital "M"...though I do admit that issue had a standout cover), "Anything that can go wrong will ultimately be attributed to Rich."

Of course, no one could have seen that tragic turn of events coming. Things started out well enough, after all...

Our hospitable hosts, Sue and Steve, reverently recalling Rich's recent reference to Comic Book Guy's Doctor Who Marathon eating habits, diligently devised a delictable display of dazzling dining deliciousness (alliteration RULES!): tacos! And not a hint of E. coli or rats to be found.

We broke new ground this time out, for in addition to the "old" regulars (Steve, Sue, Rich, Joe and Paul) and an "old" semi-regular (Linda), we also had two "new" regulars (Toni and Michelle) and a first-timer (Sean). Nine people -- two more than our previous record! And it was a great mix -- I hope Linda and Sean can keep joining us, as it was great having Linda among us once more, and Sean turned out to be a nice fit with our usual paulfoolery, even if he did demand that none of us look at Linda.

Heidi ditched us. Something to do with a collapsing ceiling. What-e-vah.

To say it was a nerdy evening would not be inaccurate...but who cares? Space-nerdiness is our spec-i-al-i-ty, and this night was no different.

Actually, the night almost came to a grinding halt upon with the realization that out of the nine of us...only the hosts had anything to read. Our collective bad. Luckily, Sue saved the day by presenting a play she'd written for her students -- which, amazingly enough, had nine readable parts. So thanks to her, everyone read -- and what a reading it was. Bizarrely, even though we all picked our own parts (euuuwww!) before knowing what the play was about, we all chose roles perfectly suited to each of us. The result was a lot of laughing, a lot of appreciative smiles at Sue's Twilight Zone-ish plot twist, and a lot of jokes about method acting. Michelle Nielson was in her thespian element, while Linda and Toni almost ended up in their lesbian element. Mosts guys in the room scrambled to find a camera...and Steve, as per form, treaded water.

Steve then entertained the hell out of us by recalling his excellent adventures with girls from other schools, particularly his account of meeting Lisa and her cigarette-sharing mother, who most of us were expecting to be named Jackie. Steve's friend Vinnie, who returned to the scene of the less-than-stimulating crime at a later date, hoping to get some even if what he'd be getting was unpalatable, was apparently about as choosey about his women as the average male in any 80s teen-angst film. Funny stuff!

Sounds great, right? And it was. We have yet to have a coffee crew go sour...well, except for the time where Paul....er, maybe that night is best left forgotten. But the point is that things were going swell indeed...until an unfortunate series of events happened. Not the film, Paul, no, although that was pretty bad, too.

The first, to my everlasting chagrin, involved a slight slip of the tongue in which my oxygen-deprived brain, as I was laughing while enjoying a mouthful of cookie, directed my vocal apparatus to utter the word "drowning" instead of "choking" -- resulting in my saying I was drowing in cookies. This, of course, was not something Michelle and Sean could let pass without comment, the bastards, and in the ensuing laughter, Paul wailed that he was being stabbed by cookies, causing several of us to fall into fits of unending spasms of laughter, complete with reenactments of Alfred Hitchcok's shower scene from "Psycho," but with cookies instead of butcher knives. All of this, Steve and Joe watched uncomprehendingly from the sidelines with all the disdain one might reserve for a parent at a supermarket whose child is lying in the canned-foods aisle, screaming "I want candy!" at the top of his lungs while said parent is spanking the hell out of the kid and yelling, "You want to scream? Huh? You want some candy? I'll give you something to scream about, you little bastard -- here's your @#$%&-ing candy!"

Ahem.

Shortly thereafter, things just went downhill from there, as Michelle forever changed my life by repeating my use of the phrase "any port in a storm," followed by the antecedent, "as Rich would say." This made me laugh, as I realized that such a cliche -- which EVERYBODY would say -- was being attributed to me as though I'd coined the phrase, and before I knew what was happening, this had become the catch phrase for the rest of the night. No matter what anyone said...it was said as Rich would have said it. And something tells me (must be Rich telling it to me) that this isn't likely to end any time soon.

Paul, of course, was ecstatic -- finally, the spotlight was off him and onto me as the butt of every joke. (Granted, Steve has always focused on me, not Paul, so nothing changed there.) And though I good-naturedly accepted the jibes, and even added my own self-efacting zingers to the mix from time to time, at least I can take solace in knowing that this still doesn't change the fact that Paul is a child molester with green testicles.

Still, all in all, it was a fine night, as I might say.

Unfortunately, Sue decided to serve coffee, completely ignoring the description of our group as posted right there on the homepage of the Coffee Crew blog: "We have nothing to do with coffee." For shame, Sue. For shame.