Dinner with the peeps
Last night, two of the higher ups in my company threw a dinner for us at The Outback. "Threw" might connote more effort than was actually involved, but still...Anyway, it was scheduled to begin at 6 pm, but it was more like 8 before most people had arrived. Those who did get there early marked the time with conversation and beer. I ended up sitting next to my brother, which was fine, since we have a good time laughing at other people. He got there earlier than I did, and he was a little bit drunk for some of the meal, which I found kind of funny. I poked him whenever I thought he was going to say anything particularly stupid. I limited myself to two drinks, because I didn't want to be seen by my coworkers as being irresponsible with alcohol (even though I sometimes am).There were a few people who got kind of drunk, and one guy tried about three times to say, "Did you ask Chris about the key?" before he completely gave up, never getting farther than, "Did you ask Key --" Good times. Some of the people ended up talking smack about one guy who nobody likes, and even one of the partners joined in, much to the dismay of his manager.
Hand's down, funniest thing that happened all night came when some of the guys were discussing automobiles. Of course, being wildly into cars, they were talking about makes that I'd never even heard of (not terribly surprising, I suppose) and some of which cost over one million dollars. This led to a discussion about money, and what one would do if one were to suddenly come into a large sum of money. My brother said that he'd get a McLaren (is that right?) while the other guys discussed the relative merits of Porsches and Aston Martins. The partner, when asked what he'd get if he suddenly came into a lot of money: a divorce.
That's it. You could tell that he totally meant it, too. Best answer ever.
When I was leaving, I happened to look at our bill. I think I heard that our gratuity wasn't included in the bill, but I hope I'm wrong. I noticed that our total came to a little less than $400, but it looked like the guy who paid left a tip of $20. I'm hoping that he meant 20%, or else he just sucks. I wasn't sure, though, so I just left some money on the table on my way out the door.
