Vancouver Week 1 - Ronnie

its a really weird feeling waking up and the only real responsibility you have is feeding yourself.  well everyone knows that responsibility is more or less a gluttonous privilege of mine.  so i continue with my ritual of waking up, showering, and heading out to walk around.  ill go down to broadway, my new stomping grounds, to find a restaurant for me to destroy.  i pass by a diner style burger joint that looks like it will do me well.  

i walk in and say, "hardcore party of one please".  the hostess looks at me and says that i can sit at the counter.  the counter is kind of full and i didnt want to sit next to anyone. (i guess the whole human desire to have companionship is beaten out by the human desire to protect his food, this is my food, dont even look at it, i know you have your own food, but seriously this is my food, ill kill you, and you then you will be my food)  

i see a open spot in the far corner so i wont have to sit right beside someone.  i sit down and immediately i am yelled at. 

"someone is actually sitting there im sorry"

"oh, ok, well can i sit there?" pointing to the two seater table behind me

"no, thats for 2 people"

shit

ok, so i have to sit in the middle of some people, whatever, im over it. ill eat and itll be great.  a shirley temple is delivered to the empty, but should have been mine, seat beside me so i assume theres a little girl sitting beside me who will try to play saved by the bell with me and insist that ill play zach morris or something because thats what little girls do. martha.

a man comes out of the bathroom with a backwards tan kangol hat and just enough facial hair to form the period at the end of this sentence.  however upon sitting down, his facial is made up of 4 pieces.  darius, take note.  2 thin one inch strips on his top lip.  gap in the middle of course.  1 tiny soul patch (or the richardson tickler).  and 1 thin strip at his chin.  awesome.  

he looks at the drink that was delivered to his spot on the bar and questions the server if this is in fact the drink that he ordered.  she said yes and i said, hey, a shirley temple is a fine beverage.  he laughs and says he ordered the cherry lime soda thingy but wishes it was a little more manly.  "like that!" he exclaimed while pointing to my coca-cola classic.  no shit, i thought, coca-cola classic is the manliest drink in the world.  

apparently the server that served us our drinks decided that we werent hungry or anything because she never came back.  a man came over to take our order and he was actually the owner of the classy joint.  the stranger beside me and i explain that this was our first time to this burger place.  the shirley temple man starts joking with the owner about the girly soda that he got and yells, "i mean, what kinda place is this?!" 

we order burgers.

finally the stranger and i, knowing that we would be siting beside each other for while, decided to make our diner relationship official by introducing ourselves.  ronnie was his name.  so we started talking about everything.  mostly small talk but mainly joking around and having a great time.  i dont know how we got on the subject of living for the now but ronnie explains that we should really learn from children and their way of appreciating every moment and when people plan to much, they miss a lot around them.  of course i had to concur because our lunch was a perfect example of this.  ronnie and i could have just looked straight forward at our burgers, ate, and left.  but no, we didnt care too much about accomplishing the task of feeding ourselves and stopped to enjoy the moment.  i go on to explain that i wished i was a child again because it was so easy to make friends because kids just bother making it complicated like adults do.  "hey i like your shirt, we are friends now, if its ok with your mom, you can come over to my house to play and drink lemonade" done. easy.

when eating our burgers, the owner comes over and tells us to try eating them upside-down.  i kinda understood because i guess since the top bun was bigger, it would have caught more of the burger juice (they were really juicy).  ronnie chimes in, "well you are going to have to support my legs because im not too good at head stands"  

the owner, not really getting the joke, starts to explain to ronnie.  ronnie acted dumb and played along with the thoughtful explanation (so i thought).

burger was really good.  its no borough burger, but it was a tasty treat nonetheless.  

since i was in a diner, i had no choice but to get a nice chocolate milkshake for dessert.  however, the owner, being a great owner im sure, was a terrible server.  i wanted a damn milkshake and ronnie knew i wanted a damn milkshake but burger owner boy never came by.  so every milkshake that the server was making in front of us, ronnie treats that milkshake as my milkshake and no matter how the server was making it, he or she was definitely making wrong.  "oh theres your milkshake.....oh no....ohhh no, no! NOOO!!!!! NOT WHIPCREAM NOOOOOO, wait yes, nevermind, he does want a cherry to match my stupid drink"

needless to say, the servers were confused.  apparently to work at this burgery, you have to little to no sense of humor.  good burgers though.  good milkshakes too. (i finally got one when i got up and tracked down the owner)

ronnie was cool, we talked about so many things about music, life, and of course the philosophy of living for the moment so that you can truly appreciate life around you.  ronnie confessed that at first when he walked out of the bathroom and saw me sitting beside him he thought to himself, "fuck! get out of here, i just wanted to eat alone".  i laugh and told him that i thought the exact same thing.  but we both were happy that instead of getting pissed off that our original lunch plan was ruined, we chose to not care about our failed plan of silently eating alone and made the best of the situation.  

its funny that our plan was shit compared to the actual event that took place.  sometimes the best happenings in life arent planned but rather occur when you actually stop, look around and find something worthwhile that would have been overlooked if your plan succeeded.