An interesting meal
After laughing our way through the movie, we decided to get a late-night meal at Magnolia Cafe. We sat down and perused the menu, then hub nudged me with his eyes and said “Problem customer”. I looked over to where he was indicating – a guy in a girl in a booth by the window. They were complaining about the service. Suddenly the girl lashed out with a barrage of “Fuck”s, mostly directed at the manager who was talking to her. The manager told her to get out of the restaurant; she didn’t appreciate being cursed at. (Scene from Clerks: “You’re not allowed to rent here anymore!” “Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeah!” Man, that cracks me up for some inescapable reason.)
The man at the booth then started spouting about his First Amendment Rights(tm). People just don’t seem to understand that the first amendment doesn’t give you carte blanche to, say, yell “Fire!” in a movie theater (although we should have done so during the movie tonight, as it would probably have been more entertaining than Final Destination 2) or go into a private business establishment and start verbally abusing the staff.
So the manager went to call the cops. In the time it took for them to show up, the couple plus their two friends in the booth next to them went outside and started pacing around.
It is important to note at this point that I had noticed a large and visible bulge in the small of the back of the man in the booth. I do have some experience in noting if someone is ‘printing’ or not, and this guy was printing.
I started to get nervous. So did hub. We looked for the waiter so we could change our order to go, and began to understand why the original couple was complaining about the bad service. I checked out the bathroom area for a back door – no luck. If we left, we were going to have to walk through the four pissed-off pacing people in the front of the restaurant.*
Well this was a dilemna. Just then the cops arrived. I only saw one car, but later discovered that three units responded. For about thirty minutes, the cops talked to the PPP* as we watched and waited for the front to clear. Hub said not to worry – it was APD, and if anyone started to get crazy, the police would just shoot them. Finally, the PPP’s friends drove off. That left the original duo – the guy who looked like he was packing and his foul-mouthed woman friend. Anxiously we waited while they wandered back and forth in front of the plate glass windows, the woman waving her arms around in an agitated manner. Finally they left too, and one of the cop cars did, leaving two behind to pull up and chat with each other. We made it out without incident and are safely home, where hub is now lovingly playing with his guns.
Was the guy carrying legally? I don’t know. I do know that hub was, and that he’s very relieved that he wasn’t involved in a situation where he might have to use his weapon. He also swears that he’ll never go out in public with only one mag again. Magnolia Cafe. Who’da thunk?
*”Pissed-off pacing people” has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
February 13th, 2003 at 7:11 am
Yeesh. That’s one thing about Texas I always have in the back of my mind… the fact that carrying a weapon is legal, and so many people are NUTS. This is why I rarely gesticulate obscenely while driving, esp. in a traffic jam.
I laughed, though, at your husband’s comment about the APD.
Was it the Congress or Lake Austin Blvd. one?
February 13th, 2003 at 7:40 am
Naw sweetie, it’s not the people who are carrying legally you need to worry about. They’re generally peaceful folk who are worried about protecting themselves and their families from the people who are carrying illegally. Granted, the PPP could have been carrying legally, but (sorry, this sounds really awful and I hope nobody takes it wrong) given his age and race, there was only a 4% chance he was, according to the DPS database on CHL licensees.
So about the whole violence thing – see http://www.txchia.org/Sturdevant.pdf for details, but for example in the years 1996-1999 the violent crime rate per 100,000 among CHL holders was 128, and for non-CHL holders was 683 per 100,000. CHL holders go through 8 hours of schooling on when they may and may not draw their weapons. Bad service is a “may not”. Protecting restaurant managers who are being held at gunpoint by a pissed off customer is a “may”. 😉
Now not gesticulating while driving, that’s another matter. I’ve had people follow me home and try to beat me up for honking at them. Mind you, I was in an SUV and the potential beater upper was a bicyclist who was going the wrong way down the street and I almost hit him because of it. He wheeled into my apartment complex after me and started shouting and cursing at me, and luckily my downstairs bodybuilder neighbor came out to rescue me. I was really scared, cause the guy was weird enough and intense enough and violating my personal space enough that I thought I was going to have a real problem. It’s times like that I wish I had been a CHL licensee – if it weren’t for my knight in sweaty armor, I could have ended up hurt.
It was the Lake Austin Magnolia, oddly enough.
February 13th, 2003 at 11:19 am
and they say texans are uncivilized. pack on, mama.
xo
m