Yet another weird story I can't make up...

I was born in Virginia, but raised in Northeast Tennessee. Where I grew up, we were known for being the birthplace of the plastic 2-liter bottle and a hot bed for June Carter Cash sightings. Not so much for our amazing choice in restaurants. We had the wonderful, and still there today, Pal's and Skoby's, which has now been turned into a teaching facility. Sure, we had an LJS and a KFC, and a Shrimper down the street from A&W. But if you wanted to get crazy, you went to Johnson City. They had a Bennigans, El Chico, Peerless and, for the seafood lover in you, a Red Lobster....among others. So for special occasions, we went to the JC to get some fancy grub. That, my friends, is where things went all wonky one evening for our family and friends.A little backstory: one of our familiy's dearest friends is my Uncle Sidney. He grew up in my hometown and was a colleague of my father's at VPI. He and his wife and family became some of our closest friends. After Virginia Tech, he and Dad both worked in private industry before going back into academia. Once he moved away, my mom would go every Wednesday to the JC to take Uncle Sidney's mother, who lived in a retirement community, out to lunch and to run errands. Uncle Sidney would come in every so often, stay with us sometimes and go see his mother and TCB. One day we decided to all meet at Red Lobster in the JC for dinner. My brother and I were thrilled. One, we didn't eat out much, two, uh, shrimp and three, a Roy Rogers and a Shirley Temple. What more could kids want? We all met, dressed in our going out to eat finery. I probably had some Docksiders on...don't be jealous. Some of us are just fashion forward. Cough cough. Wen we got there, they were in the dinner rush and led us to the lounge area where they encouraged people to relax with a few Lobsteritas while waiting for their table. We just sat there for a good while and did some major people watching. In the lounge, there were lots of walks of life represented. Rich, poor, couples, families, bikers and singles. My brother and I focused in on the bikers. Now, I feel I must clarify, I am not ragging on bikers. In that time, there weren't so any types of bikers. You didn't see Alton Brown "Feating on Asphalt" while riding around on his BMW bike. I have several dear friends who ride now...and if I weren't such a chicken about it, I would too. We had the Honda or Harley redneck, are they Hell's angels?, kind of bikers. They were there with their girlfriends, who both looked like Janice from the Electric Mayhem:

The men looked like the stereotypical Hollywood Hell's Angel. One looked just like the "Lone Biker of the Apocolypse", for all you Coen brothers fans out there, and the other looked like a mean and angry Mickey Jones.

We were all in the lounge for an eternity, or what seemed like an eternity to an elementary schooler who was hungry for shrimp. My brother and I watched the foursome knock back pitcher after pitcher of beer, all the while raising their volume level to that of a small roar. The ladies switched to fancy drinks with stirrrers in them. Finally, we all were shown to our tables. Here was the set up:

. We all sat down, anxious to eat. It had been a long wait. The "foursome" sat down and immediately ordered more pitchers of beer. We ordered our food, I getting my beloved popcorn shrimp. This was before I discovered the love that is the scallop, but they were good just the same. The "foursome" became louder and louder, using questionable language for a family dining area and questionable grammar. The reason I point out grammar is that Uncle Sid's mother was a former English teacher and sometimes chastised us for "murdering the King's English". Every time they threw out an odd sentence or profanity, she would remark how the profanity wasn't used in the proper context. This was very amusing to a kid, especially when it was an 80+/- year old woman discussing profanity use with me. The waiter went to the group and asked them to quiet down a bit, which was met with laughter and another order for a pitcher of beer. My brother and I couldn't help but stare and my parents kept telling us to not look in their direction. A girl server brought their food, which was two huge steaming and heaping plates of crab legs and two more pitchers of beer. They attacked the beer with great gusto, slamming their mugs together like it was Oktoberfest. And there the crab legs sat. "I wonder if they are going to eat?". Mom said, "Don't be rude. Mind your own business.". Then we started noticing how long the legs had been on the table. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Then the "Lone Biker" noticed that dinner was there and went to have a crab leg. He noticed it was not the temperature he wanted it to be, so he called the poor little waitress over. He pointed out, rather loudly, that the crab legs were supposed to be steamed and they were cold. She skittered off quickly. Then he started very loudly expressing his opinion about the $@?&! quality of the service and the $&#>? quality of the food. The waiter appeared along with the manager to try and calm them down. The other man stood up, grabbed a handful of crab legs, broke them in half and shoved them at the manager, loudly expressing his opinion of their being $&(@/ cold not hot. The manager tried to explain that they were hot when served, but because they kept ordering beer, they had become cold. I think it was at that point that one of the adults at my table instructed us to be quiet and look at our food. Suddenly, a large bouncer type appeared and suggested it was time for them to leave. That is the point when, after throwing out multiple screamed f-bombs, the "Lone Biker" picked up the remaining platter of crab legs and threw it at the wall, shattering the plate and sending juice and bits of crab everywhere. He then flipped the restaurant off, grabbed his date from the Electric Mayhem, and exited the dining room. My father tells the story that he watched his children's faces as this was going on and saw all the color drain out of them. He can laugh about it now.Again, you must be asking, "Why on earth does she tell these weird stories?". I don't know. Maybe after all these years, it explains why I get twitchy when eating shrimp.