I don't want to die in front of Bennigan's - A Prelude

Before I write my first "official" blog, just welcoming people and introducing myself and so forth, I thought I might begin with a delightful story from last night, which I will tell and then weave into my own life and this blog. For when no one appreciates you, you must appreciate yourself, and thereby render all things to be weavable.

I went out with my new wife - man, that still sounds weird to me - to eat at Bennigan's, a restaurant chain that is very Irish the same way Jeanne Zelasko is very attractive. In any case, as we sit down, the wife overhears a man on his way out tell the hostess, "we're going to have you arrested for overfeeding us." Funny joke, right? The guy had too many McFaggerty's French Fried Potato Skins and Blarney Stone Bite-size Buffalo Burgers, and washed them down with too many slices of green chocolate cake. Hey, the guy had a good meal. Slainte! But then, as the man goes outside, he collapses.

It takes a minute for the chaos to develop. Teenaged waitresses totally freak out, start asking customers if they have medical training, "like, any medical training at all, like, even medical assistant training." I do not. Our somewhat older waitress goes out to perform CPR - but not before grabbing a stack of napkins off the bar for some reason. I don't want to know the reason. The paramedics are called and soon arrive. There's a firetruck and an ambulance outside the front door of the Bennigan's.

At this point, we just kind of want our check so we can, you know, get the hell out of there. But since our waitress is outside performing CPR, it was a little late in coming. Eventually, on our way out, we were forced to step over plastic tubing and IV bags to get to the parking lot, and circumnavigate this poor man, lying on a gurney, with things stuck to his chest and a tube down his throat, responders working him over with chest compressions. I started to feel a little sick. And the only thing running through my head was "God, please don't ever let me die in front of a Bennigan's."

So that's why I'm writing this blog, if that makes any kind of sense. Sorry to get off on a morbid note, but I thought this bore a mention. Anyway, this is my blog. Hope you enjoy it. You probably won't. Jerk.