Very Odd

Well, I'm back. Alex and I had a good time in Philadelphia. We met up with Cindi - a woman I met at the Myrtle Beach show in March - and her friend, Matt. I'll post setlists and reviews of the two shows when I get a chance.

For now, I wanted to relate two things that happened on the trip that were somewhat out of the ordinary.

We got into the city around 9:30 on Monday night and after driving by the Tower City Theatre and seeing "Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation - SOLD OUT" outside, we set about finding a place to stay. We ended up at the Summit Inn Hotel and were greeted by a mildly effeminate Andy Dick (of NewsRadio fame) look-a-like.

Andy instructed me to fill in a registration form. One of the spaces was for the make and model of the vehicle, and although I realized later that I didn't need to fill that portion in, I wrote down Alex's Dodge Intrepid license number. I thought nothing of that until 5:45 the next morning, when we were awakened in our hotel room by the blaringly loud ring of the phone. I answered it and was informed that our car was blocking someone in and we needed to move it immediately. I tried to confirm that it was indeed our car and was told it was. I wasn't sure how that was possible.

When Alex and I arrived in the lobby, we were met by a short man in coveralls telling us that we were blocking his truck in. We went out the front door, walked a short way to the car, looked around, and looked quizzically back toward the entrance. The man was holding the door open to the lobby and shouting in, "it's not their car!"

Then he came toward us, motioning for us to follow him to the side of the hotel to see where someone else's Dodge was blocking his truck in. He continued to beckon us as we stood completely still by the car (I was looking at my watch). He finally ascertained that we were not going to follow him and again came toward us, saying,

"LOOK - they blocked me right in! I know what my driver's gonna say: FUCK IT! That's what he's going to say - FUCK IT! That's what he'll say alright!"

Meanwhile, Oz and I had started walking back to the hotel with the guy yammering behind us all the way. I leaned slightly toward Alex while the guy was still talking and said, "well, I know what I'm about to say..."

So that was Tuesday morning. It took me about an hour to get back to sleep. I kept thinking what the front desk guy was going to have to do, since no one else really fills in their vehicle information when they check in and I had only done so because I wasn't sure that I didn't have to do so. Would they call everyone in the place and ask them what kind of car they drove? I was more amused than pissed off, but I'm sure other people might not feel the same way.
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On Wednesday night after the second show, we were waiting at the corner on the left side of the venue in hopes that Robert's vehicle would drive by us or perhaps stop and take us all to some fantastic place. Okay, well I knew that wasn't going to happen. I don't really know what we were doing there.

Anyway, our little group of four was approached by what looked to be a short, staggering troll. As it turned out, that was pretty much correct. One may also add the adjective 'drunken' to the description. The troll spoke to Cindi for a bit in terse unintelligible sentences before coming close to me. She (the troll) looked up at me and said something I failed to understand. She repeated, "can I kick you in the knee?"

I was not positive that I was hearing her right so I made an effort to confirm what she had said.

Me: "Can you kick me in the knee - is that what you're asking?"
Troll: "Yeah. Can I?"
Me: "Um.... Sure. Why not...."

At this point, the troll raised her right leg and struck a glancing blow to my shin with her foot.

Me: "You missed. Any particular reason you wanted to do that?"

The troll appeared not to hear me. Cindi asked why she would do something like that.

Troll: "Because he's hot and good-looking and taller than me."

Mystery solved.

As far as the hot and good-looking part, I did mention that she was intoxicated, didn't I?