Hey there. Disfriends.
After quite an extended break full of fun and exciting life skill lessons, quality time with my General and a household-wide bout with the stomach flu... I am back to work on this stupid trippie.
I'd have preferred the Bird Flu.
I think.
Compared with the stomach flu.
Although from the sounds emanating from our master ensuite washroom, compliments of my beautiful bride, I have to say it sounded like Wile E. Coyote was finally successful in strangling the Roadrunner.
So.
Maybe it WAS the Bird Flu. Afterall.
Beep. Beep.
Ok. Back to Disney:
We finished up at the wonderfully horrible Clown Slide Pool and headed up to our room to get ready. Shower and shave.
Well... I did, anyhow. My beautiful bride just got dressed and opened himself a beer.
After I shampooed, conditioned, moisturized, powdered, perfumed, dried my hair, put on make-up and got dressed... he was on his THIRD beer.
This is how a spouse's drinking problems start. TFI.
Not that he has any problems drinking. BTW. He's an excellent drinker.
Beth was ready. Tommy was ready. Calvin was watching Stacey. Again.
You're welcome!
For that.
I pried him away to get ready. With my foot. To his butt. Briskly.
And we set off towards Epcot and The Biergarten.
Again.
Yes... again.
I KNOW...I KNOW. We are the thrifty, competitive, stuck in Frontierland, gourmand happyhaunts.
Except for "gourmand".
We just like pork products. A LOT.
We were also pretty late in the evening and would only be able to get in ONE of the dinner shows at The Biergarten. This evening.
Leaving the rest of the happyhaunts waiting helplessly in the middle of Germany. Beerless. And without a grasp of the local language... I headed over to the Biergarten's podium to check in.
"HOLA!" I greeted the perfectly blond German podium folk, "We are slightly late for our ADR. Schade. Lieben Sie Sie bedeuten es. Dank!"
Magically they were ready to seat us immediately.
I called the happyhaunts over and with a cheery "ROLLEN SIE GEZEITEN bedeuten es!!!" We headed to our table.
That translates: Roll Tide, mean it!
If anyone cares.
They didn't. It appeared.
We plopped our stuff down and ordered BIG GIANT BEERS. To start.
Then headed as a group of ravenous edgy Canadians towards the grub.
That translates as: We politely took our place at the back of the salad bar line and chatted up the family in front of us as we waited.
With a bunch of "youbetcha's" and "eh's"!
I returned to our table to find our tablemates had magically appeared while we were piling weiner salad on a large plate.
Well, I was. At least.
Again... no one else in my family was interested in cold sliced weiners and cooking onions doused in vinegar.
No accounting for taste.
I'M THE GOURMAND. Here. Is what I'm tryin' to say.
But, and here's the best part, our new tablemates were three FUN people.
From Orlando.
And ONE of them. Was a geeky Disney photographer!!! OH YEAH!!!!
A SWEET Disney geeky guy. Of my very own. To sit beside me and buy me drinks.
Here we go:
There I am with my BIG BEER. And my beautiful bride's BIG BEER.
And my beautiful bride. Well... part of him anyway.
Here's the BEST PART:
Note the SHIRT.
OH YEAH! One sweet Disney geeky guy down.
One to go.
Our new tablemates were so much fun. So friendly. So social. So silly. They were just like US.
But they didn't have kids. With them. Or... at all.
They were impressed by our kids.
At how fast they could eat a lot of food. And then run off to dance to the German oompa band.
I said, "Watch THIS! I can dance too!" And I ran off to join the kids.
The music was great and I decided to embarrass Beth, yet once again, by going all Rock n' Roll Jack Black. On the dancefloor.
Mellyman captured it all on video.
Regretfully.
Because, truth be told, I have NOTHING on Jack Black.
And, yet, I BROUGHT THE THUNDER!
Enough to horrify my dear daughter and make her promise, later in the evening, that if she ever, EVER gets married... there will be NO BAND. NO MUSIC. And... Mommy will be wearing a MUCH longer dress.
TFI.
Then I returned to the table. To applause. To find that our wonderful tablemates had ordered a round of SHOOTERS. For us all.
Here:
Yummy! They were called: Jagermeister.
Tasted pretty good. And went straight to your head.
They ordered another round. And then we all got up to dance. Again.
Except for Mellyman, the Disney photographer geek guy and the other guy.
So.
Just the kids and the women.
Danced.
As usual.
The other lady and I danced together. In sync. We busted moves like were were a synchronized girl band. From the eighties.
It was, if POSSIBLE, even MORE embarrassing than my Jack Black imitation.
The kids were having a great time.
Except for Beth.
Who decided to abandon me and my posse. And take over the videoing from her father.
Who was laughing too hard to hold it steady.
Then we made our way back to the table to eat some more AB FAB German food and hastle the servers for pretzel bread.
Of which there was NONE at the buffet.
NONE!!!
To be found.
I decided to take my complaint straight to the top.
The guy behind the salad bar adding the ice.
I told him there had been a run on the pretzel bread and there was none left. And I needed some. Post haste.
He said he'd go look but it was late and yada yada blah blah.
I told him that Canada had pretzel breadsticks.
He wondered why that mattered.
I said because I was FULLY CONFIDENT that he could take the Canadians, as they had taken the French years before, and head over there jump the flannel-wrapped Northerners, jersey them and steal a few pretzel breadsticks.
For me.
I also said I was Canadian too.
He disappeared.
For good.
I went back to our table and finished my meal.
Without the pretzel bread.
I also finished my BIG beer and found that I was ONCE AGAIN... drunk. In The Biergarten.
I know this because Mellyman said, "Mel, you're drunk in The Biergarten again."
We finished up and talked to our new drinking friends again and then said good-bye.
I said good-bye to my sweet geeky new Disney friend. I cannot remember his name after all this time. And, in fact, I didn't call him by it the whole evening either.
I think.
Anyhow... I KNOW he was a good guy because he let me call him "ZZUB" for a good two hours. At The Biergarten.
Yes.
He only said, twice, "My name is not ZZUB."
And then gave up. And let me call him "ZZUB" and buy me free drinks.
What I'm sayin' is this: We had FUN at The Biergarten. I highly recommend it. To you all. And I'm a GOURMAND. After all.
Lack of pretzel bread notwithstanding. It was a marvelously fun time.
This is me saying good-bye to ZZUB:
Except... it's NOT ZZUB.
But... who cares?!
Except the real ZZUB. Who is probably doubled over in disgust at this very minute.
Heh heh.
Well. My bad. And all that.
He already knows.
Cheers, Mel.
To be continued. Up next: I go back to the BWV and vomit.
I think.
Heh heh.
Great to be back. My apologies and all that.
Roll tide.
Can't wait to read more!!
Double Darn! 
Lots of fun to read, Hauntie. Glad to see you aren't a ghost anymore.
