My next encounter happened at a new restaurant that opened outside of town. The restaurant was called, ‘The Flying Tiger Griller’ and it was absolutely enormous. They turned an old airplane hangar into an aerospace themed family steakhouse with dining booths made from sections of old planes. In the back was a large banquet room that was made up so that you feel like you are sitting inside a futuristic space shuttle and eating your dinner in outer space.
So here is how it happened… My brother had turned 21-years-old that day and our parents wanted to do something special for him. My whole family piled into the car as well as my brothers’ girlfriend and my two best friends, Sean and Mark, and we drove out to The Flying Tiger Griller to celebrate my brother’s birthday. We were packed into the car like sardines, and to fit everyone in, we had to pile a few of us on top of each other. In the back seat, my brother’s girlfriend was sitting on his lap, Sean was sitting on my lap and Mark was squished in the middle of us. Of course mom and dad sat up front with my sister in-between them and by the time we arrived in the parking lot of ‘The Flying Tiger Griller’, my legs were numb, having gone to sleep under Sean’s weight.
Mark and Sean were just as excited as I was to get inside to see all the model airplanes, rocket ships and other aerospace memorabilia, but they stood by the car waiting for my legs to awaken while the rest of my family and my brother’s girlfriend went to get in line to enter.
Even though the place had only been open for about a week, everyone for miles around knew about its opening and the place was always packed. Thankfully, on this day, the line to get in didn’t look to be very long.
“On the way back, I’m sitting on you!” I teased Sean.
Sean laughed, “No, you can sit on Mark and I’ll sit on both of you.”
I was sitting inside the car with my legs hanging out the door while Sean leaned on the open door, and Mark stood gawking at the inviting entrance to the restaurant. Mark turned excitedly and bumped the car door, which barely touched my leg, but that was enough to ignite the pins and needles within my legs.
“Whoa yeah! They’re waking up now!” I groaned.
Mark bent down and started to rub my calves, “Come on, we’re missing everything!”
“PLEASE, OH YOU’RE KILLING ME, STOOOOP!” I cried out half laughing and half dying inside.
It only took a minute or two before I was ready to go in. Of course Sean and Mark took full advantage of teasing me, but I got in a few zingers of my own too. Dad had given me the keys with the remote for the door locks. I pushed the door closed, pressed the button and the doors clicked, then the three of us turned from the car only to stop dead in our tracks.
I’m not sure who saw the guys first, maybe we all saw them at the same time, but none of us could believe our eyes. No less than ten guys were climbing out of a School bus, and not a one of them were wearing clothes save for a cloth diaper, bib, baby-booties, a blue bonnet. The whole lot of them were sucking on pacifiers. They all looked to be about my brother’s age, maybe a little younger. Some of the guys were nicely tanned while others were pale-shinned and the second to the last guy off the bus looked like he hadn’t missed very many meals; he was the funniest looking of them all… I mean if you could pick out just one.
They all looked beet-red with embarrassment and completely miserable. Each of the overgrown babies had a different number painted onto their chests and backs and each was holding three helium filled balloons on strings. The balloons also had numbers on them that matched the number on the baby that was holding its string. I did a quick scan and saw that the highest number was twelve.
“Wow, there are twelve of them!” I commented.
Then from around the front of the bus came several other guys dressed in full football gear, helmets and all. There were too many of them to count but it looked like there were more of them than there were of the babies. The footballers began shouting at the babies, “COME ON YOU CRYBABIES! LET’S GET THOSE DIAPERED BUTTS MOVING! MOVE IT, MOVE IT, MOVE IT!”
“I think it’s some sort of initiation?” Mark observed, making it sound as though he was just thinking out loud.
The line of people waiting to get in to eat, exploded with laughter, cheers and clapping as they saw the oversized babies running toward them.
Mark fell on the pavement laughing. Sean was staring open mouthed at the spectacle. I think I was drooling, but none of us saw until it was too late that one of the babies had broken away from the bunch and ran right toward the three of us. When I finally did see him running at us, I stumbled backward and fell on my butt.
Sean didn’t move, not an inch, so he was the first of us to get a balloon. Yep, those babies were taking the balloons, tying the string to people’s wrists and chanting the same thing to each receiver.
“I am a North Middleton Freshman! Please accept this gift on behalf of the North Middleton Bulldogs. BULLDOGS RULE! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!”
The baby that had given the three of us his balloons was the first back to his bus, and I am sure he was overjoyed to have spotted the three of us standing so close. Mark couldn’t stop rolling on the ground and laughing through the event. The poor baby had a heck of a time getting that balloon tied to Mark’s wrist, but he finally managed it and took off as quickly as he’d come.
Once the three of us found mom and dad in the line, the rest of the day progressed normally, except for the topic of conversation at everyone’s tables seemed to be about the twelve oversized babies.