Last week at Wing Wednesday, being served by the best waitresses ever in the universe, Kayla Baugh and Codie Ann Blacquier (*citation needed), I caught myself being ‘That Guy’ at the restaurant.
I bellowed across the room like I owned the place demanding cutlery when I easily could have waited for someone to return to the table or walk up to the bar myself.
‘That Guy’ comes in many forms at a restaurant and the traits are not reserved only for the males of the species. They apply to females as well, but for the sake of brevity, all my descriptions will be referred to as ‘That Guy.’ That Guy at the restaurant is the one that complains that the ice in their water is too cold, the seats are too hard and their coffee cup wasn’t filled for the 1038th time fast enough. In short, it does not matter, That Guy will moan each and every time they go to a restaurant. I remember one time back in college sitting at a table where a guy ate 9/10ths of his meal and then told the waiter the food was horrible and it made him sick, saying that he didn’t want to pay.
Now don’t get me wrong, if it takes a half hour before you even get a menu, order a pizza and you get haggis, or you want your steak rare and you get an offering that looks like it was burnt by Lucifer himself, you have every right to complain. But, if you find yourself bitching that there were only 33 black olives on your plate of nachos when you really wanted 34, you are officially That Guy.
My gaffe at Wing Wednesday made me think about all the everyday circumstances we have in our lives in which traits of ‘That Guy’ can emerge where everyone knows who I’m talking about. Here are a few examples.
CLEANUP IN AISLE 9: That Guy always seems to be more prevalent during Cheap Tuesday at grocery stores. Just as traffic is at its highest, two women decide to stop their shopping carts side-by-side in the aisle to catch up on their childrens’ lives from the time of emerging from the womb up until securing the lead role in their Christmas play of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Oblivious to the fact they are causing a huge traffic jam and also oblivious to the laws of physics and engineering that this conversation could easily be done in a straight line in one lane, tensions mount among other grocery shoppers. That Guy comes in other forms as well at the grocery store, including arguing for 10 minutes that a coupon clipped from 1979 saving 17 cents on Spam is no longer being honoured. That Guy also sits in the check-out line for 15 minutes only realizing at the last possible second when all the groceries have been checked through that perhaps now is a good time to dig into that purse which I believe Jimmy Hoffa was buried in to find your credit card or chequebook to pay for their purchases.
WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER: Spending a couple of days in Las Vegas on the tail end of my most recent trip to Phoenix, That Guy can be found at every blackjack table. On one of my hands I had hit Blackjack, but the dealer was showing an Ace. Asking me if I wanted to take even money, I declined in that with that hand I bet only the minimum bet and mathematically the odds were in my favour that the dealer did not have Blackjack with their hidden card. If my theory was correct, I’d pay out 3 to 2 (win $7.50 on a five-dollar bet) instead of 1 to 1 (win five dollars on a five-dollar bet). Unfortunately, the dealer did have Blackjack and so I got a push and my bet was returned to me, no harm, no foul. Nevertheless, a woman at the end of the table started ranting and raving that I should have taken the even money as if it was her money I was gambling with and I had just ripped her off like an Enron executive, or that five bucks I would have won could have pushed me over the edge to buy that Porsche I always wanted. There’s always That Guy at the table offering up his advice on gambling to complete strangers as if they are high rollers. Ironically enough, That Guy is dressed like they could be mistaken for the homeless, never turn away a free drink, but never tipping the waitress and are always betting the minimum bet. I go to a blackjack table for fun chatter with the dealer and fellow players, not get a Blackjack 101 tutorial from a person who is losing their money more than I am and acting as if they have a free suite at the Bellagio.
SPORTS SHORTS: We all have a little armchair quarterback in all of us, but That Guy takes it to a whole new level. Never was that more prevalent than when I sat courtside with my uncle at an Arizona State college basketball game. It was a very fun experience being courtside except for the guy behind me critiquing every single play as it went down the floor, in that the home team could do no right, even when they scored a basket as the guy mocked the centre’s ‘two-inch vertical’ in scoring the basket.
The comments were sprinkled with That Guy telling his buddy ‘remember our epic games of pick-up basketball’ as if they were a small break away from the NBA. Taking a quick glance behind me of the guys making the comments and seeing that they both topped out at about five-foot-seven tops, I wondered if these ‘epic’ games of pick-up basketball were done between breaks of making toys for Santa. That Guy can also be found on the golf course, critiquing your golf swing although it’s like Operation Desert Storm out there for him with how often That Guy is in the sand or a scene from Tarzan with him swinging from the tree so much.