The thread before the game thread

You know how to bring the enthusiasm, CMoney. I am officially counting the minutes to our next encounter with the pretty pretty ponies! And I have a story about waiting on basketball players.

Years ago I used to work at a Houston restaurant in the River Oaks shopping center — Birra Poretti’s. Normally I was a cashier, but occasionally I would fill in as a hostess or waitress if need be. I still have nightmares about that place, but I digress . . .

Anyway, one winter night the Celtics were in town playing the Rockets, and I was listening to the game as much as I could via the radio in the kitchen, but I was waiting tables so I only heard it in bits and pieces. I was rooting for the Rockets, of course, even though it was a tough stretch for the team in those years. No Dream yet — it was Ralph Sampson and Craig Ehlo’s rookie year, in fact. And the Celtics were an effing powerhouse (I think they won the championship that year?), so we were not expected to do anything but lie down and die. Larry Bird had a monster first half, and it looked as though the expected blowout was underway.

But somehow the Rockets caught fire, and somehow they dominated the second half, and somehow they won! By the end of the game everyone was hanging out in the kitchen and listening to the radio and we let out a big cheer when victory was announced. Then we all went back to work. We got pretty busy (it must have been a Thursday or Friday), and the usual restaurant insanity took over our lives, thoughts of a rare and sweet Rockets victory banished.

The manager motioned me over and asked if I was going to be able to handle a big table (there was a huge bias against women in that place — we were usually considered suitable only for hostess duty where the cokehead owner could hit on us — they didn’t like having women on the floor or behind the bar, and we were called upon to wait tables or bartend only when they were desperate for more hands).

Dollar signs appeared in my eyes and I said I was sure I could handle a large party, and the manager said, “We’re putting them in the Ardeca room.” (This was a smaller dining area all pimped out with neon and chrome and curved lines because its real name was the ART DECO room, but I was still a teenager and pretty dumb and had no idea what “art deco” was and I thought it was called the ARDECA room, and I didn’t even figure this out until I was, like, 30. When it hit me in the middle of some completely random unrelated moment and I said “ART DECO!” out loud and proceeded to laugh until I was crying, much to the mystification of whoever was with me wherever I was. But I digress again.)

So I trundled into the lovely Ardeca room and there was a table full of Celtics. Larry Bird. Robert Parish. Kevin McHale. Danny Ainge. Various other very tall dudes. It was quite intimidating, to tell the truth. I mean, not only was it a big table, it was a BIG table. But they were very nice, and all went smoothly until I got a little too relaxed and remarked to Larry Bird that he had certainly had a great first half.

He just looked at me. “What about the second half?” he said all gruff.

 I fumbled about for something to say and finally settled on, “Can I get you a drink?”

Larry wasn’t amused, but everyone else at the table roared with laughter and I got everybody’s autograph. The end.