Special Olympics Poker Run

[watchman]

Saturday I attended the Special Olympics Poker Run, sponsored by the Missouri Highway Patrol. It was a fairly good run making a nice donation for the Olympics. But for the lack of a better word, my event happened during lunch in a restaurant.

For those of you who don't know me I am not a loud out going person. I do not like being the center of attention. A truly back row type of person, but being 6'2" and 290lbs it is kind of hard to not be noticed.

So, since it was pushing 80 degrees and being in the middle of this restaurant and having been seated with my back to the center of the dining room, I removed my coat to reveal my BRIGHT ORANGE " CAN YOU SEE ME NOW A**HOLE " tee shirt.

The room seemed very quiet. Then I heard some giggles, a gasp, one little old lady in the corner of the room loudly proclaimed " OH, my God " and several straight out laughs.

A couple of the Patrolmen that where riding with us and have known me for years came over to our table. I was expecting them to suggest I put my coat back on or maybe that I leave but instead they patted me on the back and said, " Nice Shirt ". I received several other positive comments during the rest of the ride from other officers and at the finial stop I had some people wanting to know where they could get a shirt like mine.

Although I never even came close to winning any of the prizes or the 50/50 drawing, I felt some how that I was a winner. I just hope I didn't cause any of those little old ladies in the restaurant to have a heart attack or get the vapors.

[ringadingh]

I had a similar incident about 30 years ago. We unexpectedly ended up at a fine dining restaurant for dinner in Quebec City. I was wearing a lime green t shirt with a big stoned frog on it that said " I'm so happy I could just sh*t". Although nobody said anything to me about it I was still very self conscious and embarrassed by it. Hopefully nobody there at the time could read English, this would have been my only saving grace.