Back in the day, my friends and I often found ourselves at Waffle House after a night of heavy drinking and heavy laughing. Many of those memories are irretrievably lost to the great alcohol abyss. But many live on.
In what may be part 1 of a series — there may be more, maybe not — below is a fictitious snippet that is representative of those late night exchanges The names have been changed to protect the retarded.
If you see yourself and your friends in this conversation, then give me some feedback. If you don’t, then I suggest you grab some friends, drink a few (lot), and head to a Waffle House (or IHOP). The memories are worth the next day’s pain.
The scene: 2:45 a.m. The boys have been out drinking for quite a while and they’ve stopped at Waffle House for some late night grub before heading home to pass out, which they refer to as “sleep.”
Jack: What are you doing?
Robert: Looking at the pictures I took tonight. Do you know that I can now take a video with my phone and post it on facebook or twitter or any of that crap within seconds? Pretty soon, we’ll all have cameras on our heads with the ability to publicize our every move.
Paul: It’s amazing. It’s like that old saying about stuff messing with other stuff, ya know? (Takes a drag from the straw in his tea glass.)
Jack and Robert look at each other puzzled.
Jack: No.
Robert: Not really. No.
Paul: Yeah, you do. Like if a boy farts in Arizona it kills a butterfly in Thailand.
Jack: What in the fuck are you talking about?
Paul: The saying. The thing. You know, about how we’re all interconnected and shit.
Robert: What the hell does that have to do with facebook?
Paul: I just mean that we’re all tied in together. What we do affects other people.
Jack: Posting pictures on twitter doesn’t affect anyone. It sure doesn’t kill butterflies. (Gets incredulous.) Do you have pictures of boys farting? How can you take a picture of a fart? There’s no visual to a fart. That can’t be.
Paul: Just forget it.
Robert: Good idea.
Long period of silence broken only by the tinkering of their silverware as they eat.
Robert (nonchalantly): Besides, they don’t let butterflies on facebook.

