SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

WEIRD BY A HAIR

A couple years ago, some friends invited me along to assist in conducting a very scientific experiment in which we tried to find the best chicken wing restaurants in Tampa Bay during football season.

This effort, which we dubbed the Asses of Fire tour, nearly killed our intestinal tracts but was so far beyond enjoyable that it was worth every bite. We documented the entire effort on digital photos that were posted here and here.

Included in that documentation was this shot:

Zoom in a little closer and you can see that our server had some follicular issues:

Well, a lot has happened since then. Almost two years hence, the lining of our stomach has repaired as much as possible. We've moved on to ingesting far more harmful dietary intoxicants. And yes, we found the best wings in Tampa Bay.

But the gallery remains online. And like all photo galleries, it attracts some who might be considered a tad unstable.

My proof: I got an e-mail yesterday from this gentleman:

On June 6 [name withheld for privacy reasons] viewed your album entitled "Asses of Fire Part II" and wrote:

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Is there ANY chance u could get more pics of the hairy armed waitress or please email me at [e-mail address withheld for privacy reasons] - tell me where she works and I WILL go there --she is AWESOME!!!! thanks

Morbid curiousity being what it is, I ran his screen name through the search engine at Webshots and found a trove of music program photos taken at a high school in Oklahoma.

I saw a name for that school on one of the t-shirts in the photos and traced that school through Google. Then I clicked on the list of faculty and found a name for a music teacher whose initials match the ones in the e-mail.

Now, I don't know who this gentleman is. I'm not sure if I've actually tracked the right guy, but my previously hot-wing-stained gut tells me I'm correct.

I'm not going to reply to this gentleman's e-mail. The photo we took of the kind and gentle waitress was an accidental treasure trove of wing-related comedy, and I'm certainly not going back to the restaurant to take more photos. That would make me a stalker and a freak. Kind of like a music teacher who would ask for photos of a waitress and disclosure of her establishment so that he could fly across country to meet her himself. Key disclosure: Neither I nor my compadres have returned to that restaurant since our previous meal.

(It's at this point I usually state how proud this guy makes me to be a man.)

What I think I'll do instead is go ask the guy at the office with the hairiest arms on the planet, real "Planet of the Apes" opera gloves, and send those anonymously to him every day for a week from a blind Google account. Maybe even use the e-mail address of HirsuteLovinMusicTeechInOkie@gmail.com.

Would this make me a bad person?

Posted by Jeff at June 7, 2005 12:05 AM | TrackBack