MY LUNCH DATE WITH O.J. SIMPSON...

Me and The Mrs. have a standing date for lunch every Friday. Even though we work together, and spend about 23 hours a day together, at least once a week it's nice to eat someone else's cooking (for her...not me so much).

This is a sacred tradition, and the only exception is if Friday falls on Christmas, or Thanksgiving. (If you're from Arkansas I'll give you a minute to catch that one).

Well yesterday was Friday, and it was my turn to pick where to eat. I guess I had the big Florida-'Bama game on my mind so I thought about a place I hadn't been in years. There is a good restaurant in north Bossier called "Gators." We went in and were lead to our table by a little gal whose hair was still wet. The Mrs. explained to me that she had something called "moose" in it to make it look that way...you can imagine the conversation we had about that...

Anyway, I learned a few lessons about a lunch date from eating at Gators.

1) Don't take your wife to a restaurant that has TVs on the wall, especially if the volume is down and they're running "closed captioning" if you want her to have an enjoyable dining, and conversational experience.

2) Don't take your wife to lunch while O.J. Simpson is being sentenced...no matter what crimes he commited in the past, or what he might do in the future...don't do it.

3) Don't be too timid to ask the wet-headed hostess to cut the danged Closed Captioning off, and turn the volume up.

4) Don't sit at a table next to 6 over-sized Rednecks who hated O.J. already before he ever killed Nicole.

5) Don't try to read a TV screen, act interested in what the wife is saying, and eat fried catfish at the same time.

6) Don't ever have any anticipation that that chick Judge is ever gonna stop running her mouth. (I swear, I know that gal saw this as her "moment in the sun," but c'mon...just shut up and sentence him for heaven's sake, so I can eat and quit trying to turn one eye up, and one eye on the Mrs. and the food.

I think her sentence took longer than the danged trial. I swear, I would hate to be married to that Judge woman...droning on, and on, and on, and on, and on...I'll bet she's divorced. Twice.

7) Don't imagine for one second that you can add up consecutive & concurrent years, months, and possibilities of parole on count after count in your head while you're talking to your wife about Christmas gifts for the kids and ever figure out how long O. J. is gonna be a guest at the GrayBar Hotel.

8) When you see a stream of 20 blue-haired old bitties coming out of the back room, jump in line in front of them to pay your ticket or they'll be serving dinner before everybody gets their check paid.

I finally just hollered at the moose-haired hostess and told her I was leaving it on the table. She gave me an understanding smile. Since I didn't have small bills that made me leave a bigger tip than I wanted to. But I wanted to get out of the parking lot before 20 old half-blind women that all wanted to pay with correct change and couldn't quite find the coin-holder in their purses started backing out (if you know what I mean).

Heck, you should have seen those old broads looking scared, and as white as sheets. One of those Redneck boys had a tablet and a pencil, and he was adding years and months & subtracting, and had three columns set up so he could figure out exactly how long O.J. was getting. By the time we left, those 6 Redneck boys were hollering, and occasionally using potty-mouth words in reference to O. J., and high-fiving, and a couple of them were walking from table to table delivering the news (tablet in hand).

As we were walking out the door, one of them even grabbed an old blue-hair and started dancing with her.

She was the only one in line that looked happy.