Operation: Denny's (by Chris Wiggins)

This is Chris Wiggins here.

Ted's not doing very well folks. He's currently in the hospital, over at Kaiser, recovering from... well... he got his ass kicked by an angry mob. He's still got his good eye and he's not got any permanent brain damage but it's going to be a few weeks before he can put any weight on his right leg. It's also a good thing that he's already past the age of caring whether or not he has kids cuz he got stomped in the jimmies pretty hard.

Right now I'm in a little internet cafe cuz Ted wanted me to give you all an update on what's been happening. There's been a long painful story down here in Fresno but since I'm not near the quality story teller that Ted is I'll leave all that stuff to Ted when he gets around to telling the story. Really, I just wanted to let everyone know what happened just the last Tuesday.

Everything really started on Super Bowl Sunday. Me and Ted and Jim Jenkins were all over at O'Brien's tavern watching the game. Ted had been drinking a bit more than normal since the lay off. Losing the gig driving the train at the park really put Ted in a bad place. Everyone's been helping everyone through the tough times. Jim's the only one that's workin' and we're all staying at his place until things start to turn around.

Anyway... Ted hasn't been updating his blog in a while because of financial and housing trouble. He lost his job, lost his apartment, had to sell off a lot of his stuff to to keep his head above water.

But back to the Super Bowl. We've all been struggling but we pooled some money together to have another get together at O'Brien's. Since I stopped drinking after that last seizure I had (at this very bar I might add) and Ted's been worried about his blood-pressure and not drinking as much it wasn't really an expensive evening.

Things were going pretty well - though we were disappointed we didn't get to see that porno they played in Arizona during the 4th quarter - but we did get to see the Ad for Denny's offering free grand slam breakfasts on Tuesday. Ted just about blew a blood vessel right then and there.

It didn't take him long before he'd told us about a plan he'd come up with for Tuesday - all three of us were going to get our free breakfasts. From 6am - 2pm on February 4th, we were going on a breakfast binge. Jim and me thought it was funny at first. We get used to this sort of stuff with Ted after a while. But this was different. Ted was super serious. He said we weren't just going to A Denny's we were going to EVERY Denny's in the greater Fresno Area.

The plan was to start early with the two Denny's downtown followed by the two just off the 99. Ted said we'd eat breakfast at the first one then for the others nibble at the plate a bit and get the rest of the breakfast to go. He thoughts we could do the first four by 9am. It was a dumb idea but times are tough and a couple of grand slams could make for some good leftovers. So, we went along with it.

Sure enough 8:45 and we'd managed to get in and out of the N Abby Street, M Street, S East Ave., and N Parkway Denny's; all in under three hours. We laughed at ourselves a bit for giving Ted a hard time and were about to head home with at least another days worth of food when Ted asked us where the fuck we were going. There were six other Denny's to hit before 2pm so we had to get moving.

Jim started to insist that Ted let it go - but Ted went crazy and started beating on Jim. Took his car keys and told me to get in. Ted shouted out the window asking if Jim was coming he just gave Ted the finger and we drove off.

First on the list was the Denny's on Clovis Ave. around Sunnyside. The lines were starting to get long but Ted played the blind and crippled old man angle and managed to get us bumped up the line. It pissed a few people off but we got a seat - munched a bit of the egg and bacon then asked to have it boxed up.Next we hit the Denny's on N Blackstone. It was maybe quarter past 10 (10:30 at the latest) when we pulled up. Ted was getting anxious and the line was wrapped around the parking lot. Even though it was long the line was moving fast and we only had to wait about 30 minutes before getting a couple of seats at the counter. The food came fast (as I'm pretty sure they have about 1000 of these things pre-made and sitting under a heat lamp) and with our customary 5 minutes of nibbling and pushing the food around we asked for a box.

It was getting close to 11:30 when we started for Dennys #6. Ted decided that we'd hit all the places on Shaw - starting down by West avenue, stopping at the Denny's on N 1st and hitting the last one down by the College just past the 168. We were about halfway to our next stop (somewhere around Shields and N West Ave) when I said to Ted that I didn't think we'd make it to all 10 Denny's before 2 o'clock. Ted snapped at me - said I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about.

The backseat was full of to-go boxes... full of eggs and toast and bacon and sausage... pancakes and syrup. At first the car had this nice warn breakfasty smell to it but now it was starting to smell a bit more like an abattoir. I said "c'mon Ted. We've got enough food man. Lets just go back and pick up Jim - go back to his place and unload this. We've got enough food for a good dinner tonight and breakfast in the morning." Ted started screaming at me about how no one followed through with things any more and in tough times like these quitters were doing to be the first to die.

When Ted gets in his moods we've all learned to just go with the flow and ride them out.

When we got to the Denny's the routine didn't change much - maybe he embellished a bad hip or played up the blindness but people felt bad for him and we managed to hustle our way through the long lines. We got in - got our food and took off. As we left the Denny's there by Fresno State Ted noticed that it was 1:45. The trip to the last Denny's over on Herndon is about 6 miles away and in good traffic with a bit of speed you can make it in 10 minutes. Ted wasn't happy. He started complaining about wetback waiters making $2.50 an hour not giving a shit that he had to wait 5 minutes for a crappy free breakfast. I didn't bother to mention to Ted that he hadn't tipped a single waiter or waitress at any of the restaurants we'd been to and the only money he spent was for a cup of coffee at each place. Which I thought was curious because I know that Ted is supposed to staying away from caffeine on account of his blood pressure. This might explain why things went so wrong at the Riverpoint Center.

I'm not sure how he managed it without running through or over any number of obstacles that we sped by along the way but Ted pulled into the parking lot of the Riverpoint Center with 5 minutes to spare. The most interesting thing about this Denny's was that there was only the slightest remnants of a line left. Ted didn't even think he'd need to use his gimpy old many routine - but better safe than sorry Ted thought and off he went to get us a better place in line. Ted shuffled up to the hostess and started with his blind and crippled routine but the hostess wasn't impressed. She explained that they were no longer seating anyone for the free breakfast and had just finished handing out rain checks for a free grand slam on another visit - but only to the people who had been in line before 2pm. Annoyed buy placated by the idea of simply having to wait until tomorrow to get another free breakfast he agreed and asked for the coupon.

Very politely the hostess informed him that it was 5 minutes past 2:00 and she was not able to give out any additional rain checks. The noise that came out Ted's mouth made my blood run cold "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" he jabbed his finger at his watch and screamed "IT'S 1:58pm. - I'VE GOT TWO MINUTES LEFT SO YOU'D BETTER GIVE ME MY GOD-DAMNED COUPON!"

The hostess was backing up toward the door as she started to say "I'm sorry sir we..."

that's when Ted really lost it. He lunged at her and tackled her to the ground tearing off her apron and uniform screaming:

"WHERE'S THE FUCKING RAIN CHECK?"

WHERE'S THE FUCKING RAIN CHECK YOU STUPID BITCH?"

"OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!"

"I JUST WANT MY FREE BREAKFAST!"

The patrons inside the Denny's had heard the commotion - as did the few remaining people that were waiting in line outside. At some point in the melee Ted threw Jim's car keys at someone and out of sheer luck they landed not but a few feet away from me. Not wanting to have any part of what was already a very disturbing situation I snuck over to Jim's car and took off. I don't think Ted even noticed. If he did he hasn't mentioned anything about it.

I drove back to Jim's house - who had just got a call from the Sheriff's department telling him that Ted was being taken to the ER at Kaiser. Figureing that TEd was in pretty good hands at this poring we unloaded the remains of 19 grand slam breakfasts. It's was a pretty good haul, considering:

35 pancackes

31 Sausage links

29 strips of bacon

33 Eggs (20 scrambled / 13 over easy) We told Ted not to get the eggs over easy becasue over easy eggs don't travel very well - but he never listens.

We got anassortment of toast but better than that we got some great condiments:

about 90 single serving containers of jelly

125 coffee creamers

a large collection of sugar, sweet-n-low, equal and splenda

4 bottles of Tabasco sauce

2 full bottles of ketchup

and stainless steel knives forks and spoons to serve 4

In hindsight Ted had a really good idea. But like a lot of Ted's really good ideas they aren't thought through very well. I mean Jim and I have all of this food - which by rights half of it is Ted's. But his jaw's going to be wired shut for another 3 weeks and this food won't keep that long so it's pretty obvious that Jim and I aren't going to let it go to waste.

Even so... Ted's got a room and all the food that he can eat (well suck through a straw anyway) he's got some great pain killers and on demand television. I think Jim and I need to see about getting our own rooms at Kaiser - at least until the economy picks up.