And that was when the squirrel fell on his head.

Well, Gentle Reader, nothing much of any interest happened today. I was racking my brain, trying to figure out what to post, when it hit me: I can tell stories about stupid things done by me, my friends, or my family members to my heart's content in this blog, and nobody can threaten to take my drink away for monopolizing the conversation!

Let me tell you, Gentle Reader, that was a big moment. I did a little dance from sheer glee. Of course, I then remembered the necessity to change names and identifying details and whatnot so that the individuals who play key roles in my Tales of the Silly don't get all mad at me. That resulted in a bigger dance of glee, because this means I get to give them the most ridiculous names I can think of...and they can't even complain about it. So, yeah, how awesome is that?

Anyway, I thought I would tell you the Ketchup Guy Story, since it's a story that doesn't involve any nudity, expletives, or squirrels. Because squirrels are totally the devil.

See, I used to work in a 24-hour restaurant that's known all over the Southeastern United States for having a yellow sign and attracting weird people. We'll call it Waffle Louse for the purposes of our tale. I would occasionally work third shift, which was 9 pm to 7 am. I liked it, being that I'm nocturnal by inclination anyway. It was usually just me and the cook after about two-thirty, when the other waitresses who helped with the bar rush scurried out into the night swearing they'd never look at another waffle again.

One night, the cook and I were sitting around and chit-chatting (we'd run out of other things to do, and our general manager had told us that if he caught us juggling eggs one more time, he'd make us scrub the grease trap out with toothbrushes), when this random guy comes walking into the restaurant out of nowhere. This was unusual due to the fact that there was absolutely flat slam NOTHING within walking distance of the restaurant, other than a (closed) gas station. We peered out into the parking lot and saw no cars, motorcycles, trucks, bicycles, vans, unicycles, or other vehicles of any sort. Not even one of those little remote-control cars.

At any rate, Random Fellow says not a word as he trundles himself into the store; he merely maintained that sort of creepy unblinking eye contact with me and headed over for a table. I thought perhaps he just didn't feel like saying much, so I started to walk over with some silverware for him. He got to the table and picked up the bottle of ketchup on it, still maintaining eye contact with me, and then proceeded to squirt the ketchup out into a little puddle on the floor.

This, of course, elicited much hollering of "Dude, what the hell are you doing?!" from me and the cook. Random Fellow continued his silence while he lay down on the floor and rolled back and forth through his ketchup puddle, smearing it all over his face, clothing, and the floor. At this point, the cook and I started to wonder if we should maybe call the cops...after all, behavior such as this tends to mean that the individual in question is perhaps just a wee bit off in the brainpan.

Our dear friend Random Fellow still didn't make a peep as he stood up, resumed his Creepy Reptilian Stare of Weirdness at me, and wandered back out the door and into the night. The cook and I couldn't quite believe that it had actually happened; he took photos of the ketchup schmear with his phone to show our manager the next morning. I mopped up the mess (and let me tell you, that got me cussing quite a blue streak), and we continued our experiment in whether lemons or tomatoes were better for juggling.

We never saw Random Fellow again, and we never did figure out if it was just a practical joke or what.