I’m thirty-nine years old and I still can’t stand sitting at a table and making small talk. In many ways, I’m a big kid. Whenever my wife has family over and everyone crowds around the dinner table, I’ll eat, share a few words with the guests, and then head off to the living room to chill with the kids and watch TV…or I retreat to the bedroom and change into pajamas.

Why? I’ll get to that.

Today, while searching Amazon for Funko Pop figures (you know I love those damn things), I saw one that kind of surprised me. Bob’s Big Boy. You know, the giant statue Dr. Evil hid inside to launch himself into outer space, but also the restaurant? Bob’s Big Boy holds a special place in my heart but also conjures up nightmares. Let me explain.

Remember in my last blog post I mentioned that my mom kind of kidnapped my brother and me and hopped a bus to San Diego? Well, there was a lot of shit that happened after that, including us (Kyle and me) going back to live with my dad in Tulsa for a while, but before all that, we moved from place to place in California. We started out living with my grandmother, and at one point stayed in an apartment with my aunt and her Navy boyfriend, but eventually my mom met a guy we’ll call Brian and things kind of went downhill from there. I’ll talk about Brian a lot in upcoming blog posts.

I don’t quite remember what led to our horrible living conditions, but I’m sure it had something to do with drugs. Eventually, we were homeless. My mental rolodex from back then is a bit cluttered and disorganized, so rifling through it doesn’t put things in proper order, but I do remember we lived in a car for a while. I slept in the backseat and during the day, we’d go to McDonald’s because they offered tiny, free, soft serve vanilla ice cream cones.

When we weren’t in the car or roaming the streets trying to collect frozen treats, we often spent our days at Bob’s Big Boy and our nights sneaking in through Brian’s mom’s apartment window so we’d have a comfortable place to sleep. You see, his mom was a real work of art and is one of the main reasons her son turned out as messed up as he did. She didn’t want us in her house, and she worked as an overnight nurse at a local hospital, so we’d head to her house late in the evening, climb in through the window, and sleep on her living room floor. Then we’d wake up early and leave before she’d ever know we were there.

Back to Bob’s. My aunt was a waitress there. I’m not sure how she got away with it since I can’t imagine many managers being cool with a family taking up a table all day long, but there we’d sit, in the smoking section, while my mom and Brian drank coffee and smoked and talked all fucking day long. For a kid, that’s excruciatingly boring, hence the part up top where I wrote that Bob’s gave me nightmares. I remember climbing under the table to play and trying to escape as possible as often, always to be told to sit still and behave.

“Sit still and behave, Chris.”

Nothing bad happened at Bob’s. It did give us a place to get out of the sun and to drink water and probably have a free soda or two. My aunt even taught me how waitresses get the fizz to go down in your soda so they can easily fill it all the way to the top. Not sure if they still use this practice, but back in the day they’d stick their finger in the fizz and the natural grease from the finger would make the fizz dissipate almost immediately. It’s gross, other people putting their finger in your drink, but try it. It works. I’m going off on a tangent. I do that often.

My point in all this is that still to this day, when I’m forced to remain at a table for too long, I get antsy. My legs constantly bounce up and down like a nervous puppy. It drives my wife nuts. It used to bother the hell out one female classmate in high school too who used to put her palm on my knee to try to stop me from shaking my leg at my desk. When I’m at the dinner table, I can make it through a meal and I’ve been to many business meetings and company parties and formal dinners. I’m good at doing what I have to do. However, I do find it extremely difficult to sit still at the table and make small talk.

I truly think it’s a result of spending so many hours being told to sit still and behave. When grandma and grandpa and auntie and uncle and friend number one and friend number two sit around the table and we’ve passed the point where people are asking others to pass the potatoes, that’s when it’s time for me to make my escape. If you’re looking for me, you’ll find me hanging out with my kids watching Netflix or playing PlayStation.

That’s one of the memories that made me.

Chris