DAY THREE – CONT'D
After some more browsing, Ben and I split off from Sam and went to a
panel discussion of the art of Steve Ditko, the original artist for
Spider-man. His art is very distinctive and, better yet, he’s enough of
an eccentric that there were bound to be some good stories. I won’t bore
you with the details (that’s a
mission accomplished), but Ben and I found it interesting, and it sure
beat hanging out in the hallway and watching volunteers taze attendees.
After that panel, we got back together with Sam and agreed that we had
had about as much fun as we could stand for the day. Our route back to
the shuttle stop took us right by the line for the Comicon’s annual
evening masquerade, and Ben and Sam were a bit creeped out by the line
of people in costume that stretched beyond the horizon. We’d seen many
of them wandering around throughout the day, but Ben and Sam explained
that the idea of an exclusive communion of these folks seemed especially
disquieting and not altogether prudent. I could see their point; one
Cabbage Patch Doll might seem cute, but spend some time in a room full
of them and I doubt if you’d ever be the same again.
I already had plans for dinner; I wanted to get a Chicago-style pizza
pie, which I haven’t yet been able to find near my house. After some
yellow-page research that morning, I had the address to Lefty’s Pizza,
just a few minutes drive from the Con. I punched it into the GPS, and
very shortly we were in front of the 2 square feet known as Lefty’s. The
pizza was the greatest; we didn’t actually have any because we were told
that it would be at least an hour’s wait to try one. But the signs said
it was the greatest, and that was good enough for me. I’ll come back
some other time and find out how you lose your right arm cooking pizzas.
Plan B was Phil’s BBQ, which we had carefully selected from all the
restaurants we could see from our 3rd floor hotel room
window. So we pulled into Phil’s parking lot and were again encouraged
that we had made a good choice, since there was a line snaking out the
front door and down the block, except for a break at the intersection
that was policed by a Phil’s volunteer.
Rather than delay our dinner any further, we went down the street to
Chile’s, which was doing a brisk business thanks to the “Pretend
We’re Phil’s” banner over the door. And it was kind of comforting
knowing that at that very moment, millions of people were eating the
exact same thing as us.
We made one more quick stop at the nearby Ralph’s supermarket to pick up
some dessert, and we left with a sack full of Good N Plentys and those
Little Debbie cookies that are filled with a space-age polymer.
As I mentioned earlier, by the time we made it back to our treehouse, we
were bushed. Luckily, I had hidden the camera, so Ben and Sam couldn’t
take a picture of me sleeping with Good N Plentys falling out of my
mouth.
All material copyright 2009 Chuck Thornton