Okay, before I get started, the moral of the story is “always use the bathroom when your body says you need to go.” So Tony, Keen and I decide to go out last night and have some beers and play some pool. The best venue for this shiz is over at Phantom Canyon – great beer and good, cheap pool tables. So after like waiting an hour and a half, we finally got a table and started playing. And getting trashed. It was good. Nikki showed up, that was nice. Around 1:30am, we decide to head home. So we’re walking up tejon at early AM, and we see these three girls. We’re like “WHOA, three girls.” We have just enough liquid courage to talk to them, so we cross the street as planned and happen to be waiting with them at the light. We fire up a conversation, and it is good. We make it to just north of bijou and tejon (west side of acacia park), and we’re chatting away having a good time. One of their other friends shows up, so we’re standing around talking. One of the girls, Kelly, complains that she wants to go home, but has no way to contact her ride — I offer her my cell phone, and she steps away for a minute to make the call. So we’re talking to the other three girls, having a good time, and they decide they’re all ready to go. I get my cell phone back, and the Kelly girl says that her ride will be here in a minute. So the three girls go off to Tony’s or wherever, and Tony, Keen and I are standing around keeping this girl company until her ride shows. All of a sudden I have to pee really bad, so I go running off into Acacia park to pee on a tree. Luckily, they have port-o-lets on the east side of the bandstand, so I use one. I come out of the bathroom and come running back to the guys only to see, from about 40 yards away, some dude just up and cold-clock Tony, who sort of staggers and is stunned, then turn and rabbit punch Keen, who crumples to the ground. Then this random guy just turns and saunters away. I get over there, take a look at Keen, who had fallen down to make sure he’s okay, then turn to see Tony on his cell phone already talking to 911, covered in blood. I turn and flag down a passing police officer, who gets out of his truck and asks what’s going on — I say “My two buddies just got punched by that guy!” So the cop goes over to talk to the random dude, and sees the random dude push the Kelly girl down! Cop instantly hits a run, cuffs the dude and throws him in the police vehicle, while Kelly starts sobbing. So then, just like always, we get a fire truck to show up. And then we get like 6 more police cars to show up. And goddman a fire truck holds a lot of firemen. So we’re getting interviewed and Tony’s getting checked out, making sure he’s okay. The cops totally cross examine Matt and I’s story, then interview Tony, and of course all of our stories match up. The random dude’s buddy is apologizing the whole time, and was actually being pretty cool. Gladly, the punk bitch motherfucker was in the cop car the whole time. So the CSFD determines that Tony’s lip is fucked up, and sends us all (in a cab) to the emergency room. We get there, get checked in and all, and find out that Tony’s tooth went straight through his lip. I got to enjoy watching him and Keen get checked out by the nice people at Memorial hospital, and fill out sickening amounts of paperwork. I also got to see them squirt saline solution *through* Tony’s torn lip! We met a nice police officer-ess (?) named Shannon, who we determined we’d meet up with at Tony’s (the bar) some time and have a beer. We left the hospital and walked home, Matt with a bruised up face and Tony with three stitches and a guaranteed scar. Apparently the random dude was dating the Kelly chick, and gave the story that Matt and Keen, of all people, were trying to tear her clothes off and rape her (LOL) and that he was protecting her. Turns out the guy, Sal Alvarez (I think???) is a recent Air Force Academy graduate and that he is now facing two charges of 3rd degree aggravated assault — low level misdemeanors 🙁 … he actually got in more trouble for pushing Kelly than for decking Tony and Keen. Amazingly, Tony didn’t kill the little fucker … luckily I came out unscathed … if he had punched me, it would have been all out war – we all know my no-back-down attitude; ask tony about his episode with punching me 😉 So all of that totally brings to bear the moral of the story: when you gotta go pee, go pee, because you just might avoid some psychotic asshole punching you, getting interviewed by the police and enjoying a trip to the emergency room.