Tuesday, July 5, 2011

That's Typing Tuesday #10: Joe Biden, A Wedding Reception And The Monkey's Brother—A True Story

"That's Typing" Tuesday, in which I share unpolished, unpublished writings from my vast store of unpolished, unpublished writings. On Tuesdays.

From an exchange of comments with my fellow blogger Thingy over at Pondering Life:

You ever wonder if we (or any of our fellow blogger pals) actually met at a party what we'd think of each other, at least before the conversation got around to mentioning "Yeah, I blog under the name Mythical Monkey."

"
You're the Mythical Monkey? I could have sworn you were the ghost of Cary Grant!"

Which reminds me of the time my brother wound up at wedding reception at a table with Joe Biden.

This was back about sixteen years ago. Steph—my brother's wife—was one of the bridesmaids in a wedding at the DuPont Country Club in Delaware. The ceremony was over and the reception was just getting going when in walked Biden and his wife.

"He looked like a movie star," my brother said—perfect teeth, perfect tan and a tuxedo that must have been custom made.

My brother just figured, well, it's Delaware, it's the DuPont Country Club, Biden is there for some other reason. But, no, it turns out the groom's father was Biden's college roommate, and the the groom's mother comes over and tells my brother, "Listen, Senator Biden never comes to these sort of events—everyone just want to talk politics."

Well, as my brother said, "It was an open-bar, you know," so who wants to talk politics anyway?

So Biden comes over and he introduces himself and his wife, Jill, first names only. "He sits with us for a couple of hours and is obviously having a great time," with the guys all laughing and carrying on.

Later, my brother and one of his friends went outside to smoke a cigarette.

"Hey, did you hear there's a U.S. senator here somewhere?" my brother's pal said.

And my brother looked at him and said, "Yeah, you've been talking to him for two hours."

"Joe's a
senator?!?"

4 comments:

Erik Beck said...

I am reminded of when I still worked at Borders and one Friday night Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward came in. We think they were in Boston for their wedding anniversary (which was the following Sunday). They asked for some help - we were very polite and they bought several classical CD's, a portable CD holder and the second Pirates of the Caribbean film. I went downstairs and watched as our cashier rang them up. Newman hadn't signed his credit card and our cashier, HAVING NO CLUE WHO HE WAS, then asked for ID. Newman seemed amused, but produced his ID.

After they left, I went up to our cashier and said "That was Paul Newman!"

She replied "Who's Paul Newman?" (this was 2006 - she was 21).

To make it worse, one of other cashiers (24 years old), said "You know, the salad dressing!"

mister muleboy said...

I enjoy Erik's story, because the same thing happens to me when I shop. . . .

Mythical Monkey said...

"Salad dressing" -- sheesh!

Of course, I couldn't pick Justin Bieber out of a lineup, so maybe we're even. But I doubt it.

Yvette said...

LOVE the Joe Biden story. That's always how I imagined him to be. :)