Fish out of water

"It's not that I don't want my toast buttered, I just want to do it myself," my friend said.

"You're a pain in the ass," the waitress responded.

There was a moment of silence followed by laughter from our table.

My friend, you see, was a fish out of water: A Jewess from the big city ordering food in a Poconos diner.

Round two of the toast came only after round three of the omelette.

"People considering conversion to Judaism should have to sit through this," I said to another friend.

There is a reason, however, that the fish out of water scenario is used over and over again in movies and TV shows.

It's funny.

I went to the Poconos this past weekend with a crew of friends: boys, girls, old, new, one borrowed, and one even blue.

We stayed at a resort having a promotion for time shares. We paid a discounted rate in exchange for having to sit through an hour and a half-long sales pitch.

This could have been a torturous ninety minutes. It was, however, not. Buttered toast girl is an actor. She and another friend took on other personas for the duration of the pitch.

It is hard to do it justice but if you can imagine Borat meets Absolutely Fabulous you're on the right track. All this while an eager sales rep was trying hard to ingratiate and sell a time share.

Next stop was the tailgate party for the homecoming celebration of the local university. After crashing it we were duly rewarded by a jello-shot baring wife of an older alumni.

"What year'd you graduate?" she asked.

When we looked at her blankly she just laughed and told us the different flavors of the shots.

Saturday night we had a shark bake and dance party at the house of a friend's co-worker.

And by dance party I do mean dance party. These people were from Trinidad and they know how to have a good time.

There was Scotch and robot dancing and other craziness. This one was at least caught on video though I believe some participants are looking to get that video destroyed ASAP.

Sunday included a visit to the flea market and then a trip to a local petting zoo and snake observatory. The latter was the only dark spot for me all weekend.

I hated this place. Large wild animals were kept in small cement cages. The cages did not look as though they were cleaned regularly and the animals looked listless and depressed.

When the revolution comes they will go free.

But then it was back into the car and, after a stop at a scenic overlook, a return to the big city.

It was one of these weekends that just kind of came together. Random place and random friends. But it was also a perfect weekend, in the end. Everyone agreed.

Fish out of water in all their glory.