Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek and George Perez

This one time, a group of us went to Heroes Con, a good-sized comic convention, held in Charlotte, North Carolina.

And it was good, and we had fun (except for where the hotel thought it would be cool to screw with me....by like overcharging us, and then refunding, and then not letting us have local calls, and then making us pay like $1.35 more, which we paid in pennies--and then there was the bartender who ignored our party in favor of the women's soccer team that wandered into the hotel bar about the same time we did).

(That was a long parenthetical statement)

(And, in fairness to the bartender, I was paying my fair share of attention to the women's soccer team, as well....the drink of choice among women's soccer players? Rum and Diet Coke....except for the one girl who came in and ordered six shots of Wild Turkey, downed them all in one breath, and said to her teammates "I'll see you losers later!")

But anyway, one morning, everybody else had walked to the convention center, and I had to go potty, so I walked down well after everybody else had left the hotel rooms (though I probably walked the most comfortably).

As I was walking into the Charlotte Convention Center, I passed a little nook that many of these big urban convention centers have nowadays, that had chairs and tables and whatnot. And in this little nook, comic writers Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek, along with comic artist George Perez were all sitting, talking about stuff.

And I stopped, and I stared. I must have made myself conspicuous, what with my waving and drooling and saying "Hey!" Because Mark Waid saw me out of the corner of my eye. And he stood up, and he said:

"Get the Hell Out of Here, Fan Boy! We're talking about important stuff! Like Work!"

"And Girls!" added Kurt Busiek.

"And Pudding!" said George Perez.

Kurt Busiek then slapped Perez. And Mark Waid stared balefully at Perez, muttered something about "friggin' Crossgen people," flipped me the bird, told me to get out of there, and went back to talking about Work/Comics/Girls/Pudding.

Well, I couldn't have that. So I attacked.

This is why I can't turn my head to the left, and why I have a gimpy knee. Because I got dragged out of the Charlotte Convention Center by two of my favorite comic writers and a near-legendary artist, got my ass whipped "Puerto Rico" style and left for dead in a dumpster.

The worst part was getting found in a North Carolina landfill by Buddy Ebsen. (This was back when Buddy Ebsen was alive).

Editor's Note: Several parts of the post were true. Other parts were not. In celebrating the Titans' victory over Warren Sapp and His Ilk, Big Stupid Tommy ate the rest of the pickles in his gallon-sized pickle jar, drank the brine and then pulled the bag out of the garbage can and licked the bottom of the can....we don't know what exactly's wrong with him, though the licking garbage can thing is probably part of it. He's a little bananas this afternoon.