The other night, I took Marti for dinner at Java House. Near the end of the meal, a large group of people came and started looking for tables.
They found enough empty tables near ours.
As they came walking up, we noticed that many were overweight, white males. As we listened and watched them, I noticed one guy with a St. Louis Cardinals cap. We continued to observe that they had a slight Southern accent. They were speaking loud. They looked tired. And, we noticed that in the group of 20, only one was a woman.
Marti and I started to talk. "I bet they are from Southern Missouri," I said. Marti returned, "I bet they have been on a church construction team." I countered, "I bet they are from a Baptist church."
After they got settled and ordered drinks, a couple of the guys got up and started for the bathrooms. I caught one of them. "Are y'all from Southern Missouri?" I inquired.
The guy looked at me in amazement. "Yes we are!"
"Did you just complete a construction project?" I continued.
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"Are you guys Baptist?"
"No, we are Assemblies of God."
The guy was stunned. I explained that I was from the St. Louis area and recognized the accent (and the Cardinals hat). And with an obvious group of Good Ole Boys (I won't use Rednecks) we reckoned correctly on the construction crew. We had a good laugh with the guys. It warmed our hearts to chat with them.
Two out three ain't bad. We'll do better next time!
Hey! That's just wrong! Why would you assume that overveight people talking loud are Baptists? ;-)
Posted by: Andrew | January 20, 2006 at 07:27 AM
Good call Tim!
Were they Rusty Wallace fans?
Likely there were a few Dale Jr. fans mixed in the bunch too!
Posted by: Rob T | January 21, 2006 at 09:56 PM
heh heh heh... "match the mzungu" is always a fun game to play in Nairobi.
Posted by: Matthew Loftus | January 22, 2006 at 08:48 PM