This is from postings made to rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan by Bill McCarthy (mccbill@carolina.rr.com) and Craig Moe (craigmoe@mindspring.com) on Feb 7, 2000.

Be sure to look at the pictures from this social.

Putting the Harlot Back in Charlotte: A DFS Report

>                              Introduction
>        "So, you're going to write up the report on this, right?"

Wow. And I was only kidding when I said that. Obviously, my responsibility-shirking-persuausion powers are getting stronger.

> Ages come to pass, memories become legend, the wheel in the sky keeps on
> turning, I don't know where I'll be tom... Anyway, there's a wind
> somewhere in this. The wind starts, blows for awhile, and dumps 20" of
> snow in _North Carolina_ for crying out loud. I'm still bitter about the
> wind.
>
>                              The Arrival
>            "You came all the way down here just for this?"
>
> So a few weeks ago, Bill McCarthy and Leah Cole, obvious snowblind and
> sufferring from cabin fever, decided to hold a Social. Thus Saturday
> afternoon found me driving through 30 miles of highway work zones with
> nary as much as an orange barrel, heading for Charlotte.

Which beats my driving through the same highway, Friday night/Saturday early morning in my car which blew the wiring harness for the brakes. Never thought I'd need a chopstick to shift my car before. Sigh.

> Armed with two
> sets of directions, one of which even seemed grounded in this reality, I
> had little trouble finding the Wing King Cafe. I had a little more
> trouble finding the party, because a tall man by the entrance waving a
> 600 page book was not a sufficient clue.

Oh good, I was going for subtlety. It worked. To your defense, there were two parties going on that night, so you had a 50/50 chance to be wrong. We're glad you found us. And Leah's directions really weren't all that bad. She just got I-85 and I-77 mixed up. Very easy to do. Really.

> I was soon corralled and
> introduced to everybody: Leah and Bill, their friends Robin, Ivan, and
> Jenn, Jeff Stockwin and his wife and children, who I'm reasonably sure
> had names as well.

I want to say Celeste, Julia, and Emma... am I right Jeff?

>                                Dinner
> "I teach 9th grade boys. These are the only way to get their undivided
>                              attention."
>          "Well, their slightly divided attention, at least."
>
> We had dinner, which consisted, suprisingly enough, of a variety of
> Buffalo wings. An attempt to order a steak sandwich was thwarted by the
> language barrier. "Steak sandwich" in Charlotte means "Leave waitress,
> never to return."

And don't forget to mention that they had to retrofit your steak sandwich to make it of the "Plain" variety. Very clever of them. But the wings were tres tasty. And there were lots of them. It's one of my guilty little pleasures that I indulge every once in a while. I just thought the presence of dark cheesy surroundings, good music, tasty food, and smoke lent itself to followers of the Dark One.

> In between the flying paper towels, I began to learn troubling things.
> First, I was the only person at the table actually from the South.

For very cultural values of "the South". After all, both Ivan and I are from Miami. That's pretty far south, if not exactly what you meant.

> I
> appropriately scoffed at their stories of defending their homes from
> large beastial creatures storming out of the B^W^W Canada. I found I'm
> thin enough to qualify as an honorary Scandawegian.

This is true. CD, I think Craig is trying to give you a run for your money. What's that Craig, 6' 4" ish and how many pounds?

> I also learned useful
> life skills, such as important accrouments to weild while teaching ninth
> graders (breasts) how to judge the attractiveness of various All-Star
> hockey players, and that as a Southerner, I have no idea how to
> pronounce anything in the Old Tongue.

I must have missed that conversation. It must have been the aftermath of the mindboggling of this next tidbit:

> At some point the conversation turned to encounters with various authors
> and their children, and Jeff revealed he ran into an author of middling
> success while wandering around Charleston on a sunny day a few months
> back.

Jeff and his wife met the Creator. Whilst on a vacation in Charleston a few months ago. And he didn't even bother to ask him "Who killed Asmodean".

> Eventually it was revealed that large portions of the tables were
> uncultured to the point of having never seen _The Usual Suspects_, and
> plans were made to rectify this. A party was sent out to capture said
> film, another to bring back important survival goods, and a third to do
> something with a moose. I kept my distance from the third party. The
> planning was almost for naught, as Bill promptly decided that
> photographs must be taken. Jeff rushed his family to safety in the
> confusion,

But Bill was too swift for him. I caught him trying to sneak out without being photographed. I got him, his wife and one of his daughters in the pic.

> while the rest of the groups earlier bribes to waitress to
> feign unfamiliarity with the camera were to no avail; pictures were
> taken. I'm in them. They'll appear somewhere, I presume.

Yah. I'll upload them to my computer tonight and email you a copy. I still don't know how I'm going to display them for public mock^H^H^H posterity. Either put them on an existing DFS site or get off my ass and put one together on my new carolina.rr.com domain.

>                                Foraging
>            "Shh, I belive the spoon is trying to say something."
>
> I was sent with Jenn to get the necessities, beer and ice cream. We
> obtained a moderate amount (6 flavors seemed reasonable at the time) and
> then retreated to Casa McCarthy, which, I believe was somewhere in
> Tennessee.

6 New flavors on top of the small mountain of ice cream I already had. As of this morning I had 10 cartons of ice cream in my freezer. Not that this is a bad thing. And that's after Leah rescued a carton of Phish Food to take home with her on Sunday.

> Being the first to return, I recieved the tour. I, along with
> Jeff, having foolishly returned after getting his family to safety, was
> introduced to the WoT game at this time. I reinforced my theory that I
> suck at first- person games.

You're not the only one. At least not this type of game. I spend more time fleeing and admiring the scenery than killing anything. But the scenery is worth it.

>                    I've Grown Bored With These Captions
>      "Oh look, there's a worse time to call out the wrong woman's name."
>
> Movies were watched, and treated with due reverance. It was determined
> that Kenneth Brannaugh running across a bridge in _Dead Again_ is
> apparantly a racial memory all people are born with.

I must add that Brannaugh looks night and day different without the beard, and reiterate my theory that the scissors in Dead Again came from Shadar Logoth. Jeff fled after watching the first two movies and we settled we took bathroom breaks, ice cream breaks, and started Reservoir Dogs. Halfway through the movie, Craig and I looked up, counted the sleeping bodies, and decided maybe we'd all better turn in for the night.

> People slept, it is assumed.

And what an assumption that is. It was around 3ish when we started figuring where everybody was gonna sleep. This is the problem when you have a four bedroom house and only two beds. Interestingly enough we only used one of the beds. And Craig used a couch. You do the math.

> The next morning Leah cooked a wonderful breakfast, which wasn't given
> the proper respect, primarily because we were half asleep and suffering
> from the gastronomical devastation the wings wreaked the night before.

Thank you Lee-ur! Don't forget that I made the toast... Dawn came waaaay to early.

> I
> apologize for that. People not in attendance were mocked as they justly
> deserved. And thus, having worn out my welcome, I was given a parting
> gift, (Ivan) dropped him off at the airport, and went to work.

Thank you tremendously Craig, I am forever indebted to you for dropping Ivan off at the airport in Raleigh.

You're one pretty cool guy and so were the Stockwins. A fun time was indeed had by all. We had a book discussion or two, and I think I got another Bujold convert out of the whole shebang. The only complaint, as usual, is that we didn't have enough time to spend with friends.

> I leave anything out?

Hmm... lessee ice cream, scissors, cleavage, phototechnology disinclination, chicken wings, more scissors, beer, Couch of No Return, driving, lack of sleep, ObPython, and look it's more scissors! Check.

A great weekend, and we'll have to do it again.