It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

It was me (I’m Brick Prior, star of your dreams and nightmares!) being dragged to a maid cafe at an anime convention.

And the cursing starts (or does it?)… after the jump!

I’m an old man at anime conventions- the fandom hasn’t really catered to me since 1997 and “Neon Genesis Evangelion” was some hot shit.  Even in the middle of “Cowboy Bebop”’s popularity, it was constantly muscled out of the spotlight by “Dragon Ball Z” and various incarnations of “Gundam”, so as far as anime goes, I’ve never been a fan of the “hot shit”.  Personally, “yaoi”, “yuri”, and “moe” were punchlines among convention goers… and now it’s a fucking movement.  I’m all for movements and whatnot, but when the joke becomes the movement that surrounds you at every turn, you’re lost and you feel like shit.

That was a joke about bowels, by the way.  I’m working on those site hits!  TITTY TITTY TITTY BOWELS SHIT.

Anyway, the question stands:  am I out of touch with my fandom, completely secure with what I like for entertainment and unwilling to budge in my ways, or just well on my way to becoming a crotchety old man?  Survey says that the answer lies in a combination of choices two and three, but for the benefit of this piece, let me tell you how I ended up at a maid cafe on Friday, February 12th at Katsucon 16.

AND IT GOES A LITTLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS

Brick is busy drinking an adult beverage of his choice due to having some downtime before drinking more of said drink.

ROOMMATE #1:  Hey, I got reservations for the maid cafe, so we’re all going.

BRICK:  You guys have fun.

ROOMMATE #2:  You’re going too!

BRICK:  No, no, I don’t go to those.

ROOMMATE #1:  You don’t want to be seen as a dirty old man, right?

BRICK:  Yeah!  And, last year, something fucked up happened.

ROOMMATE #1:  What happened?

BRICK:  Well, I was waiting for the elevator, and this dude comes running up the steps all out of breath- he was a heavy dude, breathing hard and whatnot, and he goes, “…did… did I… is this the line for the maid cafe?!”  I told him no, and he goes, “Whew!  I thought I missed it!” and continued breathing heavily.

ROOMMATE #1:  You don’t want that to be you, right?

BRICK:  Hell no!  I got standards!

ROOMMATE #1:  We’re going to drag you there.

BRICK:  GOT DAMNIT.

BACK TO THE EXPERIENCE

For me, the idea of going to a maid cafe just isn’t on my personal radar of Things To Do- it’s not my scene, and it’s not my thing.  However, since it was for the greater good, I tagged along with my friends just to see what the deal was about- our reservation (remember, said reservation was made for me whether I wanted to go or not) for Saturday, but we got bumped to Friday night, so… yeah, it was pretty fucking popular.   We get our table, we sit down, and it turns out that our maid just so happened to be the most awesome maid ever… so I will refer to her as “Osaka”.

Why?

THIS IS WHY

 

 

When Osaka went to our table, she was TIRED.  Dead tired- I’m talking “up since six in the morning, having to wear a maid outfit to deal with congoers all day, stole twenty minutes of a nap while leaning against the wall” tired.  She was so tired that she said things that I don’t expect to hear in a restaurant setting, such as:

“I don’t know what’s on the burger, I don’t really see the food, I just kinda bring it out.”

“If it sucks… *shrug*, I dunno, throw something at me or yell at me.”

“There’s a whole lot of sexual tension in that anime, I dunno… something about a teacher and her student’s in love with her, and boobs.  It’s nuts.”

NOTE:  “Onegai Teacher” was playing behind us, and she’s just about dead on with that description!

Osaka was firing on all of her tired, worn out cylinders and you know what?  That was quite alright with me!  I got a burger that had enough onions on it to feed several third world countries twice over, so my breath was AWESOMELY BAD about two bites in.  There was onigiri that tasted like floam with rice smattered around it, but if you put enough soy sauce on it then WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY you got yourself a small meal, Shia LeBouf fans.  Osaka kept popping back over asking us if the food sucked and if we were going to throw things at her if they got stuff wrong (SPOILER ALERT:  we did not yell at her or throw things), and all in all it was an interesting experience.

Not my scene, like I said… but any time I can cap a night off with this exchange, I consider said evening to be a success:

OSAKA:  Well, I hope that wasn’t the worst experience of your life.

BRICK:  Nah, not even close.  There was this one time I was on a bus and it flipped over…

The look of horror on her face was priceless until I explained (complete with WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY NONONONONONO WAIT hand movements) that I was joking.

THAT ONE WAS FOR YOU, BLIBBLAB

I’m Brick Prior and I love being awesome.

Here’s to you, Katsucon Maid Cafe!  You managed not to send me into a cursing tizzy!  Hooray!