I'll have what he's having

Apparently there's saving face, then there's saving your face. That's what I learned last week from my dinner at Circo.

The occasion was my annual pilgrimage to the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) automotive convention with my friend Pete (which I've written about here). It'd be safe to say we probably look forward to our dinner at Circo as much if not more than the actual convention. That was especially true this year since my good friend Kathryn, who works for Kia and was also there for SEMA, made the excellent decision to join us for dinner.

We didn't know it at the time, but come to find out she couldn't have picked a more perfect year to do it.

For those who haven't been, Circo is an Italian restaurant located lakeside at the Bellagio. Our table had a spectacular view of the dancing waters in front of the hotel. It always reminds me of the end of Ocean's Eleven, where George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and the rest of the gang are watching the fountains shoot 240 ft. into the air.

You know what else reminds me Ocean's Eleven? Every time I look in the mirror. If I had a dollar for every time I get mistaken for Clooney, I'd have - well, never mind.

The other thing we had a ringside view of were the two tables behind us.

Seated at them was a rather large Chinese contingent. That was the first thing we noticed. The second was the fact the drinks were flowing non-stop to their tables. Each person was standing behind their chair, not so much talking as screaming towards each other. The drunker they got, the more they'd bump into our chairs and the more they'd apologize for it.

At one point the decibel level and chair bumps got to be too much, so Pete turned around and let them know it. When he was done reminding them they weren't the only ones out to enjoy a nice meal that night, a gentleman in their party who was apparently working on his Foster Brooks impression staggered up to us and apologized profusely. He told us that the Chinese were a very loud culture. Loud and drinking (his words, not mine). He apologized again, we thanked him for his understanding and we raised our glasses and told him to enjoy his evening. Frankly it didn't seem like advice he needed.

Eventually the gentleman in their party pictured above had enough to drink. We could tell because he went face first into the table, and remained that way until the rest of his party had finished (apologizing) eating their meals and decided to leave.

Luckily he managed to save his face by not landing on any silverware (fork tines make such uneven piercings).

Just as two of his friends started to prop him up under each arm to drag him out, I quickly paid our bill and we started to walk out. My thinking was I wanted to get us out of there before he passed by our table. I was worried that just as he was being carried next to us, it would suddenly turn into the scene from Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life.

On our way out, the maitré d' apologized for the noise and the inconvenience. While he was genuinely sorry, apparently he wasn't sorry enough to make it right by taking something off the bill. I guess he figured if he did it for us, he'd have to do it for every table in the room that was being bothered by the group.

Which would've been all of them.

Afterwards the three of us agreed it had been a great night. Plus we got to do what a lot of people come to Vegas for.

Dinner. And a show.