Let's Go Get Stoned

Saturday night I went out with friends to catch "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy." The movie was great, but you're reading the opinion of a Douglas Adams fan and frood who knows where his towel is, so it's also a biased opinion.

Anyhoo, we were leaving the theater when we came upon this guy who fell asleep halfway through the movie and, upon seeing us, proceeded to ask an endless series of questions about what he missed.

And this guy had "comic book geek" written all over him. He was short, round, grease stains on his shirt, and a perpetually confused smile on his face. I almost mistook him as retarded, but as a reformed comic book geek myself, I eventually figured it out.

My favorite question was , "So what happened at the end of the movie?" So I told him that Arthur Dent gets Trillian and they all decide to eat at the restaurant at the end of the universe.

This is where the fun starts. Comic Book Geek asked me, "What was the name of the restaurant?"

"There is no name," I said. "It's the restaurant at the end of the universe."

"It doesn't have a name?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's just the restaurant at the end of the universe. It's book three of the series??" I had incorrectly assumed that since he looked like a comic book geek that he'd read the Hitchhiker's trilogy (in four books, but Adams admitted before his death that he was never very good at math.) I began to wonder if he might have been retarded after all.

This still didn't register to Comic Book Geek. "The restaurant has to have a name."

"No it doesn't. It's just the restaurant at the end of the universe."

"But what's the name?

"There is no name. It's the restaurant at the end of the universe."

Comic Book geek eyed me warily. I turned to catch up with my party, hoping the questioning was over when he asked, "Okay. Do you think there will be a sequel?"

The interrogation was devolving into an Abbot and Costello routine. "Yes", I said.

"Did the words 'to be continued' appear on screen?"

"No, but it's implied by the way they left everything sort of open."

"And the restaurant has no name."

"No."

"Why doesn't the restaurant have a name?

"It just doesn't."

"But if it's at the end of the universe, shouldn't it have a name so that people can recognize it?"

I scratched my head and headed with my friends to the car, bidding my farewells to Comic Book Geek, who had an even more confused smile on his face, and left him to the care of the theater ushers to answer his questions.