If you understand this post - you're a geek.

The sailor and I are concluding a day of fish watching (we went to the aquarium) with a very rare trip to the Hard Rock Cafe. We're chomping down on our burgers, making funny and insightful comments about the music videos that no one else would get but us, and glaring at the kid who keeps kicking my husbands chair in a temper tantrum. I'm impressed with the patience C. is showing the kid...I'd have almost bet that he'd have scalped him already.

We eat, we pay, we head for the door. Sometimes it's nice when life is so simplistic.

Then I get bumped by someone making a fast exit from the gift shop. I turn around and am faced with a flashback. It's 1968, Vietnam, the jungle. Helicopters roar above my head, the heat is oppressive. I march till I feel I can't march anymore....Jimbo is leading point and...

Then I remember I'm 23 and can't remember Vietnam, the flashback that just walked into me is also probably around 23 and couldn't possibly remember Vietnam.

But he looks like he does.

The boy is decked out in old style green fatigues complete with the ENTIRE gear pack. He has a bandana tied around his head too. The only incongruous part of him is the neon blue canteen that's peaking from his left hip pocket. But I think he needs it cause it's really hot today. Not jungle hot, but really hot.

He has to push past me cause I'm dumbstruck. Following the anachronism in motion is a girl with a weird cat-ear-type hate and a chick in old 80's biker shorts under a blue skirt slit up to the hip.

C. pulls me out of the restaurant while I try and convince my jaw to reset itself.

"What's that?"

"I dunno, pretty elaborate. I think they're CosPlayers."

"No!"

"Yep. I think so."

"No!"

"It is, and he's that guy."

"What guy."

"The one with the long cutscene."

I rack my brain through catalogs of glanced at Japanese Comics, pages and pages of Manga, thousands of episodes of X-play......ooooooh:

"SNAKE EATER" I sing.

Snake from Metal Gear Solid 3 has just pushed me out of the way at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Snake is kind of a prick.

Suddenly I turn around fast, scanning the surrounding area.

"What are you looking for kitty-cat?"

"Raiden." I say, "Naked Raiden."

"Doing cartwheels." We both finish together.