By the Light of the Moon, He's a Frenchman for the Night

That quote above is from a Jimmy Buffett song off the 1994 Fruitcakes album (Track title, "Frenchman for the Night", and yeah, I'm a huge Parrothead. Come at me.). It's also from the legendary night where I first met my friend Matt. Hopefully it's 100% accurate, but if it's not it's still damn close. I've told this story thousands of times and some things may have been embellished.

It was a weeknight, probably a Tuesday or so, that's when we used to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. I hopped in my 1997 Chevy Blazer, called Dave and was all like "Hey man, I'm on my way to the Condo." He probably said something like "Cool Ski-Doo Ninja." (Haha, what?) and I stomped the gas pedal through the floor. That Blazer used to roar, loud, every last ounce of that 4.3 Liter Vortec V6 rumbling, shaking, and roaring down 193 towards College Park as I watched the gas gauge steadily tick down. Way off topic.

So yeah, I get to the Condo, call Dave and he comes down to let me in. I'm pretty sure this was the point where he told me we had a special guest, Dave's friend from birth, Matt. It might not be, but meh. Either way, I was going to meet him that night.

So yeah, I get upstairs, meet Matt, sit around on the couches hanging out for a bit, then we roll off to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. Now, there's one part of all this I forgot. We were going to meet me and Dave's co-workers at dinner, Megan and Matt. Well, naming two Matts in the story will get confusing, so we'll call Matt II SpaceCadet (Thanks, E. She nicknamed him that because "His ears are so big you can see them from space."). Megan and SpaceCadet didn't have the best track record of showing up to places on time, but this night we actually did something about it.

Practical jokes are fun, elaboarte plans are even more fun, or at least they are to me, a twelve year old trapped in a twenty-one year olds body, So I get a text from Megan, and basically she says they're going to be running late. Real late. So Matt, Dave and I hatched a plan. Now neither Megan nor SpaceCadet had ever met Matt, and we decided as a threesome of immature goofy "young adults" decided to do like the French and "Gâchis avec leurs chefs parce qu'ils n'étaient pas très intelligents.", also known as "Mess with their heads cuz they ain't too smart."

And just like that, French foreign exchange student Herve Benoit was born. "By the light of the moon, he's a Frenchman for the night, by the light of the moon, it'll be alright"...

So yeah, the ground work was set. Did Matt know any French? Maybe a little, but we all knew Megan and SpaceCadet didn't, so we could throw a few random words in there and make everything Kosher. From there we ironed out details, Herve was from Nice, which is in South Eastern France. How did he know Dave? Well, Herve's mother and Dave's mother had been pen pals (I wanna say we decided they were college roommates for some reason?) and when the foreign exchange program opened up, Herve came to America to learn from a wise man named David.

And just like that, we waited for Matt and Megan to show up. I was worried about slipping up and laughing, but luckily we all held it together and sold it. As far as individual memories from what Matt did were air-masturbating and drawing a picture of him suffocating Dave with a pillow, a picture I'm proud to say that I still own. I dunno what else to really say about the dinner, other than the fact that Megan and SpaceCadet bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Are you wondering if there were any problems? Any slip ups? No. We came close, but Dave helped Matt count out "American dollars" from his wallet...even though his MARYLAND (Remember your Maryland license Matt? Love ya Chief haha,) drivers license was exposed the whole time. The best part of the night however may have been when we piled into Dave's car (Matt, Dave, and I) and had to keep our composure till Megan and SpaceCadet drove off. Then we all busted out laughing, like gut busting, ab crunching, knee slapping bellows of laughter. I'm pretty sure I cried.

So now fast forward a few months, or maybe weeks. I dunno, I wish I had written all this down when it happened because then I'd have it all fresh in my brain. Damnit. But anyways, so we all get together for Dave's birthday at Hard Times for what me and my current idol Matt had planned as the Herve/Megan & SpaceCadet reunion. We were excited, I had told Megan that Herve would be there and that he had "asked" about them, at which point Megan told me she had Googled (Is Google a proper noun? Does it need to be capitalized?) Nice and planned to visit Herve....

We. Had. Them. Fooled.

Then Dave leans across the table and tells them "Hey Megan and SpaceCadet, this is my friend Matt. He's not French, he's from SP, and went to school with SpaceCadet." or something to that effect and me and Matt were furious. We were ready to keep the charade going, and then it was over because we let someone else have control...

So in honor of Matt's birthday and the (Unoffical) Herve Benoit Anniversary, I present this story. 

Happy Birthday buddy, let's do fifty.