I first met TL via RC via MJ...that is to say, RC called MJ while we were living in Los Angeles and asked him if her friend, TL, could stay with us a night as evidently the hotel she was staying in was filled with cheerleaders and they couldn't leave the day they were supposed to - so, incoming folks had to find another place to stay. Figures, doesn't it?
TL was in Los Angeles for some sort of symposium. She had 3.5/yrs of college under her belt and was insistent on becoming a movie producer of some sort...that is until she went to Los Angeles and realized that this wasn't going to be a possible dream anytime in the near future. She quit school, left her dream and moved back home to the middle of farmland Oregon. Of course, before all this happened, I met her that night, while she shared a piece of floor with myself and 3 others. Our "apartment-mates", B & CE, rented the place MJ and I were staying, and my best friend JZ had moved in with her boyfriend (now husband of 20+ years and 3 kids). B & CE are another story, but for now the important information is that they had the 1 bedroom (which also contained the bathroom, so you had to hope they weren't having sex if you had to use it), and we all had the small floor of about 300 square feet. So...now there were 5 for a night. Because of space issues, TL and I took off and went out to get coffee or some such and we instantly hit it off. When I moved back from L.A. the following year we started to hang out incessantly. We were pretty much inseparable.
When I first went to TL's place, her parents huge, finished basement with 2 full rooms, she showed me 1) her massive shoe collection (literally she'd put Carrie on Sex and the City to shame), and 2) her Burger King Vases collection. Yes, you read that correctly; Burger King Vases. Did you know that Burger Kings used to have vases on each table? I think that TL is probably the reason they don't anymore. She had at least 30 of them sitting out, and had little labels on the bottom as to where each one came from.
Of course I inquired about these, and from then on every time we'd go out to do something and saw a Burger King, and actually wanted food from there, we'd have to go in and she'd steal another vase. She did have a rather large purse, and I was quite impressed with her stealth and ability to walk out of the restaurant with the vase, water and flowers all tucked secretly away. It kind of reminded me of my grandmother at buffet restaurants tucking half eaten chicken into greasy, semi-used white napkins into her purse for later meals.
One day TL informed me that she had a goal...the grandest, biggest heist she could pull: The Burger King on Broadway in downtown Portland had inside camera's! TL told me that if she could get one from this location, it would be the finality to her collection - the best piece she would have - the most dangerous, the most sought after. So, of course we devised a plan.
Now, I'll freely admit, TL and I did some pretty crazy crap back in they day - we were two peas in a wacky pod, so stealing a vase from a Burger King with camera's installed didn't seem all that odd...well, at least no odder than stealing a full set of silverware from Denny's over the years (TL was working on the other table items when I met her).
Unfortunately for this story, stealing the vase from Burger King was almost a little too easy. We waited, watched the camera's, watched all the people staring at us (it was night, not the best part of town, we didn't quite fit in), and she lifted the vase. We left quickly, laughing all the way to the car...and, that was that. She finally hung up her vase stealing hat for bigger and better things, like sugar holders, salt and pepper shakers, and the like. But, it was the pride factor that she had - over 40 vases in all. To my recollection, shortly after this Burger King abruptly stopped having vases on tables...and again, I swear it's all TL's doing.
-AA
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