the best line ever...

I think I am at least somewhat amusing. Most people who know me laugh a lot at the stupid things I say, and I get much joy from it. I love making people laugh. I have done some writing and stand up comedy, as well as improvisational theater.
I feel I am reasonably clever and good at the turning of phrases.
I guess most of the people who bother blogging feel that same way about themselves. If you didn't think you wrote well and had an interesting way of saying things, at LEAST you think, would you bother?
I believe these things about myself. I believe I am the most clever and humorous in the room and I believe I am right 99% of the time.
I also believe that I do not hold the record for what, in my estimation is, the best line ever.
My friend Steve holds the belt for that one.
This is the story of the best line ever.
Many people have heard this story, but Steve feels I do it justice, so, for the uninitiated, or for those who would like a slightly more detailed version...
The story of the best line ever.
Note, I will make a rare exception to my self-imposed no profanity rule to be true to this story.
Steve and I were Matrix fanatics. We watched the original probably a hundred times between us. When we heard there were going to be sequels, to use anti-hyperbole, we looked forward to them.
I will define my own level of fanaticism, and let you draw your own conclusions about Steve's.
Beyond watching the first movie and unhealthy number of times, I bought everything that came out on DVD about the movie, including an incredibly long and, to use on of Steve's favorite words, W-Brother's hubris filled documentary on the making of the movie. I have played every Matrix themed game, from the excellent Path of Neo to the suck factor five Matrix mmorpg.
I made ringbones out of the phone ringing sounds in the movie as well as system sounds for my PC captured from the movie.
I own an Agent Smith action figure and referenced the Agent's attire when Jenn asked me what I wanted to wear to our wedding.
I am carrying most of the first movie's soundtrack on the very device I am typing into now.
I was/am into it.
I say was, because the sequels were not what I wanted. I am slightly more forgiving of the second; Steve seems slightly more forgiving of the third.
Just the fact that I have thought about which of us is more forgiving of which sequel should tell you something.
I won't go into our issues with the sequels as I think all that could be written on the topic has already been done. If I think of an original thought on it, I will let you know.
Hopefully, I've given you some vision into how seriously we might have been taking The Matrix Reloaded.
We were second in line for the night before opening day midnight show at The Providence Place mall.
We used to see a lot of movies there. It's gotten a little better now, but we had to stop for a while. It was getting to be a drag.
We saw Freddy Vs. Jason there at, like, 11pm. This is a movie that could not have been a harder R at the time. We were continually disturbed by the small children crying in the theater. Disturbed like our movie going experience was being messed up and disturbed on a deeper civilization is failing level.
(/digression)
We go into the theater and land choice seats directly in the center of the auditorium. Lovely.
Steve is a rather large individual. He refers to himself as fat, but that is not accurate. While he could drop a few pounds of fat, fat is not what makes him big. He is just big. I am not small, but compared to Steve, I am certainly small-ish.
We leave a seat between us when we go to the movies, whenever it is possible. It is not a gay buffer seat. It is a seat of practicality.
We figured that luxury was going to be beyond us as we assumed a packed house, but we utilized it as long as we could.
The group of guys who filled the rest of our row, making us lose the seat of practicality, is responsible for the speaking of the best line ever.
They were bigger. They were big in a Samoan way. Sometimes, when I tell this story, eyebrows go up. Maybe the word Samoan doesn't paint an immediate picture for everyone, so I will attempt to clarify.
They were brown, not like African-American, more like... Damn it. They were Samoan. Look it up.
While this is not a reference to anyone who might look Samoan, it did leap to mind when I saw them. They looked like they'd be comfortable following Genghis Khan around, agreeing with what he thought would be cool to do on any given day.
"I'd like to go pummel an entire country with big, heavy sticks. You guys up for that?"
"Yeah man. Sounds cool. Now where is my pummeling stick?"
There are enough of them to fill up the rest of the row and cause Steve to move into the seat of practicality.
The lights go down somewhat and the previews began. Remember when there wasn't a half hour of commercials before the previews? I think this was during that time.
While the previews are going on, and I cannot recall what any of them were, the Samoans are talking, loudly, in what I guessed was, Samoan. I think they were planning to sacrifice someone to a volcano, if they could find a volcano.
They were doing this loudly like they were in their Samoan living room. But, it was okay. It was just the previews.
Then the actual movie began with that first orchestral almost tuning up deal from the first movie that gives me chills. Matrix people know what I'm talking about, the rest of you may read that last line as:
Then the actual movie began.
The Samoans dropped the level of their conversation not at all. In fact, they did not seem to notice the movie had begun. In fact, they did not seem to notice the rest of humanity.
Now a word about my friend Steve's temper. Steve himself would probably tell you he could back it down a notch, maybe "chill out" a touch. He actually has, I think, but then, he was full on.
Steve and I share a problem. We both expect people to do what they should do. We expect people who are banging a basketball off the wall of our house at 2am, to realize what they are doing, say "Ooh! What the hell am I doing?" and stop.
Steve and I would both lay there and give that person more than reasonable benefit of the doubt time to realize and stop. So, by the time either of us decides to do something about these behaviors of others we are WAY more pissed than we would have been if we reacted sooner.
This was going on in the theater. Steve's anger is like a change in air pressure, a change in the weather. It comes off him in waves and has been proven to effect the growth of vegetables.
The anger waves were hitting me in the side of the head while I watched Trinity do cool stuff with a motorcycle helmet.
I waited.
They kept Samoa-ing just as loudly.
I squinted, hunched my shoulders, and waited.
Steve turned to the nearest Samoan and said, the best line ever.
"Do you think you guys are going to find the time during this movie to shut the FUCK up?"

Find the time. Are you going to find the time? Brilliant.

Why? Why is it brilliant? Why is it the best line ever? Because it completely messed with the head of its recipient and his group.
They shut up immediately, but not because Steve asked them to, because they were processing.
Wha... Find the time...? Does not compute. Need a luau...
The other thing they were calculating was the odds. The guy Steve spoke to looked at him, then looked at me, who obviously was the only other person with Steve, then looked back at all of his guys, and I think counted them, then looked back at us.
He must have figured we had guns or were cops or knew kung-fu or something, because all he said was, "Hey, you don't have to SWEAR at me. Geeze."
He didn't actually say "Geeze.", but I wanted it in there to give you a sense of HOW he said what he said.
And that was the end of the encounter. They were silent for the rest of the movie. I fully expected some pain experience, either emotional or physical or both after the movie, but none came.
I think Steve apologized and I think the guy grunted and walked away.
Great lines have impact and I've never witnessed more impact than that.