Tag Archives: humor

Memoir of a Vasectomy

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The decision to stop at two kids was an easy one for my wife and me. We had a boy and a girl, and we were pretty darn sure that having only two meant we could shower them with every last morsel of affection we had which meant we wouldn’t spread our love too thin.  However, the decision on how to prevent a third child wasn’t quite as straightforward.  At least not for me.

My wife did all she could by bravely stating that if for any unfavorable reason the doctor was forced to do an emergency C-section and cut her open, that she would ask them to go ahead and tie her tubes.  Unfortunately for me, she experienced a relatively uncomplicated and effortless childbirth in which our son came shooting out of her like he was on a water slide at Raging Waters, USA.

Tragically, this left me with two choices:  get a vasectomy or go out for milk and never come home.  I didn’t like either of those options, so I tried to beg and bribe and reason my way out of it. I’ll have to admit that my arguments sounded pretty lame compared to hers.  She would remind me that she had passed an 8 pound human through a hole the size of a quarter. Twice.  And I would I counter with, “Yeah, but I built you that planter box last Mother’s Day.”  Ok, I’ll admit it, bad strategy.

For those men out there who may encounter this same predicament, I think it’s only fair that you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into when you commit to a vasectomy, or as I like to call it:  The 10 Stages of Hell.

1.  Denial:  Like me, you’ll put it off for awhile because deep down you’ll foolishly believe that there must be another solution that you’re not thinking of. You’ll ignore the impending doom and go about your day while thinking occasionally, “I’ll figure something out,” until eventually your wife will grab you by the balls and say, “If you want to keep these, you will make an appointment!”

2.  Acceptance:  Now you will turn cold and numb and you will sit in a class with other stupid men and learn all about what will happen during the procedure.  At this point you will realize that the only thing worse than having your balls sliced open is taking a class in which they go into graphic detail about having your balls sliced open.  There will be women in the class as well, holding their husbands’ hands and saying things like, “It’ll be ok, I promise.”  The teacher in the class will make your acceptance official by having you sign a piece of paper promising that you have not been coerced in any way by another person, say a spouse or a mother-in-law, to allow someone to cut you open, sew you up and prevent you from ever creating another child on this planet.  Then you’ll look over at your wife who is smiling that tight-lipped smile and looking at you with a face that says, You are signing that fucking piece of paper and you’ll realize that moral support is probably not her primary reason for being here.

3.  Fear:   On the day of the surgery shit will really start to sink in.  You will sit in the waiting room with other men who are trying to look cool and nonchalant but who are actually terrified and you’ll think, Is that how I look?  They will all have their legs pressed tightly together, as if daring someone to try and pry them apart.  You will look down at your balls and actually apologize to them for getting them into this mess. Reality sets in and you realize that unless you board a plane to Peru right now, this is going to happen.

4.  Massive Embarrassment and Shame:  Once you enter the torture chamber, they will show you to the bathroom and ask you to put on a robe, which makes no fucking sense because the moment you lie down they lift it up to see what you’ve got under the hood, except instead of dismantling a carburator, they’ll be dismantling your junk.  An overweight nurse will come in and start fiddling with you.  She’ll clean you up with soap and iodine, while carelessly flopping your dick around with the same interest as one does while skinning a chicken for dinner.  I’ve had people ask me if I got a boner while this was going on, as if being naked automatically leads to arousal. This is like asking someone who has been lit on fire if they are hungry for s’mores.  Then before you can stop it from happening, you’ll hear yourself start to tell a story about the time you went camping with your friends in the woods behind your house, and about halfway through the story you’ll realize just how retarded of a person you become when placed in awkward situations.

5.  Violation:  The doctor will make a brief appearance and introduce himself to you and your dick, and then he will look down at your penis, then back up to the nurse and they will share a smirk which will shake your confidence more than you could ever believe.  The nurse will then inform you that it’s time to shave your “region”.  In reality it’s only a can of shaving cream and a razor, but in your mind all you’ll think of are the hundreds of movies you’ve seen where the guy who works for the mob pulls out a suitcase full of scalpels and pliers and every kind of tool you can think of that causes the type of pain that makes people scream like the mentally insane.  You’re quite certain that this nurse has been teased her entire life for being fat and she’s now going to avenge every woman who has ever been violated by a man with a penis by taking a razor to your balls.  What makes it worse is that she will hum benevolently while she works, like the lady in Misery before she crushes James Caan’s ankles with a sledgehammer.  That’s just creepy.

6.  Pain:  The doctor will come back in with that little smirk and ask you how you are doing, and you will lie and say, “Fine.”  Then he will pull out a giant needle and stick it into your balls.  And then he will pull it out and do the same thing three more times in different locations.  Four shots.  In your balls.  I don’t think I can overstate this enough:  A LARGE NEEDLE WILL BE INJECTED INTO YOUR BALLS ON FOUR SEPARATE OCCASIONS!  In reality, it doesn’t hurt as bad as you would think.  Wait, yes it does, moron, because it’s a giant needle being injected into your balls!

7.  Anger:  Once you are properly numb, the doctor will go to work and you will feel a lot of tugging and pulling as he proceeds to cauterize and dam up the passageway where your sperm once swam happy and free.  Now that the shock is starting to where off, you will think of the time you took your dog in to get neutered and how you had laughed at the sad look on his face and told him, “You poor bastard, it’s for your own good.”  Then you will start to get angry because you now know exactly how old Gus felt:  These are my balls and I shouldn’t have to give them up if I don’t want to.  You’ll look up at the doctor and it will suddenly occur to you that he has been giving you that same “Poor bastard” look since you got here and that you have probably been giving him the “Sad dog look” too, and that will piss you off so much it will be all you can do to not jump off the table and run off howling into the forest.

8.  Relief:  Then it will be over.  The doctor will stitch you up and lower the hood and say, “That’s it, all done,” and you will feel like an anvil has been lifted off your chest.  You’ll feel a grin start to spread over your face that you couldn’t stop even if you wanted to.  Like you’re mad with hysteria. Like you’re Jim Carey on crank.

9.  Joy:  The doctor will ask you to go into the bathroom to clean up because the iodine they used to sterilize you with looks like a bear peed on your entire pelvic region.  Dark yellow pee.  But you’re so happy it’s over that you don’t care about the bear pee and so you go into the bathroom and lock the door and look at yourself in the mirror and that’s when you start to bounce on your toes and shadowbox with your reflection because you’re BACK.  You’re a man again.  Then you will raise your arms in the air like Rocky after he ran up those concrete steps in Philadelphia with all those idiot kids chasing him, like you just won a championship, and finally you will flip off your reflection with both fingers because your reflection represents all the guys without vasectomies who made fun of you for having to get one but who still have to deal with the inconvenience of condoms whenever they have sex.  ”Fuck you, A-holes! Who’s laughing now, motherfuckers?”  (I’m serious about this celebration thing.  You will be so happy it’s over that you will do some weird fucked up shit in the bathroom mirror the first chance you get to be alone.  Enjoy it!)

10.   Therapy:  The joy will eventually wear off and you will walk around for a week feeling like a fifteen pound weight has been tied to your balls.  You will slap some frozen peas or a steak on them, but it won’t help much.  Then you will start to feel a little mentally fucked up as you think back to the violation that happened to you and you will start to block it out the best you can but it won’t help much because you were pretty much sodomized except without any actual penetration.  You’ll catch yourself rocking back and forth a lot and staring off into nothing, like a mental patient.  Going to a shrink will make you feel all girly and emotional and less like a man, so instead you will push it down and repress it and only possibly discuss it with your wife or write about it in your blog in hopes of exorcising the demons within.

Still, every time I have sex with my wife and I don’t have to reach for that little foil wrapper, it feels worth it.  If you’re still not sure whether you should have a vasectomy or not, here’s my advice to you:  DON’T FUCKING DO IT!  No, do it, it’s totally worth it.   RUUUUUUUNNNNN!!!  No, no, it’s ok, you’ll be happy in the end.  GODDAMMIT, TAKE A STAND FOR MEN EVERYWHERE!

Fuck, I don’t know.  Do whatever the hell you want.  Either way…you’re fucked!  And that’s the truth.

Cheers, until next time.

The RB

Rise of the Lake People

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If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I went camping this past week (yes, the barman gets time off too, you know) at Collins Lake near Oregon House, CA. For those of you who don’t know, camping at Collins Lake is like camping in a giant parking lot, except with dusty trees and a giant lake.  Everyone is packed into a campsite the size of most bathrooms and you have to whisper your conversations if you don’t want your neighbors to join in because they are RIGHT THERE.

I’m not sure if camping has changed since I was a kid or if the experience is just different now that I’m an adult.  As a ten year old, camping consisted of sharpening sticks and throwing rocks at squirrels and other wildlife. Lord of the Flies sort of stuff.  All we needed was a tent, a sleeping bag, a flashlight and a small stove that could fry an egg in just under an hour.  Nowadays it feels more like I’m pretending to camp. I construct the tent, collect firewood, whittle marshmallow sticks for the kids, until eventually I look at my friend and say, “Are you ready for a beer,” to which he answers, “Jesus fucking Christ, what do you think?”

For me, camping is all about stripping away the complexities of everyday life and living with the bare essentials for a few days while appreciating the simplicity and majesty of nature.  Pulling into the campsite that first day, the first thing I saw was four kids sitting at a picnic table at their site watching Sponge Bob on a 40-inch flatscreen TV.  I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a camping purist, but somehow this seemed to be one of those “defeats the purpose” type of moments, and so I judged them and whined about it until my wife reminded me that we had chosen to camp at a place that serves ice cream and makes cappuccinos at the camp store just a few hundred feet away.

Ok, fine.  Community camping.  I can dig it.  I understand that there are different levels and intensities of camping. There is the casual camper, like myself, who hypocritically likes the idea of seclusion and nature as long as there are comforts and amenities to go with it.  Then there are the die-hard campers:  mountain men and women with wooly beards and body hair who sleep on the side of cliffs and only need a sack the size of a sandwich baggie to carry their supplies in.  And then…well…then there are the lake people.

I have encountered these people since I was a kid but have never taken the time to study them or question their existence.  After very little research and plenty of thought, I’ve decided that lake people are the biggest conundrum since the Y2K fiasco.  To this minute I sit here scratching my head trying to figure out what it is about large bodies of water that attracts this curious breed.  Looking at them, I could swear these were the same families operating the ferris wheel and bumper cars at the county fair we attended last month, yet parked in their campsites were $15,000 campers and $25,000 speed boats.  And they were everywhere, these large powerful machines owned by a group of people who, instead of going to the trouble of buying shorts, simply cut off whatever pants they happened to be wearing last winter. Jeans, slacks, tuxedo pants. All styles and fashions were represented with non-prejudice.  And shirts?  Puh-lease!  How else are you supposed to exhibit your tattoos and flabby rolls spilling over your cutoffs to the rest of the campground if encumbered by any sort of cloth draped over the upper body?

The scary thing is that lake people possess a sense of entitlement when around water.  It’s almost like they draw power from it, like Superman does from his fortress of solitude.  This is their dominion and if you don’t like it you can fuck off.  Nearly all of them own gargantuan stereos at their campsites or on their boats that blare AC/DC and Dokken throughout the day with no regard to anyone’s possible preference for peace and silence while camping.

Fisherman experience these same problems out on the lake as ski boats churn up water 20 feet from their boats without so much as an “Excuse us, coming through”.

Where do they come from, these lake people with raggedy clothes and expensive toys? Are they like National Guardsmen:  during the week they work as mild-mannered real estate agents and court reporters but once Saturday arrives they strap the confederate flag to their RV’s and head for the water?

While they are most certainly harmless, looking around I couldn’t help but think we were residing in a carnie village and that at a moment’s notice any one of them might take their anger out on all the people whose vomit they may have had to clean up on the rides they operated.  While my family dozed off at night without any such thoughts, I laid awake wondering what I might use as a weapon if a mob of blood-thirsty lake people were to break into our tent trailer.  Despite my eternal desire and fantasy to be Jason Bourne-esque in moments of chaos, I don’t imagine that my skills with a Coleman lantern would hold them off for very long.

For our next camping trip I believe we will head towards the coast and camp on the beach where the weather is cooler and people are more apt to keep their shirts on. Coast campers seem to be a more subdued, take-your-dog-to-the-beach bunch whose main goals extend beyond getting plastered and yelling, “Whooooooooooooooo!!!” far into the night.  I prefer for such idiocy to be reserved for my bar, far away from lake water and coarse, pebbled sand beaches littered with cigarette butts and Schlitz beer cans. I guess I’m just old-fashioned that way.

Cheers, until next time,

The RB

P.S.  I understand that some of my stories have nothing to do with a bar or my job, but there’s only so much you can talk about when it comes to drunken morons.  I do not discriminate and will discuss morons of all kinds, regardless of sexual orientation, color or creed.  Amen.

My Days as a Porn and Drug Pusher

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One thing you learn at college after your sixth year of taking classes and your fifth time switching your major is that your mom doesn’t want to pay for you to drink beer and play in weekend whiffle ball tournaments anymore. She sat me down one summer morning and told me over waffles that she loved me but that it was time to find a career path.  I thought it was a peculiar way for a mother to show love to her son; nevertheless, I relented and put a resume together and within a few weeks I had landed a part time job at a used CD store as a sales clerk making minimum wage with the possibility of earning a 2% bonus if I met some sort of sales quota which I believe could have earned me an extra $6 per month had I ever taken the initiative to explore that possibility.

The store didn’t just sell used music.  It was one of those college town stores where all the workers except me had dreadlocks and pierced noses and wore hemp sweaters or panchos and bathed as often as cattle.  Besides new and used CD’s we sold a potpourri of worthless crap, including t-shirts, posters, jewelry, incense, candles and gag gifts.  Oh yeah, and porn.  And drug paraphernalia.  In our secret back room. Did I mention the porn?

Perhaps you have visited a store like this before.  Perhaps you have not. Basically, for those of you who have not, it worked like this:  once your age had been verified, we buzzed you through a door that led to a room with shelves and wall pegs filled with X-rated movies, dildos, vibrators, blow-up dolls, accessories and just about any sex toy you could imagine and then some.

Also in the back room was a display case of bongs in various shapes and colors.  Neither we nor the customer were allowed to call them bongs or anything that involved illegal terminology whatsoever, such as marajuana or dope, etc.  We were reminded constantly that if we violated these rules that the store was at risk of being fined and even shut down.  We were selling “tobacco” pipes, and in fact, you couldn’t even say the word “glass” because that implied using the bongs for smoking crack cocaine.  What this meant was that we were happy to openly discuss the 14-inch, supercharged vibrating anal probes we sold, but if you said the word “glass” I was allowed to grab you by your collar, escort you out of the back room immediately and ban you forever.

When I first started working there, I felt awkward and embarrassed as people perused our wall of porn, and so did the people who were looking. It was like being on a first date, neither one of us quite sure what to say.  Fortunately for me, the customer was far more vulnerable than I was.  The moment you picked out something to buy, it automatically became part of your identity and that object or video exposed your innermost thoughts and desires.

After a couple of months working there, I became indifferent because I saw the same thing every day.  Some college boy would come in and look around for ten minutes, sheepishly grinning at me every so often, and then he would eventually and hurriedly grab a pocket pussy and hold it out to me saying, “It’s not for me, it’s for a joke…for my buddy’s bachelor party,” even though I knew that fifteen minutes later he would be locked in his room making love to latex.

Despite the oddity of this job, I got used to most of the screw balls and stoners who came in to purchase their underground product of choice, but I was never prepared for the guy who came in one Tuesday afternoon and fucked my world up.  He was a middle-aged guy, nicely dressed in slacks and a business shirt.  The sort of guy who comes in to buy a little something to bring home to the wifey to spice up their sex life. It wasn’t uncommon to see a husband or a couple come in and pick out a vibrator or even a movie.

Seeing as it was still morning on a weekday, there was nobody else in the store, so I buzzed him in and sat down at my customary stool behind the “tobacco pipe” display case. Normally I would pretend to clean the case or adjust and rearrange the pipes and tobacco on display to make it easier for the customers to look around without feeling like they were being watched and judged, but before I could even slide the glass door open, this nicely dressed man loosened his belt, reached down the back of his pants and pulled out a giant butt plug. “Do you have any more of these in this size?” he asked.  If you think I would make up something this disturbing and disgusting, you don’t know me very well (ok, maybe you know me a little, but this isn’t one of those times).

Any normal person would have been furious and yelled at this perverted degenerate to get the hell out of the store or perhaps stomp over to the nearest phone to call the cops.  What I did was stand there awkwardly for a moment before asking him if that was the 10 or 12 inch model.

“I don’t know,” he said, rather annoyed.  ”Look at it!”

He held it out to me as if it were a rare, sanctified artifact that had been unearthed from Egypt, and I was half-expecting him to blurt out “BEHOLD!”  Even as a young, scared kid I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that he didn’t really expect me to determine its size.  After all, this wasn’t a shoe store.  I didn’t have a little device with a sliding metal cursor to measure its length.  We didn’t store our dildos and toys in boxes in the back, organized by size and stacked in neat, economical rows.  This man had an agenda, and it wasn’t to buy something sexy for his wife.  I, in no way, wanted to see the endgame to that agenda, so I simply pretended that this was totally normal, that men like him came in everyday presenting their butt plugs like defective hot dogs.

“Uummm…let’s see,” I said, opening a drawer in the display case which held nothing more than extra packs of tobacco in them. “What color would you like?”

“What?  Whatever.  I don’t care.”

“Is that latex or rubber?” I asked, still shuffling through bags of tobacco as if I were looking through our giant inventory of butt plugs.

“I don’t know,” he snapped.  ”Latex, I think.”

“Did you see our special on flavored condoms?  Buy four get the fifth one free.”

“No, I don’t need any condoms.” He was getting flustered now, I assume from my method of trying to get through this thing the only way I knew how, which was to distract him and me from what was really going on, and what was really going on was that this guy was getting off on his public display and my squirming discomfort.  Personally, I would have rather rammed an ice pick down the shaft of my penis than participate in public humiliation of this magnitude, but that’s just me.  I really wanted him to put the damn thing away, but certainly not back in its sheath where it came from.

“How much were you looking to spend?” I asked.

“I don’t care,” he yelled.  ”Just…LOOK AT IT!”

It was at this exact moment when I realized that people who say human beings are just a different version of the same thing don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.  This man wasn’t a version of anything I had ever come into contact with. It wasn’t a gender thing with him either.  He didn’t care if I was a man, woman or giraffe.  He simply needed a witness in order to get that adrenaline flowing, but instead here I was asking him if he wanted to save a buck on flavored condoms.  I didn’t mean to, but by trying to avoid the horrific awkwardness of the situation, I was fucking up his shock value.

“We have flavored lube too, if you’d like. I could give you a deal.”  He just stared at me with unblinking eyes, his lips locked together in a tight, bloodless line while still holding the plug out in front of him.  I knew he didn’t really want another one of the same size.  What would he do with two?  Still, he wasn’t leaving, so what was he hoping for?  Did he want me to jump up and eagerly perform lewd acts with him right there in the store?  Was he taking a mental picture of this moment so he could recall it from his memory files for later enjoyment?  Or was he planning an assault?  I felt a sinking sense of dread as I pictured the front page headlines in tomorrow morning’s paper:  College Student Bludgeoned to Death by the Buttplug Bandit.

Of all the subjects I had studied and switched my major to, at that moment I wished I had stuck it out in psychology so I could fuck with this guy’s mind like Hannibal Lecter and get myself out of this situation.

“I think we have a shipment of vibrating ones coming in tomorrow if you want to come back then,” I said.  I was running out of stall tactics, and I was afraid if I stood up he might interpret that as a signal for him to engage me and then he might start trying to kiss me or caress me or something that causes you to need therapy the rest of your life.  So I stayed seated where I was and just kept looking through the same ten baggies of tobacco in my 8 x 12-inch drawer, hoping he wouldn’t notice that the only way we would store butt plugs in something so small would be if it was some sort of Narnia drawer that opened up into a world of snowy porn.

Just when I thought I might have to make a run for it, someone from the front of the store yelled, “Is anyone here?  I need to buy this CD?”

This jarred my creepy friend back from his perverted world and he quickly shoved his toy into his pants pocket and hurried out of the store.  And just like that it was over.

After the incident, I was embarrassed of what others might think so I never told anyone.  I’ve never devoted much time to guilt, but that’s exactly how I felt and it wasn’t fair.  I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet I felt like I was a willing participant in this man’s dirty little scandal.  Was this what rape victim’s went through but on a much more severe level?  What was the lesson I was supposed to learn from the man who went around terrifying college boys with his greasy toy?

Perhaps I’ll never know, but until I do figure it out, be very cautious around me when adjusting your belt.  I get very jumpy around anyone who I think might loosen their pants in a moments notice. I guess in a way that makes me damaged goods.

Cheers, until next time.

The RB

10 Things You Are Certain to do When You’re Wasted!

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1.  Lose your hearing.  Either that or you become extremely nearsighted because when you are wasted, you will shout at someone standing two feet away from you as if they are on the other side of a stadium.

2.  Make out with someone uglier than your great aunt Edna. Unfortunately, there is no stronger force in the universe than drunken horniness. Just let it happen and move on.

3.  Buy drinks for total strangers.  This is a wonderful gesture until you wake up the next morning and find a credit card receipt in your wallet resembling your car payment.  I’m still paying for shots I bought ten years ago.

4.  Have sex with someone uglier than your great aunt Edna.  Don’t act like you haven’t, and if you haven’t, you will.

5.  Put your face in a place someone’s ass was just 2 minutes before. Would you EVER do this sober? If your answer is yes, please leave my blog right now.

6.  Eat all of your roommate’s food in the fridge when you get home from the bars. Not only will you eat their food, you will eat leftover, crusty nachos that have been sitting on the counter for the past 14 hours.

7.  Make outrageous commitments with your friends.  Dude, I’ll totally get up and run up Mt. Diablo tomorrow morning at 7:00 am.  Ok, me too.  You’d better be there.  Oh, I’ll be there, you can count on that.  You just worry about yourself.  I’m so there.  I swear on my mom’s life.  In fact, let’s make it 6:00.  You’re on.  Duuuuuuuuuude! (Broski fist pound).

8.  Pee anywhere. Buildings and sidewalks suddenly become your toilet.

9.  Argue your point to the death.  No facts, reason or common sense will persuade you to believe otherwise. You will throw blows before you admit Bert and Ernie were gay.

10. Claim that you aren’t that drunk.  ”I just need a minute,” you’ll say, and then you’ll lay your head down on the bar and go to sleep.

The Bourne Mis-Identity

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When I was born a terrible mistake was made and God failed to include enough common sense and logic in my DNA to allow me to think and function like a normal adult.  What this means is that I am interesting enough and have the ability to generate compelling and original thoughts, but I’m lucky if I can remain focused long enough to remember to pull my pants down when I pee.

My most crippling characteristic (or possibly greatest superpower; it’s yet to be determined) is that I seem to be missing the Reality gene.  Translation:  I participate in the grandiose fantasies usually reserved for ten-year-old boys.

Movies are largely to blame.  Growing up I dreamed of being Luke Skywalker, Rambo, Steven Seagal, and more recently of course, Jason Bourne. (That reminds me, I should warn you about something:  approaching me right after I’ve seen an action movie is risky to say the least, as this is when my kick-ass emotions are at their peak which means I am more than likely to see you as an undercover operative rather than my son’s teacher, and when you ask me if I’m coming to back-to-school night I will say something in my “important voice” like, “You tell Vinnie the Sausage and his goons that I can’t be bought.”  Either that or I will kick you in the stomach and search you for a hidden wire.)

I’m not saying that dreams are unhealthy or damaging, because for most people they aren’t.  They propel us to grow and achieve and envision the possibility of success every morning when we crawl out of bed.  Nevertheless, dreams need to be categorized.  For instance, there are dreams like becoming an architect and designing bridges or one day owning a vacation home in Costa Rica, and then there are dreams like the ones I have where I foil corrupt CIA agents by employing brilliant tactical strategies that keep my three steps ahead, as well as using freaky-swift hand-to-hand combat that snaps the necks of anyone trying to bring me in.

Since some people are more visual, allow me to externalize the visions that go on inside my head (luckily this drawing only took me six hours to construct).

This is me taking down corrupt CIA agents, or possibly large oil company CEO’s who have sinister laughs and jack up gas prices for no reason at all.  I ran out of room for further description, but my backpack is full of Jason Bourne high-tech assassin shit like tracking devices and those things that look like hockey pucks that you stick on the sides of buildings so you can blow a hole in the wall.  I also feel the fossil is a pretty sharp addition, and perhaps even thematic when you consider the oil company angle.

Though I am capable of hallucinating on every level, I seem to specialize in disaster situations.  I’m not sure I even have a choice in the matter.  I enact entire scenarios in my head in which I take down terrorists and save dozens of hostages at least once a week, and afterwards the hostages fawn over me and the terrorist curse me and shake their fists like the villains at the end of every Scooby-Doo episode.

If I’m not saving hostages, I’m toppling corrupt government officials who try to pass shady laws or prevent gay marriages.  They come to me and threaten to harm me and my dog if I don’t keep quiet about their top secret and controversial issues and I respond by turning their fucking universe INSIDE-OUT!

For whatever reason, I have found that my most vivid fantasies are formed while I’m either driving or in the shower, which means I will stand under the spray for 45 minutes until the water turns cold and jars me back to the present, or you can find me happily cruising along in the fast lane of I-680 at a comfortable 35 MPH.

My greatest fear is that I will wind up like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind where the line between fantasy and reality fades gradually each day until I wake up one day in a padded room hugging myself in a white coat with buckles while my family looks at me with pity through that ridiculously small square window in the door.

This is not one of those vague fears either.  I have actually pictured the moment in my mind when I’m too far gone to recognize a phantom truth:  The phone rings, I pick it up and a voice on the other line says, “Hello, Dave. This is Agent Callahan.  The oil companies are planning to raise gas prices to $7 per gallon.  Also they are holding a room full of orphans and nuns hostage in the infant ward at the hospital. The world needs you…immediately!”

Then I slowly rub my chin and consider the risks.  ”$7 per gallon, eh?” I say.  ”We’ll just see about that.”

And then I am gone…until the water turns cold and I am forced to dry off and get dressed for work.

Cheers, until next time (unless I’m sent to an asylum),

The RB

Fucking With Drunk People

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 I’m not sure why, but lately I’ve become more irritable about the fact that I spend five nights a week in a place where I’m sober and everyone else is flying high and yuckin’ it up.  I understand that it’s my job, but after awhile it feels like I’ve been invited to a party but when I arrive, I’m told I should stand out front and wait for guests to arrive so I can park their cars.  I hate it I hate it I hate it!!!

Let’s not dilute the facts, being drunk is stupenderrific!  You’ve all been there, you know how it is:  that sensational feeling of perceived invincibility you experience after five or six drinks.  Even better is if you compound that experience by drinking with a group because the camaraderie shared between buffoons slopping alcohol on each other can only be compared to that of championship sports teams.

That’s why bars are so popular, because being drunk with a group is so much more badass than being drunk alone.  Everything is hilarious and fun and no matter what fucked-up shit you’re dealing with in your every day life, at this moment you and your drinking clan are downright convinced of your indestructibility, so much so that you find yourself discussing scenarios to prove it. In fact you’ve all agreed that, under the right circumstances, if you had a titanium body suit, a utility belt, and a Peter Pan-sized boy with a yellow cape to watch your back, any one of you could easily transition into the role of Batman.

On the other hand, being sober around drunk people is like trying to fit into a clique you were never invited to join, except this clique has the maturity equivalent of nine year olds.  Disorderly nine year olds.  With brain damage.  That’s me, every night (the guy-hanging-out-with-disorderly-drunks part, not the brain damage part).  We bartenders are like matadors armed only with one of those flimsy piece of crap Zorro swords trying to hold off a ring full of dazed, irritated bulls.  Except replace “sword” with “bar rag” and “bulls” with “vomity, cursing drunks”.

Being sober around drunks is boring, which provokes me to spice up the action, which is why I have a serious problem that some of you may have identified already, and it’s that I can’t help fucking with people who take things too seriously (See “Peta Girl”).

I can’t decide if it’s a disease or a superpower, but I do know that I’m addicted because every night before I go to work I choose some mantra to repeat to myself that might help me overcome my problem (something along the lines of, “Bar patrons are my friends, not toys for my amusement”) but every night I somehow become misaligned and betray that mantra which means I have to start my 12 steps over again and apologize to people I’ve wronged and make amends with Jesus in a non-sarcastic way that shows him I’m not fucking with HIM.

I try to leave people alone, really I do, but please remember that I work in a bar with drunk people and telling me not to fuck with them is like placing a ribeye in front of a tiger and saying, “Now when I get back, that steak had better still be there, mister.”

Yes, I understand that drunk people are vulnerable in their state of cheery befuddlement, but you should know that I leave 98% of them alone, the ones who are lovable and considerate and sometimes even offer to buy me a shot.  It’s the 2% that I fuck with, the ones who are determined to destroy everyone else’s good time.

This brings me to Artie, a decidedly irate and spiteful individual who enters my bar about once a week so he can try to drink enough to kill whatever’s inside him that he hates about himself.  I won’t waste your time with too many details except to say that Artie is the type of man that I imagine pulls the wings off butterflies for the pure joy of performing reverse evolution.  Sometimes I want to stab a pacifier into his mouth because I’m fairly certain he would immediately and innately start trying to suck all of his anger out through the rubber nipple like a teething baby.

Like most people who have issues with the world, Artie communicates his problems without bothering to pay attention to what anyone else has to say, which manufactures entertaining conversations where he attempts to recruit misery to accompany him at the bar and I do my best to derail and distract him.  This is what happened that last time Artie stumbled to the bar, already a bit schnockered, trying to tell me about the car accident he had that day:

Me:  How’s it going, Artie?

Artie:  It’s going shitty.  Some jackass smashed into my Porsche today.  Three months off the lot, and he totaled it.

Me:  Wow.  That’s too bad.  Were you alone or by yourself?

Artie:  I was…what?  I was by myself.

Me:  What happened?

Artie:  Asshole ran a stop sign and smashed into my passenger side door.

Me:  How did he smash into you if he was at a stop sign?

Artie:  No, idiot.  He ran through a stop sign.

Me:  I thought you said he was driving.

Artie:  He WAS driving.

Me:  You just said he RAN through it.

Artie:  That’s what you say when you drive through a stop sign without stopping.  What the fuck is the matter with you?

Me:  I don’t know.  My father used to hold me under water for long periods of time…

Artie:  ANYWAY…I jump out of the car and I’m getting ready to beat this punk’s ass.  He’s like 18 years old with tattoos all over the place, and he starts running for these stairs…

Me:  What kind of stairs?

Artie:  What?  What do you mean?

Me:  I mean did they go up or down?

Artie:  They’re stairs…what the fuck? They go up and down.

Me:  Come on.  How do stairs go up and down at the same time?

Artie: Are you retarded? It wasn’t an escalator. They’re just STAIRS!  FUCK!

Me:  Don’t escalators have buttons and sliding doors?

Artie:  Can I finish?

Me:  I wish you would.

Artie:  So then I chased him up the stairs into an office building.

Me:  So they were “UP” stairs (I cleverly used my quotation fingers for this).

Artie:  Will you forget about the stairs, for Christ sakes?

Me:  What stairs?

Artie:  Are you serious?  What the fuck?

Me:  No, you don’t understand.  You said “forget about the stairs”, so I was like, “What stairs?” like I already forgot about them.  You know, like when someone says, “Promise me you won’t tell Jane about the secret passage way,” and you say, “What secret passage way?” because it’s like you’re telling them you’ll pretend you know nothing about it. It’s a clever way to say that I’m on board with you.

Artie:  Jesus, forget it.  I’m done talking to you.  You’re missing out on a goddamn good ending too.

Me:  I know, it sounded like a good plot.  What was the name of it?

Artie:  The name of what?

Me:  Hello?  The movie you were just telling me about with the guy running up the stairs.  Did you forget already?

At this point Artie slammed what was left of his Sierra Nevada down and started to stomp out the door, but I reminded him that he hadn’t paid yet so I ruined his dramatic exit because he had to rummage through his wallet for some time before he found the right credit card.  The great thing about Artie is that he drinks so much he usually doesn’t remember what he’s mad at me for and I’ll see him again in a week when he’ll tell me some other story about how everyone in the world is an asshole except him.

I know what you all are thinking and you’re right, I need help.  I’m going to ask Jesus* to guide me.

*By Jesus I mean our dishwasher, not the real Jesus.  He’s studying psychology at the junior college so maybe he knows some stuff about “fucking-with-drunks syndrome” or whatever.  Again, I’m talking about our dishwasher, not the main Jesus.  I assume the real Jesus already has psych figured out pretty good which is why he mind-fucked everyone by allowing them nail-gun him to lumber instead of using his superpowers to turn them into salamanders.

Cheers, until next time.

The RB

The Evils of Decadence

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I grew up in a smallish town in Northern CA and though I’ve been living in the Bay Area for years, I still often find myself feeling like a gawking tourist stumbling through the East Bay trying to figure out the bizarre customs of the locals.  All I need are some plaid pants, a canary-colored Alligator shirt and a camera dangling from my neck for pictures (“Wow, looky there, a real Cheesecake Factory!” Snap, snap).

It wasn’t Little-House-on-the-Prairie small, my home town.  We had a McDonald’s and JC Penny’s and Target and even an Olive Garden.  The difference is, when you live in an area of affluence for any length of time, like the Bay Area, it seems only natural for the people to take on a certain element of…expectation.

The other day for, instance, I was enjoying some appetizers at Flemming’s Steak House when over in the dining room I heard a boy raise his voice to his mother:  “Steak?  Why did you order me steak, mom?  I wanted a hamburger.  I hate steak!  I told you that.”

The mother, instead of reaching down the boy’s throat and ripping out his spinal cord, apologized and begged forgiveness for her stupidity. The boy, ten years old at least, proceeded to throw a barbaric tantrum that sent his mother scurrying about the restaurant like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland in search of the nearest waiter so she could order the aforementioned burger for her tyrant of a child.

Before I could even stop it from happening, the phrase What’s wrong with kids these days? sprung into head.  Thoughts like these seem to be appearing more often as I grow older.  The thoughts of my parents.  A line that becomes blurrier with each passing year.

It’s hard to admit, but that sneaky voice that is my father’s has been tattooed into my brain, so much so that irrational judgments of big city behavior leap into my thoughts before I can even stage a defense.

As a child, I was well-versed concerning the evils of splurging and excess.  Leaving even the smallest smear of ketchup on my plate invited a lengthy lecture regarding the starving, bloated children of third-world countries and the daily suffering they endured.  My sister’s and my offering to send them our leftovers only caused a lengthier, angrier lecture

My father, when he wasn’t lecturing, figured that the best way to ensure the survival of our planet would be to save and reuse…well, everything.  We could go six years on a single roll of tin foil, as he would fold and refold the foil after each use so that when you opened the drawer the first thing you would see (and smell) were dull, wrinkled squares of foil folded over four or five times with small and large rips in them and spots of cooked food baked into the creases.

“What’re you doing,” my father would yell, racing into the kitchen from out of nowhere at the first sound of me tearing off a new piece of foil.  He could be at the mailbox at the end of the driveway and he would hear it and come running back to the house as if he had seen flames emerging from the windows.

“Hold on, don’t use that foil,” he’d scream breathlessly, his boots crunching on the gravel as he bolted down the driveway.  “There’s four pieces of perfectly good foil left right in front of you.  What’s wrong with you?”

“But there’s old chicken grease all over it,” I’d say.

“Chicken grease?  Give me a break, your highness.  Some of us have to work for a living.”

I never did receive any lectures on contaminants or the dangers of placing food in my mouth that had been wrapped in foil or plastic wrap with moldy, decayed food encrusted on it.

It didn’t end at tin foil either.  Dental floss was rewrapped around an empty thread spool, salvaged for the next night’s use.  “We use it until it breaks,” was my father’s philosophy.  At that point I stopped flossing altogether for fear of wedging more food back into my gums from the recycled floss than from the lack of flossing itself.

Rubber bands were his favorite (a.k.a. money clips), which he used to quickly and tightly bind a stack of one-dollar bills as if hogtying a calf.

Paper clips, sardine cans, dead batteries.  The list included anything you could find in any junk drawer or cabinet in the garage.  My father was the McGuyver of recycling:  able to discover a creative, if not unsanitary, use for any common household item that no longer fulfilled its original purpose.

Coupled with his distaste for waste, my father loved to venture out into the world and express his resentment toward overpopulation.  Even a simple trip to the beach at the lake could turn into a crisis

“Look at all these damn people.  Where did they come from,” my father would say, as if we had stumbled upon a swarm of mosquitos instead of nice families enjoying a day of tanning and swimming. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t use up all our resources in the next ten years at the rate we’re reproducing.”

For whatever reason, our family was never considered to be part of the overpopulation problem, on the planet or on the beach.  Somehow we belonged here.  Everyone else was taking up space and using up resources.  I always had the uncomfortable feeling that, if given the chance, my father would have happily used a garden hose like you would on an ant colony to wash these people away into a hole in the Earth.  In his mind the formula for successful existence on the planet went like this:

Human extermination = Enough resources for everyone.

Throwing out old chicken bones = Bad and wasteful.

Resources were being exhausted everywhere, and it was my father’s lifelong mission to point it out to my sisters and me at every waking moment.

“Go ahead, throw away the rest of your lunch,” my father told me.  “Don’t give it a second thought.  You remind me of a friend of mine:  she wasted so much money on food she threw away that she lost her house and wound up living in a garbage can with her three kids.  Think about that the next time you want to toss out your melon rinds.”

You may think this is funny, but you try looking good for school when your hand mirror is made from recycled tin foil.

“Stop complaining,” he would say.  “Your hair looks fine.  How about you worry more about using an eraser when you make mistakes on your homework instead of crumpling up your paper and throwing it in the garbage?”

“That was my scratch paper for my Algebra homework.

“Whatever.  All I know is that the Sahara desert used to be a dense, thriving forest until people like you came along and decided to use up all the trees because you were too lazy to move your hand back and forth to erase your mistakes!”

On rare occasions my parents still come to visit me. You’d think they’d be excited to travel and visit areas like the beautiful East Bay and to browse through the unique stores and restaurants offered in the downtown shopping areas, but they spend the entire time denouncing the moral values of the people driving SUV’s and groaning about all the traffic on I-680, not to mention the lack of parking.

I made the mistake of walking them within site of Tiffany’s last time they were here and as a result was tormented with a half-hour sermon describing the gallons of blood that was shed in order for those diamonds to sit in a glass case for our perusal.

I’ve come to accept that the joys of travel are wasted on them.  They could be sitting on a white beach in the Greek Isles with their feet buried in sand soft as flour, and all they’d comment on is the fishing boat four miles out ravaging the sea of its tuna and halibut.

“Can’t you guys just try to enjoy yourselves while you’re here,” I ask them.

“Enjoy ourselves?” my dad bellows.  “I just saw a guy toss half his burrito into that garbage can.  How can I enjoy myself knowing that my son lives in a place surrounded by high brows and blatant decadence?”

“It’s not decadence, dad.  It’s a burrito!”

“Extravagance is a stain you can’t just scrub off with a sponge of ignorance.”

“That’s great,” I tell him.  “You two can fish the burrito out of the garbage for dinner.  I’m going to P.F. Chang’s.”

“Amazing,” my father tells my mother as I walk away.  “All those brains and he becomes a bartender.  What a waste!”

Cheers, until next time.

TheRealBarman

Please Shut Up Now

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In case ya’ll haven’t noticed, I’m on a bit of a hiatus for reasons I will explain in the the not-so-distant future.  Until then, thanks for dropping by.  -The RB

I get a lot of emails that aren’t quite hate mail, but are closer to “your opinions suck ass, please embrace and express mine instead” mail. The theme of these emails seems to follow a pattern, which is:  ”You are callous and indifferent towards people”.  In all fairness, I have to say that this does not sound like me at all.  Hold on a minute…actually that sounds exactly like me.  I can’t help it.  I have been structured this way ever since I can remember, and that is to say I have the attention span of a teenage boy in a warehouse filled with porn.  Small talk hurts my brain.

Nevertheless, there are times when my job is downright exhilarating, like two nights ago when I donated a portion of my life to share in a dynamic conversation between three fine men who were unearthing the timeless mystery of why some animals do not need an “s” on the end of their names to make them plural.

Genius #1:  ”Seriously, like take deer for instance, man.  Why aren’t they called deers?”

Genius #2:  ”Yeah, or fishes.  Wait…” (pauses while he tests the singular and plural forms of fish out loud to himself)  ”The fish swam in the lake…the fishes swim south for the winter…”

Genius #3:  ”What about buffalo?  Is it ‘Flying Eagle kill many buffalos’ or ‘many buffalo’?”

Genius #2:  ”I don’t know.  That’s crazy-hard to remember, man.”

Though this 20 minute conversation went on for approximately 19 minutes and 60 seconds longer than it needed to, you can imagine my elation when they started debating whether the plural of “wolf” was spelled W-O-L-V-S or W-O-L-F-S.  At this point I decided to do something a little more enjoyable so I grabbed a sheet of paper and began administering paper cuts to the underside of my tongue.

THINGS I WOULD RATHER DO THAN LISTEN TO THREE MORONS DISPUTE ANIMAL GRAMMAR

SAW BOTH MY FEET OFF WITH A SWISS ARMY KNIFE

HAVE MY ANKLES HOBBLED BY THE LADY IN MISERY

HAVE ONE MY MY TESTICLES CRUSHED IN A VICE

FORCE A 9-INCH ICE PICK DOWN THE SHAFT OF MY PENIS

What gets my engine really revved up is when someone presents me with a sentence that goes something like, “You’ll never believe how cool and wonderful and perfect my kid is.”  This means I’m usually in for a treat, an out-of-this-world anecdote about how their kid got an “A” in jumprope, or whatever.

I am pleased they understand that it’s not only their invaluable drivel I look forward to listening to, but also the drivel concerning someone I’ve never met.  Luckily, I am Ninja-awesome at fooling you into thinking I’m interested (or even listening) to what you’re saying by providing a practiced face of genuine interest.  Like this:

WHAT I’M REALLY THINKING ABOUT WHILE YOU TELL ME YOUR KID GOT AN “A” IN JUMPROPE, OR WHATEVER

YOUR KID SOUNDS LIKE A TOOL

I’M HUNGRY FOR LEMON PIE

PLEASE ALLOW A PIANO TO FALL FROM THE SKY AND MERCIFULLY SQUASH ME INTO PULP

I believe I’ve revealed more than I should have, and now I’m becoming quite paranoid that baring my selfish soul to you will come back to haunt me.  The only reason I can think of for why I did it is that it is therapeutic in some way.  Supposedly, sharing dark secrets can release you from future heaviness and torment.  I also think the charts and graphs are pretty sharp.

This, of course, is not fair to you, my guest, so the next time you come in, I will do my best to engage in pleasant and snappy conversation.  Perhaps we can form an unbreakable bond that will stick like fairly adhesive masking tape, forever and ever, unless you talk too much.

Don’t Look Now, But Your Server Hates You

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THE TOP 10 MISTAKES THAT WILL TEMPT A SERVER TO DEFILE YOUR FOOD

Many people may not know this about me, but I’m on a committee to pass a bill that requires people to work in a restaurant before they are allowed to eat in one.  Ok, I’m not really, I just made that up.  To be on a committee requires a dedication reserved for beavers and team moms.  I’d rather sit in the stands and root the players on (Go, Occupy, Go!).  Or simply read the news and do what I do best, which is to throw my hands up in disgust and complain to my cat.  Nevertheless, since you brought it up, let’s talk about it.

The serving industry can literally drive you mad.  I’m talking curl-into-a-fetal-position-and-suck-your-thumb kind of mad.  Forget the postal workers.  Servers are 17 times more likely to carve their eyes out with a salad fork than a mailman.  I can only compare it to Chinese water torture (drip, drip, drip).  That single drop splashing on your forehead is nothing at first, but small annoyances add up until the tension becomes so unbearable you run back into the kitchen and tear the paper towel dispenser off the wall.  Every day I am astounded that we are allowed to work in the presence of knives.

The truth is, any employee who has worked longer than a year in this business involuntarily joins an angry, jaded cult of servers and bartenders that cripples their chances to partake in a healthy relationship for the remainder of their life here on Earth.  It’s the truth.  In fact look-up “server blogs” on the Internet and see what server industry people are saying about you.

One in particular, TheBitchyWaiter.com, inspired this discussion I’m having with you.  If you really want to know what servers think of you, check out the site and get inside the mind of a real server.  It’s educational, enlightening and humorous.  If this terrifies you and you’d rather live in the dark, stay away, but to this day I still can’t fathom why a guest would risk being disrespectful to a person who has access to the food that goes into their mouth. This is akin to insulting a guy smoking a cigarette while you’re standing in a puddle of gasoline.

If you’re a risk taker and you feel at home in your gasoline puddle, then practice these ten mistakes that will put you and your food in the line of fire the next time you go out:

1.  FORGET YOUR MANNERS.  For whatever reason, some people hoard their manners like Golem protecting The Ring (“My precioussssss”) and they distribute them like meager rations.  CEO’s and priests are worthy of these rations, while servers and gas station attendants are treated like the sole of a shoe smothered in dog crap. Use your wildest imagination and make believe for a short time that servers are real people.  Stop being a prick and say “please” and “thank you”.

2.  IGNORE THEM.  This could be a subcategory and is even worse than the former rule.  Here’s some advice for those of you who would like your food fucked with:  when your server initially arrives at your table and is standing there waiting to say hello, continue to carry on your conversation with the rest of the table and do not acknowledge the server’s presence.  These people will continue to treat their server as the invisible person throughout the meal and then when they need something, they will complain to everyone who works there that they don’t know who their server is.

3.  STRING ORDER.  If you’ve ever played poker, this is like string betting where you make a bet, pull your hand back to your chips and bet again.  It’s illegal, or at least against the rules. If you want to fluster a server, try this:  order a Coke for your son.  When the server returns, order a Sprite for your daughter.  Next time, ask for more bread.  By this time your server should be breathing heavy, but oooooh, you almost forgot, now you need a side of ranch. Servers depend on efficiency to provide quality service.  For them, this is like building a wall carrying one brick at a time instead of using a wheel barrel.

4.  ALLOW YOUR BABY TO TORNADO THE PLACE.  Are you the person who allows your baby to toss plates of food on the floor and empty every sugar packet onto the table?  Do you then pretend that it’s not your responsibility to control this because its the servants’ and slaves’ job to clean it up? If so, chances are your kid causes the same collateral damage wherever he/she goes, including friends’ houses, which means they probably hate you too.  Every menu in America needs this message on its menu:

5.  EAT 90% OF YOUR MEAL AND THEN SAY YOU DIDN’T LIKE IT AND ASK FOR IT TO BE TAKEN OFF YOUR BILL.  (Drip, drip, drip…)

6.  MAKE 23 MODIFICATIONS TO YOUR ORDER.  There’s nothing wrong with “having it your way”, but don’t act shocked when you order the orange chicken with no chicken, sub soy faux-chicken, no sugar, sub Splenda, no olive oil, sub rice bran oil, extra crispy but no breading, sub corn starch, and it comes out tasting like a dishrag.  The chefs created their recipes and sauces to taste good.  Unless you are Rachel Fucking Ray, then don’t fuck with them. Yeah, I said it.  Fuck!

7.  LEAVE A CRAPPY TIP.  Sure, by this time you’ll be gone and unless the server has a time machine he/she won’t be able to spit in your food.  Still.  It reminds me of a girl I worked with once who got a $1 tip on a $150 tab.  She chased down the woman outside in the parking lot like she was going after someone who had just boiled her bunny, and that’s exactly how she looked too:  like Glen Close at the end of Fatal Attraction when she looks like some crazy hoarder-27-cats-in-her-house-lady who comes at Michael Douglas with a butcher knife before he shoots her and she falls into the bath tub.  Yeah, I know, that was this server, and she yelled at the lady, “Keep your dollar you fucking bitch!” right there in the parking lot.  That’s how it happens.  Remember the towel dispenser we discussed earlier?  Drip, drip…

8.  COMPLAIN ABOUT THE PRICES TO THE SERVER. This really happens, I’m not kidding.  Try this:  if you don’t like the prices, try budgeting with the server like you do at a yard sale.  Maybe he’ll drop the price of the duck like he would some old shoes because he just wants to get rid of some things on the menu.  Then, the next time you meet with your accountant, tell him that taxes are too high and see how that works out for you.

9.  SIT AND CHAT FOR THREE HOURS AFTER YOU’RE THROUGH EATING.  We call this “camping”, and not the good kind where you get to whittle sticks and make toast over a fire.  Servers can’t make money until the next party can sit at the table you are holding hostage.  If you aren’t making s’mores or telling ghost stories, mosey along.

10.  ASK FOR SEPARATE CHECKS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEN FRIENDS.  Ooooh, servers and separate checks are MORTAL enemies. Splitting checks for two people, whatever.  Splitting for three, eh, ok.  Anything beyond that and you can actually watch an internal meltdown take place before your very eyes.  Your server will give you a smile used by catty housewives while she waits for six credit cards and four wads of cash.

Epilogue:  I know I’m going to be attacked by some servers who will be like, “Why did you make us look so psycho?” and others will be all, “I’m not like that, I love my job and I love serving people and giving good service,” and even others will be like, “I don’t care if people camp or ask for separate checks, it’s my job and I’m great at it!”

Congratulations to all of you for your capacity to provide unblemished, consummate service. From the rest of us in the biz swimming at the bottom of the tainted fish barrel, we warmly and genuinely invite you to suck our balls.