In case anyone was wondering if the customers were the biggest problem at my job, here is your answer:
Our manager, who is smart and patient and calm and generally a delightful person, has had complaints lodged against him this week by three employees. Two were offended by his use of the term "pow wow" to describe meetings that he is forced to have with the entire kitchen staff (because they are all constantly complaining and do not like the kitchen manager) because it is supposedly racist; while one actually went to the HR guy to complain of his use of signing off correspondence with the word "Cheers." One example of this was a note which he wrote and put in everyone's mailboxes along with a small treat after the very busy holiday season:

Dear (Staff Member's Name),
Thanks for all of your hard work last week. We had record sales and the store looked great. Customer service was fantastic and I really appreciate everything blah blah blah.
Cheers,
(Beleaguered Manager)

Seriously. These people should try working for a fucking living. None of them would last five minutes in a restaurant environment.

On the same day I heard the story from the previous post, I also heard one about a guy who walks around town on these big crazy mechanical stilts. I don't remember his name, but apparently he was in jail- "Adult Jail, when he was a juvenile," according to West Coast Karen, my overconcerned co-worker. And he is also mentally ill to some degree.
What, you might ask, would cause the authorities to jail a mentally ill teenager? I'm so glad you asked!
He was arrested for grave robbing. But according to WCK, he didn't actually dig up a grave. He broke into a mausoleum (devil's in the details, don't you know) and stole a skull. He was going to make a bong out of it to give his friends for a wedding present.
I think Montpeculiar needs a better nickname. Like Monpetotallyfuckedup.

I had been wondering what happened to Tim, a guy that works at the LG. I used to see him every Saturday morning first thing, and since we weren't friends or anything it took me a few weeks to figure out he wasn't around anymore. What happened? I'm so glad you asked! It seems that Tim had been in an accident. He was apparently driving a stolen car in the wrong direction in the middle of the night on the Interstate without headlights on when he struck an oncoming car. Remarkable, nobody was hurt. Tim then leapt from the car and ran barefoot into the woods. Seriously.
I guess I should have known from his 9/11 Conspiracy Theories that he wasn't right, huh?

"What IS that smell?" asked the chef loudly, emerging from the kitchen at the Local Grocery. (Yes, we have a chef at the Local Grocery. As you can imagine the food in the deli is better than average- for a grocery.) Customers turned their heads.
"It's a really lovely organic Italian Blue Cheese," I said, forcing a smile rather than screaming at him. "You know, hand crafted, tasty..."
I hoped that the customers could hear me as well as I knew they had heard him.
"It smells like manure!"
I looked at Nate, who was working in the deli and obviously as mortified as I was by this conversation.
"Yeah, well, welcome to cheese, chef. "Where the best things often have the strongest smell, you know, chef?"
"It smells like manure."

He walked away and I turned to Nate, exasperated.
"Does he know how stupid he sounds saying stuff like that while he's wearing a chef's coat?"
"Well, he's a classy guy."

West Coast Karen was telling Sven about her break.
"I have to go out. I'm watching a dog for somebody and I have to go take him out."
She then launched into a long story about how she started back at a pet-sitting service, and how this was her first job, watching a geriatric dog for some people who were out of town for the holiday weekend. The dog was very high maintenance because it had a lot of health problems and therefore a lot of medications, one of which was apparently left unmarked in a bowl at dog level, right next to his food. West Coast Karen apparently fed the dog several pills, thinking that they were treats, and then somehow mentioned it to the dog's owner via a phone call (I didn't hear the details because I was busy trying my best not to listen because that's what I do when West Coast Karen is talking). The owner then proceeded (justifiably, I think)to freak out, spewing forth expletives and "You killed my dog" and the like, to which WCK responded

"I'm getting the sense that you're angry here, and I think we just need to move on."

She was completely serious. The owner then instructed her to squirt hydrogen peroxide into the dog's mouth in order to induce vomiting, which she did. The dog vomited, and up until at least the last time she had checked in, was still breathing. But WCK, who purportedly has an advanced degree in psychology,was convinced that she had done nothing wrong.

"I mean, the bowl wasn't marked, and everything else was marked, you know?" she was telling Sven, who simply nodded. I was staring determinedly into the large wheel of clothbound cheddar I was cutting. Please don't bring me into this please please please please I thought, whistling as if I was hearing none of her story.

"I think she just felt guilty because obviously it was her fault."
"Probably so," responded Sven, without a hint of sarcasm.

There was a resounding sproing as the cheese wire broke in the middle of my cheddar wheel.

Harried Manager came flying to the bar the other night, a rack of fancy wine glasses in hand. He sent Too Loud Trixie, the Inappropriate Bartender, to get the expensive wine that had been ordered from the wine closet.
He chose to send TLT because he knew that she had been getting on my nerves for a couple of hours and he was tying to give me a moment's peace. Unfortunately, being the diplomat that he is, what Harried Manager actually said was
"I want Trixie to go. She needs practice finding the wines back there. You- (he pointed at me) stay and help me polish these. We have to be really careful with these so they don't break."
He was right, of course. Trixie has worked mostly day shifts and doesn't know the wine closet as well as I do because she doesn't use it as often, and she would have agreed with him had he found a better way to say it and had she not already been working for nine hours. But he didn't, and she had, so she threw a fit and cursed a blue streak right there behind the bar, in full view of all of the bar patrons and likely within earshot of almost everybody in the dining room upstairs.
Welcome to my Saturday night, everybody. These days it seems like I work with Trixie more often than not, and despite the fact that she clearly cannot handle a double shift without losing it and shooting her mouth off, she seems to volunteer for them on a regular basis.

So, Too Loud Trixie goes off in a huff, and then HM polishes exactly one and a half of the ten glasses before shattering one into a million pieces. This throws him completely off of his game, and as he scrambles to pick up the broken shards, he nearly knocks the entire rack (containing the rest of the unpolished glasses) to the floor. A trainee approaches, and is thrust into the middle of the task as Harried Manager finds havoc to wreak elsewhere. Trixie returns, smiling and cheerful as if nothing has happened, and sees the broken glass in the trash.

"What happened?" she asks, as if it isn't obvious.
"Harried Manager broke a glass," I respond with total ambivalence.
"You see? What an asshole. Good. I'm glad he broke one." (You can assume exclamation points after anything uttered by Trixie. Were I to type them, this post would be twice as long.)
"Well, you should be glad that it was him and not you," I say calmly and quietly. "He's just freaking out, and now he isn't freaking out at you."
I find it frustrating that this woman is ten years older than me and still such a child. She also has a habit of accusing everyone else of lacking professionalism, the irony of which will surely not escape the more astute among you. (Minutes later she dropped an entire rack full of glasses in the back hall, and then she came back behind the bar and cussed out loud about that, too.)

Through all of this, an off duty cook named Ed has been observing, drink in hand, from the other side of the bar. He occasionally looks at me as if to say, "Dude- I am so sorry." I occasionally respond by noting out loud the number of minutes there are before I am able to have a beer. About twenty minutes after the glasses are finished and the wine is whisked away, Harried Manager returns, stepping back to pour himself a caffeinated beverage behind the bar just opposite Ed.
"Well, the shit show's almost over," he sighs, looking at his watch.
Ed immediately shoots back "Why- are you out of here?"
I think ed and I are going to get along just fine. I knew my people had to be up here somewhere.

A few weeks ago, I was working a stupid, stupid lunch shift at the Local Restaurant. It was loaded with leaf peepers, they all came in at once (off of buses), they all wanted separate checks, they were all on a tight schedule, and the kitchen was full of new students who couldn't even cook a blasted hamburger. One table had three young girls at it. A co-worker of mine came up and told me that they had completely stiffed him (no tip at all, for those of you unfamiliar with the term) a couple days before. He said I should make sure to tell them that their school cards only paid for the food and not the gratuity, because it was possible that they were confused, even though he had explained it to them. So, when I dropped the check, I sent over a manager (who is also an instructor at the school- this is how the restaurant/school relationship sometimes works) to make sure they understood. Then they stiffed me.

These school cards have been the bane of our existence at the Local Restaurant. What they are is basically $300 credit cards given to all new students, which they use to dine at the LR so they can experience the school and the food and the restaurant before they come in for class. The cards don't include gratuity, as I said, and a large percentage of the students don't tip. This leaves the professional wait staff stuck waiting on some really rude and obnoxious kids who take up all of our time and all of our tables, essentially for free.

After the girls left, I spoke to the chef instructor, and she said she was going to talk to them later, when they were in class. It was agreed all around that something needs to be done. Well, nothing was done. Or at least, no results were seen on our end. And the problem with a Culinary Institute is that new students are coming in all the time. It isn't like traditional college, where the new kids mostly arrive in the fall.

The other night, I was behind the bar, and lo and behold, one of these obnoxious young ladies arrives in full brigade (that's French for "cute little chef suit") in a big hurry. She was working in the kitchen, which meant that she had very limited time, and she had a cup in her hand. I looked up at her and smiled.

"What do you need?" I said, calmly. She immediately recognized me.
"Can I just get a ginger ale when you have a minute?"
"Of course," I smiled again, continuing to pour a glass of wine for an order that was going out to a customer. Then I started to make a martini. Normally, when I see a chef or a student chef coming, I reach over the bar, past any servers who are waiting for their drink orders, and fill their drink, because I know that they only have a moment and that they have to get back to the kitchen as soon as possible. This time I didn't feel any urgency at all. And sure enough, the little bitch ran back up the stairs to the kitchen without any ginger ale. Did she learn a lesson? I doubt it. Did I feel slightly better anyway? Damn straight.

11 1/2 hours of work, and 9 1/2 hours of sleep. Oh Service Industry, you knew I couldn't stay away. That's right people: A new job, and a whole new cast of characters.
Roger was the waiter who trained me. Roger is somewhere around fifty, and he wears an (unironic) earring and mustache combo that would have identified him as gay were we still in the eighties. I don't think he is gay, or if he is he doesn't know it anyway. He is, however, a total bitch. He was nice enough to me, but his interactions with the other servers were less than pleasant. He would tell me something about how to push desserts, or how to close a check, and then follow it with
"Because you are concerned about your money first."
It got to the point where we were playing the game, you know, where he would start the sentence, and then look to me to repeat that phrase back to him. I played along, because it was just easier. Many of the things he told me were either hilariously obvious or completely misguided. In column A, we have these gems: "Be nice to the kitchen, because if you take care of them, they'll take care of you." "Be nice to the bartender, because let me tell you, they are under no pressure to make your drinks first. And we can make your life very easy or very hard when we're back there." (He said that when he told me he was rounding up the bartender's tipout by fifty cents.)
He also explained to me a very complicated system he has for the order of service of the people at a table, based on their ages. He described it as "proper etiquette" having earlier mentioned his former job at a resort in Stowe. Now, don't get me wrong. I know that these things are very important sometimes. I know that it is best to serve the elders in a party first to show proper respect, but this is an establishment where people use fucking coupons. And frequent diner cards. And get a discount on their birthday based on their age. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm not sure that they give a shit about who gets their basket of hot wings first, you know? I asked him some questions about shifts and what time they were usually over and how much I could expect to make. At first I was dismayed by his answers, but then I realized that he was likely making a lot less than everybody else, despite his "proper etiquette," due to his "shit attitude". Yeah. Can't wait to work with that guy again.

Today was Drag Your Shrieking Child Through the Store Day at the LHFS. And thanks to somebody's stroke of genius, many of them were piloting child-sized shopping carts and running around knocking into stuff and completely ignoring their parents. So that was fun.
Then there was a girl who showed up in her pajamas. Now I know you're thinking, so effing what? People do that all the time! And indeed that is true. I have seen people in flannel bottoms and a t-shirt, sometimes even in their slippers, running into the gas station or the Local Liquor Store for a pack of cigarettes or quick 6 pack. Shit, people used to come to the bar like that. No. This girl was wearing a silky, peacock green camisole and short set, with lace trim, and a pair of knee-length white trouser socks. Yeah. Somebody's daddy probably should have given her a little more attention.
Other than that and the fact that I got free breakfast (hooray for tofu curry!), it was a rather soul-suckingly boring day.
Off tomorrow, though, so if the weather is nice (it's supposed to rain, so I assume that it will be) I'll probably take the boys to do something fun.

The Starting Gun.

It went off at seven in the morning, at which point the dogs rolled over and looked at me like I was crazy (I was). I hit the snooze button (twice), then dragged my ass downstairs to make coffee. It was still dark outside, which I found highly upsetting. It was also raining steadily, which the boys found upsetting, because they had to go out in it in order to pee.
I went the lazy route and re-heated Friday's coffee in a pint glass in the micro-wave. I was too tired to care how awful it was. I tried to put my suitcase in the car surreptitiously, after feeding the dogs and putting a bit of half and half on their food to distract them. It didn't work. These are smart animals. First they thought "we" were going somewhere, and they got really happy. Then when they realized that only I was getting in the car, they got upset. I left as quickly as possible.
Despite the rain my drive to the airport was fairly easy. I got there and went to the economy parking lot, where I drove up and down every row in the "A" section before landing a spot at the very back.
As I was getting out of the car and retrieving my suitcase from the back seat, I was passed by a courtesy vehicle - I use that term loosely - which was completely devoid of passengers. I flailed my arm for a moment in hopes that it would stop. It didn't. There were no other people in the whole parking lot. I walked to the terminal in the rain, dragging my bags and my coat and cursing the courtesy vehicle, which I found parked on the near side of the lot, the driver smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone.
There was no line at check-in. I checked a bag ($15) because I was bringing two bottles of wine and a tube of toothpaste that was 4.19 ounces for K.
Security was fairly easy since I had left anything questionable (like potentially deadly shampoo and conditioner) in my checked bag. I was therefore quite surprised when I was pulled from line after walking, shoeless, through the metal detector.
"Is this your bag?" asked the young man behind the screening counter.
"Yes."
"Would you come over here with me?" He led me to one of those small cubicles where they open your bag behind a partition so small that everyone in line can see exactly what you've brought. I was more confused than worried, because, as I said, I had packed most of my stuff in my checked bag and had only cold medicine, kleenex, and reading material in my carry on. He rummaged around for a moment, then smiled sheepishly, flapped the bag shut, and handed it back to me.
"Have a good flight."
"Uh... thanks." I pulled my boots on (not to self: D0c Martens not the most convenient footwear for the airport), grabbed my bag, and sat down in the "now that you've been man-handled here's a chair where you can put your shoes on and try to regain your dignity" area. I peered curiously into my bag, wondering what might have given the man pause, and then discovered that I had grabbed my portable cd player out of the car in case of emergency (like a screaming child). The b.h. has the iP0d and I didn't want to be stranded without music. I'm sure that they don't usually find people flying with antique electronic devices, and it probably looked like a potential hazard.
The plane began boarding as soon as I had finished my bagel and cream cheese. I had chosen the window seat in the last row so that I would board quickly and be able to fall asleep without fear of drooling on a stranger. Unfortunately there was no window in the last row, so my claustrophobia was in full gear by the time we took off. Also, the flight was full and the guy next to me was pretty tall and angular, all elbows and knees reaching into my personal space. Luckily I had taken an antihistamine prior to boarding and promptly passed out, missing the pretzels and soda and waking up only when the turbulence started to get serious, which was a minute or two before touchdown.
My bag popped out at the claim area as soon as I got there, and I wove my way through various rip-off artists trying to get me a "flat fee" ride to Brooklyn (only $55!) to the cab stand.
Seventeen dollars (plus tip) and fifteen minutes later, I pulled up in front of the restaurant where K works.

Customer of the Day #2381

At 4:50, a guy came in and asked Adam for Lagunitas Maximus. This is a fantastic beer, and normally we do carry it. We have many varieties of Lagunitas beers, and more IPAs than you can shake a stick at, but this guy was only interested in Maximus. So Adam apologizes to him and says,
"We do have it at the other store."
"I'm not goin' to the other store I live in Monroe!" the man snapped, at an unnecessary volume. I waited approximately ten seconds before shouting from the other side of the store:
"Ten minutes Adam!"
All of the employees laughed out loud. Apparently the man was calmer when he came up front to check out.

"Feels Like 18"

That's what our local weather says on The W3ather Ch@nnel dot com. Fucking cold is what it is. Were it not for the musical stylings of South San Gabriel, I wouldn't even consider leaving the house.
Today was long and sucky. I knew it was going to be, so when i woke up this morning I stayed in bed for a long time thinking "but Mom, I don't wanna go to school today! to no avail. There was a huge delivery coming in first thing. More than two hundred cases of wine, and just two of us to deal with it. The first and largest delivery was already there when I arrived. I jumped right in and helped Lynn for several minutes before she was pulled away for something completely stupid that should not have come up today. I kept moving along, she returned, and we finished up that lot with little trouble. Next we had to move an entire display because it was crooked. We had to take all of the bottles off the top (at least a hundred, but probably more), pull apart the whole display, shuffle some of the boxes to one side a few inches, re-build the display, and then put the bottles back on top. All the while I was thinking that I must have made a serious error somewhere, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly where. I do have a degree and everything, so why all this heavy lifting? Oh yeah- useless degree. Right, then. I'll just keep doing what I'm told.
I convinced Lynn that we didn't need to actually move both of the remaining displays, but that we could manage by simply rearranging them. This kept me from having to move an additional hundred cases. Instead we moved maybe thirty. In the process of this move, a 1.5 litre bottle became dislodged from the display and fell directly onto my knee, striking whatever the knee equivalent of my funny bone is. That rendered me incapacitated for several minutes, so I hobbled back behind the cash register and put on an ice pack and rang people out while Lynn finished up. By the time the next delivery hit, we were well prepared and it went into the freshly moved display without any hassle. Once we finished that, we got to work on the regularly scheduled delivery, which we had almost finished when Lynn had to leave for a class. A bit later i decided that I was going to just move these three last boxes and then get on my way. The first of those three ended up crashing to the ground, spilling wine and broken glass everywhere. I cleaned that up, and as I pulled apart the dropped case I saw that I had only broken two bottles. A miracle. I then jammed a tiny shard of glass into my finger while picking up the unbroken bottles. Fabulous. So I stayed half an hour late for no reason except that I am sometimes clumsy and stupid and i don't know when to quit.
Now I'm home and trying to gear up to get out in this crap weather to go see a not at all crap show. Wish me luck.

Stuff.

Okay, it is after one in the morning and I have worked a fifteen plus hour day, and this is frustrating. I am, of course, thrilled by the outcome of the election, drunk on the idea that we will once again have a leader who can not only pronounce the word "nuclear" correctly, but give an entire speech without sounding like a total doofus. I feel great, I feel inspired, and unfortunately, I feel pretty damned tired. I have been burning the proverbial candle at both ends for a few months now, and both my writing and my general sense of well being are suffering immensely(Oh yeah- reading, too). I have had some funny things to say, some weird and annoying and bizarre experiences with co-workers and friends and customers that I simply do not have the time and ebergy to share. I am really trying to fix that. Hopefully in a couple weeks I will be back on top of my game. For now, I will just try to pass on a few nuggets.

1) My co-worker at the Local Liquor Store, whom I will refer to as Stan, is slowly driving me insane. He is one of those people who argues for the sake of arguing. He is a nice enough person, mind you, but he always, ALWAYS talks with his mouth full (and he eats all the time, so it goes on all night), he is forever responding first with "WHAT?!" whenever I need something from him, no matter how close I am standing to him, but somehow manages to insert himself in every conversation I have with anyone else from across the whole store. He is, to put it mildly, a person who might could use a bit of -er, counseling. My friend Matt might say he belongs in a "nervous hospital." And tonight I discovered that he actually carries not one, but two- TWO, dos, deaux, a duece- guns while at work. When I knew he had one, I was comforted. After all, we are a liquor store, we are open late, and we do have cash in there. It seems reasonable. But TWO?! Really?

Also, there is a woman at the Importer of Smoking Accoutrements who I am likely to flip out on if I don't reduce my hours soon. At least one of you knows her. She, like Stan, is a nice enough person, but seriously. She talks to her dog, repeating the same phrases over and over and then answering for the dog in a baby voice, for the first two hours of my day, every day. I'm starting to think about borrowing one of Stan's guns.

Additionally, not that I am scarred for life from my Big Box Corporate Job experience or anything, but I went in to buy some rat traps at the Big Stupid Box Store last week, and I came around a corner and saw my old buddy Grandma, and I literally jumped. And then I ducked behind a row of power tools. And then I laughed out loud at myself at a volume that made other employees and customers alike stare at me. But I didn't come out until I was sure she was gone.

How's everybody else doing? I am keeping up with reading your blogs, even if I haven't been commenting much. It's really the only thing keeping me sane, so thanks for that.

Ready, Set, D'oh!

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was knock a glass off of my nightstand when reaching to turn off my alarm. It broke, of course.

The rest of my morning has been going better, thanks.

Some Good Ole' Boys Try To Fuck Me.

Tuesday I dropped the b.h at work, and made my way over to the ISA. I was having a fine day at work, and the b.h. got done early but had found a ride home, so I was planning on spending some extra hours in order to get out earlier later in the week.
I realized, at around four, that we hadn't yet heard from the mechanic about our car. I called the b.h. and asked him to call them.
The b.h. called back a minute later, saying that they hadn't found a fuel leak, but they had fixed the exhaust leak. Without calling me. I was puzzled and pissed. He said that the guys had told him to call back in twenty minutes to get the total for the work they had done. I waited an angry, slow twenty minutes, and called them.
"Wilson's Auto Shop."
"This is hey bartender. You have my Corolla. So where are we right now?"
"Oh, we put it back up and looked under it and we found the fuel leak. You've got a hole in your gas tank. We can order the part, but it won't be here before Thursday."
"And what else have you done?"
"We fixed the exhaust leak."
"And why did you do any work without calling me first?"
"Uh, well, I didn't think it was a big thing. It's just a little gasket. You don't have to pay for it-"
"And how much is the new gas tank going to cost?"
There is a pause, and some muffled talking.
"Four hundred and thirty-three dollars."
"Really. And how much do I owe you right now?"
"About a hundred dollars."
"How much of that was for the repair that I didn't ask you to make?"
"About fitty dollars."
"Really? For that "little part? That "no big deal"? Fifty dollars?"
"Well, for puttin' it on, yeah. We can take it off. You don't hafta-"
"Oh I'm not going to pay for it. Don't touch that fucking car. I'll be out there in a few minutes to pay you for the tow."

I called the b.h., and left the ISA immediately, trailing smoke from my ears. I also called my mechanic, the ever fabulous Gary over at Master's Garage on 441 North. We talked and he agreed that it didn't sound right. I told him I was having it towed over to his place.
I wondered to myself how it was possible that a mechanic could jack a car up to fix the exhaust and not see gas leaking from a hole in the gas tank. I also wondered how a car with a hole in the gas tank still had gas in it at all after sitting for two days at the garage. Funny...

When we got there, none of the mechanics would look at me. The guy I was paying for the tow had to, but he made as little eye contact as possible. The boss never turned around to look at me. I told the b.h. to go over and peek in the car and tell me how much gas was in it. It was full. I continued to play along for a minute.
"So assuming that I eventually have the money to fix the hole in my gas tank, how much is it going to cost?"
Silence. The fat guy who is writing up my receipt looks over at his boss, who will not acknowledge my presence and has not turned around the whole time, even though he is only two feet away from me.
"What'd he tell you?"
"Well he said four hundred thirty-three dollars, but that was just for the part. How much to actually put it in?"

Silence.

That's what I thought. I paid the asshole fifty dollars in cash and we left. We drove down the road and parked in a parking lot to wait for the tow truck driver from Triple A. Since the gas only leaks while it's running, we decided that we couldn't drive it but it would be safe for them to tow. The driver came out in less than an hour. He knew exactly where Masters Garage is, and grinned when I mentioned it. "I used to date Gary's daughter. One time he got in my car and had the whole steerin' wheel apart in like three minutes. He's the best."
Yes he is. And if only I had known that the car would stop leaking, I would have taken it to him in the first place. But I didn't want him to show up at work on Tuesday with twelve gallons of gas all over his lot because of me. And I figured since I dragged the towing guy out on a Sunday, the least I could do was give them some business at their garage. I was wrong. I will not make that mistake again.

So now Gary has it, and it should be ready in a few hours. But note to selves: Wilson's Auto Service is bullshit. DO NOT take your car there. And if you happen to get in an accident in Oconee County, do not let them tow it, or else tow it away from them as soon as possible. What a bunch of assholes.

Wisdom of the Ancients.

Old Man Robbie, my boss at the Local Liquor Store, has been "in the business" for almost twenty years. He's not that old, chronologically, but he likes to refer to himself as if he is, and often the effects of his lifestyle make him pretty convincing in the part. He and the owners are really great guys, and I am learning a lot from them.
For example, I recently learned that if a customer wants to write a check, and they ask for a carton rather than a pack of cigarettes, the check is unlikely to clear.

Personally, I have no idea why we take checks anyway. In this day and age, I would think you have to try pretty hard to convince the bank not to send you a check card. Checks are outdated. They slow up the line, they piss people off, and at least in the case of our bank, they cost money to use. I think the b.h. and I are allowed a couple checks per month before we start having to pay a fee for each one. So why do we take them? I don't know. We do have a lot of regular customers who use them, er, regularly (though they still manage not to have the check made out to Local Liquor Store, dated, and signed before they get up to the counter, which I find a bit exasperating. When I go to The Giant Big Box for my other boss, I always have the check filled out ahead of time, so I need only fill in the dollar amount. It's just common sense and common courtesy, in my mind). The thing is that the Local Liquor Store is pretty small and often very, very busy, and it only takes a moment for a line to form, and for that line to become a mass and then a mob. But I digress.

I was working at the Local Liquor Store the other night when we got a phone call. Old Man Robbie answered, and as he wandered through the store on the cordless phone, I could hear him telling the person on the other end that yes, we do take checks, as long as you have (laundry list of stuff we need in order to take a check from you). He explained it loudly and repeatedly, as if he were speaking to a person who was deaf, mentally impaired, or possibly not a native English speaker. He hung up the phone and shook his head exasperatedly. I was ringing up a line of customers, so I didn't get a chance to hear the explanation.
A little while later, a woman came in while Old Man Robbie and I were behind the counter, walked directly up to him and said
"I think I talked to you?"

She looked to be at least sixty or sixty-five, and a bit frail. Old Man Robbie helped her locate what she was looking for, and then stood patiently as it took her a month and a half to fill out her check. In the meantime, I was checking out a long line of customers. She asked him for the total again, and when he told her (it was over a hundred dollars), she decided to add on - wait for it - a carton of cigarettes. At that point, Old Man Robbie knew he'd been had. He said no, finished ringing her out, and when she finally went out the door, he cussed loudly and walked very quickly back to the office.

He returned, fuming, a few minutes later.
"This check isn't going to clear," he said. At this point there were no customers, so he took the time to explain the Theory of the Carton to me. He also said that there was a way you could call a person's bank and see if they had enough money in their account to cover a check. He had called, and Nadine (47 years of age, I was shocked to discover) didn't have the money. Now all we can hope for is a magical deposit (doubtful, since Nadine is likely a crackhead) into her account before our check goes in, or that Nadine is pulled over at some point and taken to jail for the bad check. In any case, we probably won't ever see that money.

At the bar the other night, I was flagged down by a pudgy, thirty-something white guy in a polo shirt and a baseball cap. He was drunk(ish) and loud, but nice enough. I got him his drink and he tried to start a conversation with me. He was friendly and polite, but I didn't feel much like chatting, so I gave him a couple short answers and then made myself busy at the opposite end of the bar. Minutes later I discovered that he had found another victim: a middle-aged black guy who was also drunk and more than happy to have somebody to talk to. Well, good for them both, I thought. Then while I was making a drink for another customer, I realized that the Pudgy White Guy was "talking black" to the Middle Aged Black Guy. Loudly. He was making huge hand gestures, and demonstrating, he thought, his solidarity with Black People by changing the whole grammatical structure of his sentences. It was quite embarrassing. Fortunately, the Middle Aged Black Guy didn't seem bothered at all. I pointed the Pudgy White Guy out to the other bartender, who went down to eavesdrop. He returned, cracking up. We told another customer, and then another employee. Then I got busy for a few minutes and forgot about the guy.

When I saw him again, I noted to my utter horror that he had turned his baseball cap slightly to one side. Oh. My. Fucking. God. And I thought to myself that somebody should really make a public service announcement. Just because you've seen every season of The Wire does not mean that you know anything about The Black Experience. I don't care how many hip-hop and rap records you have downloaded into your iP0d. I don't care how many black friends you have. You have got to stop acting like that because you are embarrassing all people everywhere. You are acting like a condescending douche and no matter how many black friends you think you have, they are all laughing at you behind your back.
Now, does anybody know who we can get to record this announcement? A local rapper, perhaps?

Adventures In Southern Gardening.

Is it too soon to start making a list of things I'm not going to miss about living here? Probably, since we don't really have a move date yet. But, you know what they say: No better time than the present and all that.
So I was out in the garden this morning. I have been meaning to put up a trellis for the cukes and zukes to climb on, but since we don't own a ladder I wasn't sure how I was going to get those seven-foot stakes pounded into the ground. I have had a couple people offer to bring over ladders, etc., but have never managed to work it out. So today, I got all McGuyver. I backed my car through the yard and up against the side of the garden, then hopped onto the trunk and stood there and pounded in the stake. All I have is a rubber mallet, so there were flying chunks of it spewing out and I was using both hands, wobbling precariously all the while. I'm sure the people in the office complex behind me were highly entertained. The whole time I was standing up there I thought how lucky I was not to be trying to use a ladder, as I would surely have fallen off and broken something.
For the second stake, I had to recruit the b.h. I had already worn a blister into the crook of my left hand, and since the ground seemed a lot harder on that side it was near impossible for me to get the stake in. He did fine, though, and then went back in to resume backing up the shit on our desktop, which we think is virus-ey and dying.
So I unrolled the metal fence, and wound it around post A, folding the edge around the post as I went and using my other hand to fend off the other end of the fence, which wanted to roll itself back up again with me in the middle. I was doing this very slowly and methodically, even though it was hotter than hell and I was sweating like a whore in church, because I had a vivid picture in my head of trying to drive myself to the hospital with a section of fence stuck in my eye, and frankly I had no idea how we'd both fit in the car. What I didn't realize, however, was that while I was being so careful with my hands and my eyes, I was standing with my right foot planted firmly on a fire ant hill.
After I ripped my shoe off, I had to hop on one foot most of the way through the yard and all the way to the porch, where I began ripping off my clothes while running through the house to the shower.
No,I will not miss fire ants, but I suspect those people in the office complex are really going to miss me.

Crotchety.

There seems to be a rush of people looking for jobs right now. I have lost count of the number of people who have come into the bar this week inquiring. It's unfortunate, really, because there are NO bar jobs to be had in this town in the dead of summer. What's more unfortunate is the resume' I got from a girl on Monday.
Objective: "I wish to seek a position(...) that my abilities with customer service..."
This was at the top, before I read that she was a HOPE scholarship student and that she had maintained a 3.2 GPA all the way through college, from which she had already graduated. With a degree in English, and a minor in fucking Journalism. Seriously.
I don't mean to sound a prude or anything, but are there any fucking standards anymore?
I wouldn't deny the girl a job because she has no grammar skills - they really aren't necessary in our line of work - but seriously?!
Your objective is to wish to seek? And you have a degree in journalism?! It really does explain some of the ridiculous headlines ("Man accused of tying son to tree in Court"). This shit makes me want to tear my hair out.

Oh yeah- Get off my lawn!!!

It's a Small World After All.

Got a call from Peggy Plants today. It seems that my contract has run out at the B.S. Squared. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Since I hadn't gotten dressed or had any coffee yet when I found out, I didn't really react at all except to thank her and hang up. Then I drove the b.h. to work and went to find another job. Went to the new location of an old health food store, where as it turns out, they no longer carry any food and are focusing on vitamin supplements and skin care products. They are not hiring, but they were doing free organic facials (tee hee), so I stuck around for a few minutes and let a total stranger rub a bunch of goop onto my face. It never ceases to amaze me how much crap people actually wear on a daily basis. I thoroughly enjoyed the cleanser/toner/moisturizer portion of it, but the rest was pretty hilarious. Clown-like, even. I smiled and thanked the woman and left.
I don't know if i have ever mentioned it before, but Athens is an incredibly small town for it's size. Some might say too small. They would be (sort of) right. When I got to the Other Health Food Store, I stopped and chatted with my friend D, who works in the grocery department. I mentioned my free facial and my discomfort with the amount of makeup I was wearing, but he didn't seem to notice. He gave me an application, and while we were standing there a former co-worker of mine walked up. This former co-woker and I are not really speaking, for reasons that I don't care to go into, and D had no idea, and so felt the need to introduce us to each other. We both kind of looked uncomfortable for a minute and quickly and awkwardly assured D that we had, in fact, met. Then we exchanged some pleasantries and she moved on. I have no wish to intrude upon this person's pleasantly hey bartender-free existence, but I really, really need a job, and the Health Food Store is one of the few places in town that has a good health insurance plan. Plus, I really like healthy food. So i hope she will indulge me.
I went and sat in the cafeteria area to fill out my application. On the way there, I saw three people I knew. Two of them work at the Health Food Store and one of them was shopping. (Did I mention how small this town is?) Anyway, there were only two other people in the room where i was sitting, and they were having a loud and very lively (to the point of distracting) conversation which involved several people with whom I am familiar. Apparently these two dipshits have no idea how small this town is, because the woman was loudly discussing her ex-boyfriend (first and last name mentioned at least five times), with whom I am quite familiar, having SHARED A NEEDLE with another person they were talking about. SHe said it without any malice at all, and having heard so much of this conversation I was sure that they are still friendly with one another, which is all the more reason why I was appalled that she would repeatedly mention his first and last name in the same sentence with SHARED A NEEDLE. These people were truly idiotic and so completely compelling that it took me well over fifteen minutes to fill out a very simple application form. I almost went and got myself lunch just so I could stay in there. There was talk of his divorce, of a woman whom he had befriended who wound up stalking him (puzzling to me once I turned and actually saw him), a woman who, of course, the woman he was speaking also knew, because everybody knows everyfuckingbody here. She apparently sent him pornographic pictures of herself. It was seriously entertaining. I am going to leave you now and see if I can't find them on MySpace, because I just know there is more to the story.
Oh, I also made another stop and I think I found myself a job, but I don't want to jinx it so I'll have to tell you about it later.

Night of the Record Industry Douchebag (Jim ,this one's for You).

I was at a show the other night featuring one of the better Athens bands to arrive on the scene in the last year or so. I will avoid using their name in this post so that my rant doesn't come up if the douchebag in question does a G00gle search for them before deciding whether or not to sign them to a "deal".
Anyway, the band was playing last on a three band bill. In Athens, shows don't usually start before ten p.m., so that means that it's going to be a late night. Industry douche was made aware of this before attending the show.
The band that played second was having their last show- possibly ever, but at very least there is going to be a very extended hiatus. They knew that the headlining band was playing for a Label Douche, so they did their best to be quick. They were. They tore through their set with minimal talking in between, and they sounded fantastic.
During the set, I was looking around the room playing "Spot the Label Douche" with the b.h.
"Its either Leather Sleeves or Track Suit," I said confidently.

The guy in the Leather Sleeves was older, and he looked like he could have been one of the band member's dad. He had kind of mullet-ey hair, regular jeans, a t-shirt, regular gym shoes... basically looked like a regular guy who liked music and had better things to do than worry about his hair and his clothes. And his jacket was one of those H@rd Rock Cafe-type things, with the denim torso and leather sleeves. He could just as easily have been a truck driver as a Label Douche. He walked through the club without stopping at the bar, went to the back for a minute, then came back out front and sat by himself toward the back of the room.
Tack Suit, on the other hand, was pacing around furiously. He was wearing- you guessed it- an Adidas track suit. Also a white mesh baseball cap, designer horn rimmed glasses, and he had a fucking Blue Tooth sticking out of his head. Seriously. Because apparently when you're important, you never know who might call at twelve-thirty on a Tuesday night while you're standing in a rock club, and you are damned sure not going to miss a call. Oh yeah- he was also wearing a thumb ring. I thought those were reserved for guys with pirate shirts who had been to Burning M@n, but apparently not. As I said, he was pacing around like his ass was on fire, checking his watch, then checking his blackberry, then checking his watch again, and muttering loudly to himself, as if to convey to the rest of us that he was Somebody Who Should Not Be Made To Wait. He did not go to the bar for a drink.
When the middle band was almost finished (they were running very early, and were well within their set time, and could have played a few more songs), the band left the stage so the lead singer could play the last song solo. It is his band, and the songs are his, and this was his last show, at least for a very long time. And there were a number of us there to see him.
Track Suit accosted the guitar player for the second band, a total stranger, and proceeded to scold him for not loading his gear offstage immediately. He said they were being unprofessional. Loudly. Right next to the stage, where a solo acoustic song was closing the final set for a band that a lot of people were there to see.

Ding ding ding!! We have a winner!!

As it turned out, Leather Sleeves was also a record industry guy, but he was not a Label Douche. They stayed for about half of the set that the third band played. They seemed to think the band was good enough, but they (Label Douche in particular) did not at any time appear to be enjoying themselves. And I know that for them it is a job, but wouldn't you hope that a guy in that position actually enjoyed music? Somehow I doubt that he does, and this is what I believe is the problem with the music business. I had a flash of the Simpsons, of a scene where Nelson points at a newspaper guy and goes "Ha Ha! Your Industry is dying!!" I smiled to myself. I wanted to follow them out just so I could hear what Label Douche would say, but I didn't. I'm not sure what the band is looking for in a record "deal" but I hope that if they get one they don't have to rely on Label Douche too heavily.