1) My history teacher in high school once worked in a pizza parlor and when he would get pissed at his customers, he would get the mop and squeeze its juicy contents onto the pizza that was about to be baked. Then I saw on a TV show that some rancorous servers would add their bodily fluids and piss to their customer’s food. So if you already know that you are a nightmare of a customer and think they just spit on your food, know that there is a lot more rock ‘n’ roll happening in your beef stew.
2) It’s a bitch to be a waiter. You get the blame if the food is lame when all you did was put it on their tables. Talk about shooting the messenger.
3) Rude and boorish table manners are sick to look at. Seeing a patron deck his hapless waiter with insults makes my stomach churn, and I’m guessing this happens to them at least twice a day. With that said, I try not to be a bitch not only to waiters, but to the whole service industry. I mean, have you ever had a bad massage, and you just took it even if your bones were crying for help, just so you wouldn’t hurt the masseuse’s feelings? I’ve had so many of those that I could actually put up my own spa if I were compensated for all the bad massages I’ve had in my life. I mean, what do you do? Do you tell them to stop or ask for someone else? Gulp. I’ll just take the muscle raping.
However, there are times when they just know how to tickle your inner bitch. My Internet service took a month to install. It’s 2006. The wizards installing my portal to the universe repeatedly were playing red rover with one another because they could not install Internet service in my Mac. At first I played it cool; I politely asked them to use the configuration for Apple computers, until my skin turned green and I was suddenly the poor man’s version of the Hulk kicking around a stapler out of frustration. In the end it was my gay techie friend who did the job in five minutes.
Then there’s the clothing store where I asked to put a certain piece on hold because I needed to withdraw cash; after 30 minutes (the piece was not on sale), they sold it to someone else. Did she not note the covetous look on my face when I asked her to keep it in the back closet so no other Nancy could get her Caronia-coated nails on it? When I asked why, almost with a lump in my throat, she had sold it, she simply said, "People say that all the time but they never come back." I was a victim of bad customer backlash.
It’s like I’m in a trailer movie. You notice how in trailers movies make more sense than the actual movies themselves? If I edited out the loooooong waits and hidden fees and useless conversations, it would actually be a functional life.
Speaking of trailer movies, aren’t there just so many of them right now? Click, The Break-Up, Fierce People, Superman and, most disappointingly, Miami Vice. I mean, come on, Sonny Crocket with an Irish accent? And don’t get me started on Gong Li and her Mojitos. Watching bad trailer movies is like the cinematic equivalent of lobby hotels (think of all those Schrager on hotels with prison cell-like rooms). Like bad massages, with bad movies you can’t get your money back. Some movies are just rude. Like Fierce People, which was a great batter of literary cookie dough for the have-to-haves, but the movie couldn’t get its tribes right. Griffin Dunne, son of Dominic, he of the Lily Safras and Michael Skakels, seems to confuse South American aborigine tribes with the Casadeis moderne. Who can forget such a sensationally retarded foible in history? I mean, they were speaking in full-on Tagalog in the movie! Even our Casadeis knew how to mumble their words for the peeps in National Geographic.
I’m sick of this paying-and-getting-nowhere lifestyle. I know I’m jumping, but somewhere in this letter of complaint to no one in particular lies a message. I dream of the day turnkey living will be ours. Till then, pass the chamomile, please.