A Gentleman Is Always Appreciative Of The Arts

I was the lead of my second grade play about "What I want to be when I grow up." Now, most people will cite something like this as a launching pad for a thespian career or as a moment of focused childhood anxiety, but being an extraordinarily stupid child I don't remember it being either. In fact, I don't really remember much emotion from my childhood at all, beyond embarrassment.

Even as the lead in the play I only had two lines:

• "Ahhh, Mom, can't I play Nintendo just a little longer."
• "Now I realize that I want to be an astronaut."

The play started off with an argument between my mother, played by the delightful Gwen Zadgel, in which I refused to go to bed, but did. I then fell asleep on the nurses couch that they brought into the auditorium. There was no argument about how "If I was an adult I could go to bed whenever I wanted" or "If I had a job I could be anything"... nothing. My character immediately caved. There were other plot holes as well. Now, mind you, the entire second grade was lined up on the chorus bleachers behind this once two-man show. When I fell asleep each person in the second grade would walk up to the microphone and say "My name is [name]. I want to be a [profession] because [reason]. I only remember one particularly: "My name is James Awexander, I want to be a geowogist because I want to study wocks and minewals." I remember thinking, "Kid can't even talk."

This was one of those two-hour elementary school play marathon and I must have fancied myself as something of a method actor because I remember thinking I had to lay perfectly still, because, of course, sleeping people don't move. This was exacerbated by the fact that the waiting line of children to get on the microphone walked past me and every single kid poked me, and asked "Are you really sleeping?" Looking back on it, it probably wasn't the best role, pretending to be asleep in my pajamas for two hours on stage.

The play ended with "Nate, it's time to go to school." To which I responded "I want to be an astronaut!" and ran off stage.

This was pretty bad, but it was better than being a bull in our kindergarten play about Mexico.

Mother's Day: A Gentleman Always Cherishes His Mother

I always get a little depressed working on Mother's Day. This is not due to the fact that I cannot be with my own mother [requisite flowers and poem were sent earlier this week, and morning call was made] but from working at "bow tie."

When I think of Mother's Day it is images of elbow macaroni glued to construction paper, or breakfast in bed with overly-diluted juice from concentrate and pancakes still liquid in the middle. Mother's Day to me is taking time away from the motherly routine of every day life to show your appreciation of that routine. Mother's Day has always been awkward for me ever since my mother has stopped providing motherly duties unto me. This is the feeling typified by "bow tie." Obviously, there are few eight-year-olds able to dig up the scratch for veal linguine at $28 a plate, so it is a lot of elderly mothers and grandmothers. "Bow tie" was just too quiet for the number of people we had. The awkward pauses and slumped postures of the mothers there were that of a funeral for the living. It had the feeling of, "Well, it's Mother's Day, time to go dig grandma out of the home for her spring time with us."

The only thing more insulting to a mother than forgetting Mother's Day would be to only remember her ON Mother's Day. Love your moms.

Travelate? A Gentleman Always Knows Exactly Who He Is.

The euphemism for my "bow tie" job is serving assistant, but most would know me as a busboy. I am the individual with the glazed over expression that brings you bread and butter, refills your water, and wishes your soul to eternal damnation if you ask me to box that half of a bite of fucking veal linguine.

"We're taking this home for our dog. He just loves prime rib."
"Hahaha.... I guess this really is a doggy bag then... hahaha"
Cue fake smile and me spitting in your dog's food.

Well, there is an individual at "bow tie" who is what I like to refer to as a wanker. Chronic masturbators lurk everywhere. Chances are if you have a bathroom in your office and more than 5 men someone has made love to themselves in that bathroom. Well B---- is a wanker. He will host a table of attractive women and then disappear for a little while claiming, "I had to wash my hands." But we know your secret B----... we all know.

Anyways, his girlfriend has the idea of being a personal traveling Pilates instructor. The plan is say Brooke Shields wants to go to the French Alps for a week, she would hire this young lady to go with her and keep her meat blanket body in shape. I thought it was a good idea, but needed a catchy name. After a shift of bouncing ideas off one another we decided on Travelates [the "lates" pronounced like the end of "Pilates"]. We were pleased with this name and Google it to see if it's taken. The first hit is Urban Dictionary.

Travlate:

A travelate is a person who can masterbate anywhere, he is not scared of a challange and will masterbate when he feels like it.

The look of revelation on his face was something in between "I thought I was the only one" and "My hidden shame, thy name is Travelate."

Monkey-Fighting Snakes?

True gentlemen don't cuss.

"I've had enough of the monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane."

How to make German stick

My college career in German was headed by a fiery young piece of academic Euro-Trash named Frau D--. She was able to make the material very relatable. We had an entire unit on club etiquette, ordering drinks, and safe sex. She said something along the lines of, "Europe is a sweet place to hookup. It's a little harder for Americans over there because most countries hate you. It's not like a European girl coming over here." I muttered, "Amen for that, girl." This is one of those points in your life where you catch yourself, and beg the question, "Are you really that incapable of controlling your soliloquies? Ahh.... you're still speaking out loud!"

I only visited her office once. I was having trouble translating some passages of Goethe and asked for some guidance. After chit-chatting for a while she picked up her camera to show me some pictures of her most recent travels in Germany. She initially called me across the desk, but thought better of it and said, "Let me see what is on here. It was my husband and I traveling together."

When wishing us a Happy Halloween holiday she dismissed our lecture mit, "Und... keine sex ohne condome." Is a translations necessary? "And.... no sex without condoms." What a woman.

Guest Bartending

Oh, how I wish you could have been to my guest bartending. I will share some of the better anecdotes of the evening with you. I must preface my narrative with my views of bartending and life in general. I think bartending is the worst job in the world. Basically Carm (my bartender friend at Jekyl and Hyde herinafter J&H) explains bartending as: You work when everyone is relaxing, relax when everyone is sleeping, and sleep when everyone is working, you'll never have New Years, St. Patrick's Day or the Fourth of July off, and people think that everything behind the bar is for sale. "So, basically you are a zombie." I confirmed all of these as true in one night. Here is a list of some of the exchanges.

• Kid With A Terrible Fake ID: A rather young looking white male presents me with an ID of a 31 year old Hispanic male. "Ok mister Santos? Could you tell me your address." He of course knows to memorize the address for somewhere in Kentucky. He's not a complete amateur so I up my game. He actually knows the drivers license number, which in itself is a sign it's a fake. I ask, "Mr Santos. What's your sign?" He is now a deer in the headlights. I know he's a Pices because his birthday was only a few days prior. "Uh, Scorpio?" I tell him nice try and to please leave. He says, "There are tons of underage people in here, I'm going to call the cops." I simply tell him that there is a station next door and he can walk over there himself. Surprisingly he does. The cops show up and I tell him the story, serve them a "Coca-Cola" and they leave.
• The Girls Who Mistakes Hogging Up Your Time With Flirting: J&H has, for some unkown reason, renamed all of their normal drinks into monsters. A young lady walks up and asks, "What's in a Frankenstein?" I tell her that it is basically a gin and juice. "What's in a Dracula?" It's wiskey, soda, and grenadine. "What's in a Fang?" It's banana liqueur, pineapple juice and gin. "What would you recommend?" she asks batting her eyelashes. In other situation at a bar like this I would have taken this as a "game on" situation, but with a bar of three-deep frat boys calling for Miller Lites and confirming that they do in fact have money by waving it in your face I say. "Sweetheart, no matter what you order it's going to come out as a straight Jager-Bomb." Apparently I have insulted her as a human being, "Why would you do that?" My biting sarcasm has gone from nibble to chomp and I have alienated another patron.
• The Girl Drink Drunk: The well-dressed man getting plastered off of $5 cranberry and vodkas has asks me to "freshen him up." I make a comment on how much I like that his shirt is so shiny, and that must have cost "no less than $65." "Try 90." I tell him that I have the perfect drink for him: Ginger Ale, grenadine, and plenty of cherries. "What the hell is this? I wanted a cranberry and vodka!" I tell him that it's called a Shirley Temple and it's basically the same thing.
  

So as everything else in life, I am simultaneously the best and worst at what I do. I was slinging beers and shots like drunken cowboy and exercising a Scottish shepherd's control of the drunken sheep, but made enemies faster than it took to ring up their tabs before leaving in a huff.

Line of the night: A girl asks me if I came here often, went back and giggled to her friends. When she came back I asked her if she knew how much a polar bear weighed, and when she sat there dumbfounded, I said "Enough to break the ice?" gave her a free shot, she shot it (without taking the cigarette out of her mouth), and then said, "Wait, I don't get it."

Silence on the Bus....

Riding the bus is never just a way to get from one place to another. It has a very polarizing effect on me. When it is absolute hell it goes like this:

"Yeah, so, he doesn't have to pay child support when he's in jail. What's up with that?"
"I know, I know, and then Kaylie was talking shit about me on my MySpace page about Jeff."
I interject in their non sequitur exchange and say, "I'll switch spots with you, so I'm not sitting between you and your friend."
"Nah, it's fine."

When it is absolute bliss:

"My kid has the same hair as you. Except his mama's white, so it's not as nappy as yours. Oh, and since mixed babies are the best, he's a lot cuter than you are."
"Sir, I would hope so. It's hasn't been easy being this ugly."
"Oh shit! This dudes clownin' back here. Hey everybody...! [cue bus attention] this dude's clownnnnnnin'!"

But beyond everything I've seen while riding a bus (emo teens feeling each other up, and hicks spitting chaw straight onto the floor) and heard (a 15-year-old girl named Princess going straight from telling me a story about stabbing her step-daddy while he tried to rape her into trying to come and hang out at my house) and experienced (businessman on derelict bum fist fights) I have never experienced the ultimate nirvana in public transportation: absolute silence.

I owe my skill of instant reaction to the unexpected to baseball and my father. Baseball, being the most boring of all sports to play and watch gives a young man a lot of time to think. In the field you think through every possible scenario before the pitch, double in the gap to you left, single right at you, where the runners are, who is batting, stealing, sliding, who's on deck, what pitchers they have in the pen, a bunt, why they call it bunting, bunt cake, pan cake, pan fried, fried rice, rice paddy, paddy wagon, grand wagoneer, "I want a Jeep," ad infinitum. After a while this just becomes a meditative trance know as "the zone", where you not so much react as anticipate the world that you are now one with. My father taught me how to do this, himself being far too meditative for his own good.

I apply this to every moment of my life. When I ride the bus and we go over a bridge the scenario of a fiery bus crashing into the river runs through my mind: calm the passengers, move everyone to the bottom of the bus, release both hatches, swim to safety. Today, while I was thinking about what I would do if I was suddenly stabbed by the man audibly praying behind me, the bus stops dead. That is when I achieved full enlightenment. For those 10 blissful seconds it was completely silent and complete dark. The stop marquee restarts and simply says,

"Clever Systems -- Ltd."

Go bus, I'm late for work.