Because the Boy from Work is passed out on the very uncomfortable sectional couch in the living room, I shake him to see if he wants to go to sleep in my bed.
Me: Hey. Hey, do you want to go to bed?
Boy from Work: {Grumbling}
Me: Was that a yes?
BFW: {Grumbling}
Me: Don't you want to sleep somewhere more comfortable?
--At this point the BFW scissors up in a shockingly agile way. He stares at me.--
BFW: (angrily) Just do it like you always do it, okay?
Me: Huh?
BFW: Why can't you just do it like you always do it?
Me: I'm asking if you want to go to bed in my room and not out here in the living room, BFW. What are you talking about?
BFW: The taco shell! The taco shell! Just put it on top, upside-down, like you normally do. Okay? Geez.
Me: Oh my God. Are you sleep walking?!
--And then as fast as he was up, the BFW is down again, and he lands with his face planted in a pillow. I can't convince him to move for another half an hour. When he wakes up, he remembers talking to me about the taco shell, but he has no idea why. I think maybe the stress of owning a restaurant is catching up with him.--
Showing posts with label BFW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BFW. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Of All the Strange Birds, This One Is the Strangest (Part One)
I've waited on some strange people during my various stints as a waitress, but I have never met anyone like the man who came into the restaurant during my Friday double shift.
The man loitered near the front door. He looked confused, like maybe he was waiting for someone. He took a couple steps toward the pie case, bent, assessed the pie. Then he leaned over and started talking to another of the waitresses. It almost looked like he was trying to be sly about smelling her.
"Do you guys have reubens?" he asked.
"Yes, we sure do," the waitress said.
"Yeah," the guy said, "I know. I had one yesterday when I came in with my wife and kids."
The waitress looked confused. I widened my eyes at her.
"Well, you've had our reubens then," she said. "Did you enjoy?"
He said he did. He said he enjoyed them so much that he came in for another today. Then he sauntered off toward a booth. He walked with a sway, a sway that said I am not entirely sober right now.
"He's all yours," the waitress told me, and she passed me a menu.
The man was dressed in tattered jeans, boots, a worn plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat that was decorated with a crown of fresh flowers. His hair--ringlets tinged with gray--fell down past his shoulders and looked suspiciously like it hadn't been washed in several days.
"You can just put the order for the reuben in," he told me.
"Okay," I said. "And what can I get you to drink?"
"Water," he said. "I'm a water-man." Then he sang a little song about being a water man. Water, water, water-man.
I nodded slowly, in case he was having trouble seeing me--because by this point it was clear that he was stoned out of his mind--and I started walking back to the kitchen.
"Wait!" he said. I turned. "What kind of soup do you have?"
We had creamy kielbasa soup (winner in the Most Creative Way to Get Rid of the Leftover Kielbasa Casserole Special from Yesterday category) and our standard French onion, so I told him so.
"Can I have the menu?" he asked. He plucked it out of my hand and spread it out in front of him. He traced his fingers over the words HOMEMADE SOUP. "Can I keep this for a bit?" he asked. He kept tracing the words. He wouldn't stop.
"Sure," I said. "And can I get you any soup?"
He nodded, but he didn't stop tracing the words.
"Which kind?" I asked. "The kielbasa?"
"Blecch," he said.
"The French onion then?"
"Alright," he said. He proceeded to whip out a cell phone with all the bells and whistles and started typing a text message. He would continue typing through dinner.
And aside from him being a bit off, a bit odd, and aside from him looking and acting like a stoned cowboy who wandered in from the 1960's, I could've let it go. I could've let it slide. I could've let all the slurping of the soup and the texting and the mumbling during the texting and the slurping of the sauerkraut and the wandering around the restaurant like it was his own kitchen and it was the middle of the night and he was seriously jonesing for a late snack--well, I could've let all that go, but he came in the next day. And he proceeded to be even weirder.
The next day when I arrived for my dinner shift, one of the other waitresses announced that the Boy From Work (see also: this, part one of this, and our official gang photo) said I should get to take the table that had just walked in. When I peered around the corner to see who it was, there was the stoned cowboy again, wandering around the restaurant like it wasn't going to creep out the other customers.
I sighed. "Gee, thanks, BFW," I said. BFW was standing behind the grill, as he was cooking until the night cook got there. BFW had the makings of a reuben already geared up and ready to go.
"This makes three days in a row that this cat has been here," I said, and then I walked out to the table.
The stoned cowboy was once again stoned. His arm and leg movements were loose and random. He was bopping his head to something, and when I got closer I could see he had headphones stuck in his ears.
I smiled when I got to his table. He smiled back.
"Hello again," I said. "What can I get for you today?"
He gestured to the headphones, like, Duh, I can't hear you. "Music," he said, by way of explanation. Finally, he tugged them out of his ears. "What?"
I asked him again what he wanted. He said he wanted everything he had yesterday, just the way it was, just exactly, except he wanted fries instead of chips and he didn't want soup. "You guys makes the best reubens," he said.
I marched back into the kitchen and tore the slip of paper from my pad. I leaned over to scribble the BFW a note. It said, Reuben w/ fries. XOXO, Jess. P.S. This guy is cuh-razy. Thanks.
Then I went to deliver his drink. When I'd asked him what he wanted to drink, I braced myself for the water-man song, but I didn't get it. He just sighed and shrugged and said, "Oh, a water, I guess," in a dejected kind of way.
When I set the water down in front of him, the stoned cowboy again had his headphones in. And he wasn't satisfied with me just dropping the drink and retreating.
"Hey," he said as I started to back away. "Here. Come here."
He had pulled the headphones out and was holding one up like a peace offering. He gestured toward my ear.
I didn't know what else to do--after all, how do you politely tell someone you don't want to put something that was in their ear in your ear for fear of waxy particles, etc.--so I bent down and tried to stay as far away from the earpiece as possible.
He jabbed it closer. I could hear a familiar song, something I hadn't heard in years.
"How about that?" he asked.
The song sounded like exactly the right song the stoned cowboy should be walking around listening to. If they were making a movie about his life, that song would've been piped in under the opening shot of him ambling down the street.
"I remember that song," I said. I couldn't exactly place it, but I knew it involved a Beatle somehow.
"Who is it?" the stoned cowboy quizzed.
I shrugged. "I can't remember," I said.
He looked disappointed. "It's the Traveling Wilburys," he said. "They're a super-group. Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and George Harrison were all in it."
"Oh," I said. "Cool. I like that song." I wasn't sure what to do then. He was looking at me so expectantly, like he was waiting for me to say something brilliant, something profound. I had nothing to say, so I just smiled and left.
Later, as I was delivering an order of food to another table, I had to walk past the stoned cowboy. I had my arms filled with chicken fingers and beef on wecks, but that didn't stop the stoned cowboy from trying to get my attention.
"HEY!" he said. He had his headphones in, so he was shouting. The customers looked alarmed. "HEY, my flowers died!" He held up his cowboy hat so I could see that the fresh flowers he had at one point stuck in the brim were now wilted and limp.
I stopped. I was balancing several plates. I was clearly in a hurry to get to another table. Yet this man thought it was completely fine, normal, and acceptable to kick up a conversation about his hat flowers when I had steaming food in my hands.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I need new ones," he said. "You think so, right? I need new ones?"
I nodded. "Yes, I do. Fresh flowers are very pretty."
"Okay," he said, then nodded. I was dismissed.
The afternoon was filled with more exchanges like that--mostly he wanted to talk about the tenderness of the beef and how he was going around town telling everyone that the diner had really tender beef, and he was even telling complete strangers about the tenderness--and then he was gone. He got back into his red minivan--yes, the stoned cowboy pilots a red minivan--and left the diner to go about his business, his strange, strange business of tooling around town and looking for fresh flowers for the brim of his hat.
He would be back for more in a few days. And he would bring his family...
The man loitered near the front door. He looked confused, like maybe he was waiting for someone. He took a couple steps toward the pie case, bent, assessed the pie. Then he leaned over and started talking to another of the waitresses. It almost looked like he was trying to be sly about smelling her.
"Do you guys have reubens?" he asked.
"Yes, we sure do," the waitress said.
"Yeah," the guy said, "I know. I had one yesterday when I came in with my wife and kids."
The waitress looked confused. I widened my eyes at her.
"Well, you've had our reubens then," she said. "Did you enjoy?"
He said he did. He said he enjoyed them so much that he came in for another today. Then he sauntered off toward a booth. He walked with a sway, a sway that said I am not entirely sober right now.
"He's all yours," the waitress told me, and she passed me a menu.
The man was dressed in tattered jeans, boots, a worn plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat that was decorated with a crown of fresh flowers. His hair--ringlets tinged with gray--fell down past his shoulders and looked suspiciously like it hadn't been washed in several days.
"You can just put the order for the reuben in," he told me.
"Okay," I said. "And what can I get you to drink?"
"Water," he said. "I'm a water-man." Then he sang a little song about being a water man. Water, water, water-man.
I nodded slowly, in case he was having trouble seeing me--because by this point it was clear that he was stoned out of his mind--and I started walking back to the kitchen.
"Wait!" he said. I turned. "What kind of soup do you have?"
We had creamy kielbasa soup (winner in the Most Creative Way to Get Rid of the Leftover Kielbasa Casserole Special from Yesterday category) and our standard French onion, so I told him so.
"Can I have the menu?" he asked. He plucked it out of my hand and spread it out in front of him. He traced his fingers over the words HOMEMADE SOUP. "Can I keep this for a bit?" he asked. He kept tracing the words. He wouldn't stop.
"Sure," I said. "And can I get you any soup?"
He nodded, but he didn't stop tracing the words.
"Which kind?" I asked. "The kielbasa?"
"Blecch," he said.
"The French onion then?"
"Alright," he said. He proceeded to whip out a cell phone with all the bells and whistles and started typing a text message. He would continue typing through dinner.
And aside from him being a bit off, a bit odd, and aside from him looking and acting like a stoned cowboy who wandered in from the 1960's, I could've let it go. I could've let it slide. I could've let all the slurping of the soup and the texting and the mumbling during the texting and the slurping of the sauerkraut and the wandering around the restaurant like it was his own kitchen and it was the middle of the night and he was seriously jonesing for a late snack--well, I could've let all that go, but he came in the next day. And he proceeded to be even weirder.
The next day when I arrived for my dinner shift, one of the other waitresses announced that the Boy From Work (see also: this, part one of this, and our official gang photo) said I should get to take the table that had just walked in. When I peered around the corner to see who it was, there was the stoned cowboy again, wandering around the restaurant like it wasn't going to creep out the other customers.
I sighed. "Gee, thanks, BFW," I said. BFW was standing behind the grill, as he was cooking until the night cook got there. BFW had the makings of a reuben already geared up and ready to go.
"This makes three days in a row that this cat has been here," I said, and then I walked out to the table.
The stoned cowboy was once again stoned. His arm and leg movements were loose and random. He was bopping his head to something, and when I got closer I could see he had headphones stuck in his ears.
I smiled when I got to his table. He smiled back.
"Hello again," I said. "What can I get for you today?"
He gestured to the headphones, like, Duh, I can't hear you. "Music," he said, by way of explanation. Finally, he tugged them out of his ears. "What?"
I asked him again what he wanted. He said he wanted everything he had yesterday, just the way it was, just exactly, except he wanted fries instead of chips and he didn't want soup. "You guys makes the best reubens," he said.
I marched back into the kitchen and tore the slip of paper from my pad. I leaned over to scribble the BFW a note. It said, Reuben w/ fries. XOXO, Jess. P.S. This guy is cuh-razy. Thanks.
Then I went to deliver his drink. When I'd asked him what he wanted to drink, I braced myself for the water-man song, but I didn't get it. He just sighed and shrugged and said, "Oh, a water, I guess," in a dejected kind of way.
When I set the water down in front of him, the stoned cowboy again had his headphones in. And he wasn't satisfied with me just dropping the drink and retreating.
"Hey," he said as I started to back away. "Here. Come here."
He had pulled the headphones out and was holding one up like a peace offering. He gestured toward my ear.
I didn't know what else to do--after all, how do you politely tell someone you don't want to put something that was in their ear in your ear for fear of waxy particles, etc.--so I bent down and tried to stay as far away from the earpiece as possible.
He jabbed it closer. I could hear a familiar song, something I hadn't heard in years.
"How about that?" he asked.
The song sounded like exactly the right song the stoned cowboy should be walking around listening to. If they were making a movie about his life, that song would've been piped in under the opening shot of him ambling down the street.
"I remember that song," I said. I couldn't exactly place it, but I knew it involved a Beatle somehow.
"Who is it?" the stoned cowboy quizzed.
I shrugged. "I can't remember," I said.
He looked disappointed. "It's the Traveling Wilburys," he said. "They're a super-group. Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and George Harrison were all in it."
"Oh," I said. "Cool. I like that song." I wasn't sure what to do then. He was looking at me so expectantly, like he was waiting for me to say something brilliant, something profound. I had nothing to say, so I just smiled and left.
Later, as I was delivering an order of food to another table, I had to walk past the stoned cowboy. I had my arms filled with chicken fingers and beef on wecks, but that didn't stop the stoned cowboy from trying to get my attention.
"HEY!" he said. He had his headphones in, so he was shouting. The customers looked alarmed. "HEY, my flowers died!" He held up his cowboy hat so I could see that the fresh flowers he had at one point stuck in the brim were now wilted and limp.
I stopped. I was balancing several plates. I was clearly in a hurry to get to another table. Yet this man thought it was completely fine, normal, and acceptable to kick up a conversation about his hat flowers when I had steaming food in my hands.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I need new ones," he said. "You think so, right? I need new ones?"
I nodded. "Yes, I do. Fresh flowers are very pretty."
"Okay," he said, then nodded. I was dismissed.
The afternoon was filled with more exchanges like that--mostly he wanted to talk about the tenderness of the beef and how he was going around town telling everyone that the diner had really tender beef, and he was even telling complete strangers about the tenderness--and then he was gone. He got back into his red minivan--yes, the stoned cowboy pilots a red minivan--and left the diner to go about his business, his strange, strange business of tooling around town and looking for fresh flowers for the brim of his hat.
He would be back for more in a few days. And he would bring his family...
Friday, July 13, 2007
Decreased Whining Ahead
Yesterday the phone rang and, quite unexpectedly, the person on the other line was a woman--a writing program director--who wanted to give me a job. We were discussing the job, the teaching, the possibilities, when the director suddenly asked if I was married.
"You sound married," she said.
I wondered what part of my voice sounded married. What was it that somehow identified me as a girl who'd snagged herself a man? Was there a certain satisfaction in my voice, some kind of confident timbre, something settled and pointed?
"I'm not married," I said. "Not even close."
"Well," she said, "you sure sound like it."
I could have told her that maybe what she was hearing in my voice was along those lines, just not as drastic. I could have told her that for the first time in years I have a boyfriend, and that it was just recently settled that that's what we are--boyfriend and girlfriend--and I am still sort of surprised by it. It feels unnatural. It feels foreign. But maybe that's what she heard in my voice--some sort of half-surprised Hey, a boy likes me.
All of a sudden there's a quiet kindness in my life. It makes me feel foolish for wasting all those years and all that energy running after the Wily Republican, begging him to love me, love me, love me. It's a bit disconcerting to feel how simple a relationship with a boy can really be. I'd forgotten it's not supposed to be a fight every single day, that you're not supposed to wake up bristling and ready to take whatever small cruel thing--intended or not--that a boy sends your way.
It's also disconcerting to suddenly not be the single girl, that one friend who's always hopelessly bumbling through single life, who's always complaining that she doesn't have a man, that she can't find a man, that she'll never find a man, that she'll probably die sad and alone, save for the pack of cats she's named after famous literary figures.
I've been that girl for so long that not being her is going to take a little getting used to. I'll have to find new things to whine about. I'll have to find new ways to fill my time, now that I won't be busy being bitter or angry or frustrated at boys from my past.
I won't be the only one adjusting, of course. My friends--mainly Katy--will have to find new reasons to mock me. Now they won't be able to do 10 minute routines on the woeful state of my love life, on my choices in men, on how I am attracted to the suckiest guys of all time. Instead, they'll have to adjust their comedy routines to include the stupid things I did in grad school, any of the awful poetry I've tried to write over my lifetime, and how freakish I looked during middle school.
It's going to take some getting used to, especially for me, especially because I am very used to being single, to being the one who has adapted to stumbling alone through long stretches of life. But this newness--everything about it--is nice, and I'll take it. I'll definitely take it.
"You sound married," she said.
I wondered what part of my voice sounded married. What was it that somehow identified me as a girl who'd snagged herself a man? Was there a certain satisfaction in my voice, some kind of confident timbre, something settled and pointed?
"I'm not married," I said. "Not even close."
"Well," she said, "you sure sound like it."
I could have told her that maybe what she was hearing in my voice was along those lines, just not as drastic. I could have told her that for the first time in years I have a boyfriend, and that it was just recently settled that that's what we are--boyfriend and girlfriend--and I am still sort of surprised by it. It feels unnatural. It feels foreign. But maybe that's what she heard in my voice--some sort of half-surprised Hey, a boy likes me.
All of a sudden there's a quiet kindness in my life. It makes me feel foolish for wasting all those years and all that energy running after the Wily Republican, begging him to love me, love me, love me. It's a bit disconcerting to feel how simple a relationship with a boy can really be. I'd forgotten it's not supposed to be a fight every single day, that you're not supposed to wake up bristling and ready to take whatever small cruel thing--intended or not--that a boy sends your way.
It's also disconcerting to suddenly not be the single girl, that one friend who's always hopelessly bumbling through single life, who's always complaining that she doesn't have a man, that she can't find a man, that she'll never find a man, that she'll probably die sad and alone, save for the pack of cats she's named after famous literary figures.
I've been that girl for so long that not being her is going to take a little getting used to. I'll have to find new things to whine about. I'll have to find new ways to fill my time, now that I won't be busy being bitter or angry or frustrated at boys from my past.
I won't be the only one adjusting, of course. My friends--mainly Katy--will have to find new reasons to mock me. Now they won't be able to do 10 minute routines on the woeful state of my love life, on my choices in men, on how I am attracted to the suckiest guys of all time. Instead, they'll have to adjust their comedy routines to include the stupid things I did in grad school, any of the awful poetry I've tried to write over my lifetime, and how freakish I looked during middle school.
It's going to take some getting used to, especially for me, especially because I am very used to being single, to being the one who has adapted to stumbling alone through long stretches of life. But this newness--everything about it--is nice, and I'll take it. I'll definitely take it.
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