a. If you're going to bum a smoke off of me, at least offer to buy it. I won't take your money, but I appreciate the thought.
b. Please don't tell me that you're trying to quit. It makes me feel guilty, and I don't like feeling.
c. If you're 10, don't bother asking. Even I have my limitations when it comes to morally bankrupting children.
d. If I'm sitting outside Starbucks, sucking on a smoke like an asthmatic kid with an inhaler, do yourself a favour: leave me the fuck alone.
e. Ask politely. Don't yell at me from six patio tables over so you don't have to bother getting up if I say no. Which I will.
f. Don't ask me while I'm listening to my iPod. You are disrupting my period of meditative reflection before I have to haul ass back to work. Just don't do it.
Obviously, if you're an attractive, civilized dude, you are exempt and more than welcome to mooch off me.
3.28.2009
3.21.2009
i will never bring anyone home for dinner
Family dinners at my house are quite the event. For starters, we have to cram eight people around a dining room table that was really only built for six. Elbow room and passing the salad dressing are constant points of contention.
What makes dining chez Black a real treat, though, are the table manners of the men of the household. My father chomps his food like a horse. The loud, clacking together of teeth is the soundtrack to every meal. He chews mashed potatoes, for crying out loud. I kid you not. Whenever he picks up an apple to snack on, I literally have to excuse myself from the room.
My brother inhales food like he's been starved since birth. It sounds much like what I assume a slavering wolf feeding on a baby lamb would sound like. Also, he doesn't drink his water throughout his meal. No, he saves it all until the end, when he downs it in three disgustingly loud gulps. You can actually hear the crunchy sounds of the muscles in his throat expanding to accomodate all that liquid going down at once. And HEAVEN FORBID he help clear the table. I don't think he even knows where anything goes. The ketchup would end up lost in the freezer somewhere, the dirty dishes in the vegetable drawer, and the salt and pepper in the dishwasher.
Lastly, there's my grandfather. It's really more about what he doesn't do at the dinner table: engage in conversation or approve of others that do; pass anything to anyone; make any effort to be pleasant at all. And he eats some of the most disgusting concoctions I've ever seen, like boiled, mashed-up cauliflower and this weird yellow fish soup my grandma makes him. He puts sweet pickles and chunks of bread in it. I would actually rather take a bullet than find out what that shit tastes like. On the rare occasion that the rest of the family is eating something that he likes, I think he feels entitled to all of said food. If I take an extra piece of garlic bread (or three, because I FUCKING LOVE garlic bread), he glares at me with his hawk eyes and shakes his head, like I might as well be taking the goddamn food off of his own plate.
The garlic bread almost isn't worth it when I'm looking at this from the other end of the table.
What makes dining chez Black a real treat, though, are the table manners of the men of the household. My father chomps his food like a horse. The loud, clacking together of teeth is the soundtrack to every meal. He chews mashed potatoes, for crying out loud. I kid you not. Whenever he picks up an apple to snack on, I literally have to excuse myself from the room.
My brother inhales food like he's been starved since birth. It sounds much like what I assume a slavering wolf feeding on a baby lamb would sound like. Also, he doesn't drink his water throughout his meal. No, he saves it all until the end, when he downs it in three disgustingly loud gulps. You can actually hear the crunchy sounds of the muscles in his throat expanding to accomodate all that liquid going down at once. And HEAVEN FORBID he help clear the table. I don't think he even knows where anything goes. The ketchup would end up lost in the freezer somewhere, the dirty dishes in the vegetable drawer, and the salt and pepper in the dishwasher.
Lastly, there's my grandfather. It's really more about what he doesn't do at the dinner table: engage in conversation or approve of others that do; pass anything to anyone; make any effort to be pleasant at all. And he eats some of the most disgusting concoctions I've ever seen, like boiled, mashed-up cauliflower and this weird yellow fish soup my grandma makes him. He puts sweet pickles and chunks of bread in it. I would actually rather take a bullet than find out what that shit tastes like. On the rare occasion that the rest of the family is eating something that he likes, I think he feels entitled to all of said food. If I take an extra piece of garlic bread (or three, because I FUCKING LOVE garlic bread), he glares at me with his hawk eyes and shakes his head, like I might as well be taking the goddamn food off of his own plate.
The garlic bread almost isn't worth it when I'm looking at this from the other end of the table.
3.17.2009
the price is right, a-hole
A coffee at Starbucks does not cost five dollars. You can get a hot cup of coffee for under two bucks, actually, or a bit more if you want a venti, you glutton. If your drink is more than five dollars, it's because it's something ridiculous, like a quad venti breve white chocolate mocha. That is a meal in a cup, why the hell shouldn't it cost five bones?
Customers have ways to cheat the system, though, and it makes me really resentful when some cheapskate smugly asks if he can have his venti Frappuccino split into two cups, as opposed to just paying for two tall Frappuccinos. Like, "Oooooh, you clever little minx, you figured out a way to scam me out of that extra dollar something. Congratufuckinglations, shithead." Or people who try to order a kid's hot chocolate at full temperature. Guess what? If it's 170 degrees, it's a goddamn short HC, not a kid's. If you're old enough to have big kid drinks, you're old enough to pay big kid prices. And if I ever find the barista that sparked this whole chai steamed milk instead of a no water tazo chai thing, I'm going to punch them in the teeth. I really am.
Because customers don't figure out these little tricks on their own, it's baristas clueing them in. I don't know how many times I've explained to someone why I'm ringing in their drink the way that I am, only to have them say "But at the store I usually go to, they only charge me for a tall tea misto, because I don't want the extra tea bag in my venti drink," or whatever. Well, at this store, you're getting charged what I damn well charge you, and you can shove the extra tea bag up your ass, you entitled, snotty cow.
If you're too cheap to shell out some extra coin for your drink, go buy a two dollar latte from McDonald's.
Customers have ways to cheat the system, though, and it makes me really resentful when some cheapskate smugly asks if he can have his venti Frappuccino split into two cups, as opposed to just paying for two tall Frappuccinos. Like, "Oooooh, you clever little minx, you figured out a way to scam me out of that extra dollar something. Congratufuckinglations, shithead." Or people who try to order a kid's hot chocolate at full temperature. Guess what? If it's 170 degrees, it's a goddamn short HC, not a kid's. If you're old enough to have big kid drinks, you're old enough to pay big kid prices. And if I ever find the barista that sparked this whole chai steamed milk instead of a no water tazo chai thing, I'm going to punch them in the teeth. I really am.
Because customers don't figure out these little tricks on their own, it's baristas clueing them in. I don't know how many times I've explained to someone why I'm ringing in their drink the way that I am, only to have them say "But at the store I usually go to, they only charge me for a tall tea misto, because I don't want the extra tea bag in my venti drink," or whatever. Well, at this store, you're getting charged what I damn well charge you, and you can shove the extra tea bag up your ass, you entitled, snotty cow.
If you're too cheap to shell out some extra coin for your drink, go buy a two dollar latte from McDonald's.
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