Well as some of you may know, among my many activities, I help my parents run a small Cuban Restaurant in the south end of town. It’s not a glamorous job and it doesn’t pay particularly well but you do get to meet a lot of… ummm… interesting people. This is actually a rather good thing for a writer (Yes, I’m damn writer. I wrote this, didn’t I?) because all these weirdos have the potential of becoming dysfunctional characters in my books, so it’s not a total loss.

Not all of the folks that drop by are amusing and interesting, however, some are just plain annoying and others downright irritating.

Among the colorful collection of annoying ones is The Mr. Coffee Entourage. Every now and then a van will park in front of our restaurant and about five or six people will emerge, a whole family of smiling tourists. You have to understand this is a beautiful sight for a restaurant owner. All he sees are happy smiling dollar bills jumping out of a car, it’s amazing. So the entire van empties and they all march into the restaurant. They look around, they see our nice color pictures on the walls showing our delicious and eclectic dishes and it’s showtime. I walk over to them, big friendly smile. I already made a mental note of where I will have them sit so they are all comfortable and how much I can expect in tips from this particular demographic sample. Regardless of this last prediction, with the kindest most welcoming voice, I greet them:

-“Welcome to our restaurant, with the best Cuban Cuisine this side of Hialeah! We’re happy to have you here! Our menus are on the table and our special today is our ever popular chicken fricassee, which is truly to die for and comes with a side order of rice, our world famous beans and your choice of sweet or green plantains. If you have room at the end, which is rather unlikely, we also have delicious homemade flans in three different varieties and our award winning homemade rice pudding, a treat worthy of the gods. So… what can I offer you today?”

-“One Cuban coffee, please.”

…

Are you f@cking kidding me? You drag half of your damn neighborhood into my restaurant to ask for a cup of coffee? Six people to order one colada? That’s just sadistic, man! You don’t build up a guy’s hope and then ask for a coffee! You can’t tip for a coffee! And if you could, what do you tip, a quarter at the most! Some of us are trying to feed our families with your financial recklessness! It’s just wrong!

It reminds me of the people that used to walk into Taco Bell, back when I worked there, and ask for a side of Sour Cream. Just a side of Sour Cream! Listen, asshole, there’s a reason it’s called a “side”! It’s supposed to go on the side of something else! Like a burrito supreme! What are you gonna do with this thing, dip your toes in it? Get some real food dammit!

But back to the Coffee Entourage. Every so often these same intellectual deficients will grab their coffee, take a few sips… “mmmm… very good…you guys make real authentic Cuban coffee, this stuff could bring Uncle Pancho back to life, I tell you!” …and then pay with a fifty dollar bill.

A fifty dollar bill! For a $1.75 cup of coffee! Do you have any idea what that does to my register? Specially if if it happens to be early in the day! “Yes, sir, thank you very much and here’s you change: two ten dollar bills, three five dollar bills, twenty two one dollar bills and every quarter we had in the register plus a few we had to steal from the gum ball machine. Have a great day! And next time you want a cup of coffee, feel free to visit your NEAREST F@CKING STARBUCKS! Bye bye now.”

Originally Published 09/02/2009

Today’s motivational thought goes out to you young people just starting in the road of life. Ah, to be young again… your whole life ahead of you… and an infinite number of screw ups yet to be made, learned from and then made again anyway.

This is that time when you must build the foundation of your life and when you do, remember this: a strong solid foundation might lead to a strong and solid life, but in soft soil, it’s a lot easier to hide the bodies.

Have a great day!

Originally Published 09/02/2009

Have you ever been out in public, waiting in traffic or standing in line and suddenly you notice some guy in the corner scratching his groin and then he starts moving and he looks like he might be coming towards you and all you can think is “If he tries to shake my hand I’ll fake an epileptic attack and hope to God he doesn’t know CPR.” And why do we think that? Well the main difference between that guy and the executive whose hand you did shake earlier that morning is that you actually SAW this guy scratching.

Yes, my friend, ignorance is bliss. Do you wash your hands with Purell every time you greet someone? How about right there on the moment? Do you go “Hey, how you doing? Nice meeting you. Wait, let me get some Purell in case you were scratching your ass just before this meeting. There, much better. Would you like some? Cause I was picking my nose earlier. Now, about those questionable tax exemptions…”

It’s the kind of thing you really would rather not think about. Isn’t it nice of me to bring it to your attention on my blog? Like for example. When you are in a restaurant and your waiter disappears for half an hour… do you ever wonder where he goes? Is he taking a smoke break? Is he taking a breather from your constant petty whining about how your tea isn’t sweet enough and your queso dip has a human toe in it? Maybe he’s locked in the bathroom crying over the pointlessness of his life and how much he hates this job… and bad tippers like you as he plans the safest way to sabotage your food. Maybe he’s having a quickie with the assistant manager. The point is, you’d rather not know. Because if you did know, you would find a hundred different reasons why you would rather pull stick your hand in a bag full of rabid squirrels than be served by this guy again.

Do you ever wonder what flight attendants do on long flights after everyone has their bag of peanuts and their two ounces of coke and their blankets and headphones and cute little bottles of Vodka. They have to amuse themselves somehow. You ever notice that if you sneak up on one of them they look at you suspiciously? What were they doing that makes them suspect you? I think they spend most of their time badmouthing the passengers and discussing who’s going to clean the bathroom after the next couple who decides to join the Mile-high Club.

And while we’re in the airplane bathroom… Have you noticed that the water faucet wont stay open? The stupid thing closes as soon as you let go! I mean, you have to actually keep it open with one hand while you grab soap with the other one and then how do you rub your hands together? If you let go and rub both hands the water stops and now you have two soapy hands and no water. If you open the faucet with one of your soapy hands, not only do you put soap on the handle, you have no way of rubbing your other hand to make sure all the soap is off. So you end up rubbing your fingers together like you’re playing with a piece of Playdough but as soon as you try to rinse the other hand, you get soap on the one you just rinsed because there is soap all over the damn handle! And while you’re working out this mess some asshole who should have known better than to eat a bowl of Chili before boarding a plane, keeps banging on your door and you pray to every deity you can think of that you wont have to shake his hand later on.

I don’t know, I find it all pretty frustrating. Which leads me to the next question. If you’re a flight attendant and you have to use the bathroom right before all the food needs to get served, cause when you gotta go you gotta go… do you really go through all this hassle and frustration just so you can wash your hands? How many of them just go “Screw it, no one is gonna know if I washed my hands or not.” And it’s true! It’s not like you can hear the water running over all the noise made by the plane’s engine. They could be stirring your coffee with their finger and you wouldn’t be the wiser.

Indeed… ignorance is bliss.

Enjoy that sandwich!

Originally Published 09/01/2009