Monthly Archives: March 2014

Green olives, a lot of them

When I’m waiting tables, I try to tell myself to chill out, that whenever I find myself getting bent out of shape, it’s usually my attitude that’s the source of the problem. Like I don’t like getting bossed around, or I don’t like having to make an unnecessary trip into the kitchen. All of that stuff is my job, and if I can just suck it up and not take it as a personal insult every time someone asks me for a Diet Coke, I’ll get through the shift a lot happier, I’ll probably be genuinely more pleasant, all of that nonsense about well-being and inner-peace.

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But every once in a while I can’t, and I feel justified in my anger. The other day I was in the dining room, and this party of four or five got sat at one of my coworker’s tables. I went over to get a drink order, which I’m happy to do, not only because it’s nice to help out, but because that’s a rule at our restaurant, that you have to go over and get a drink order even if it’s not your table.

For a while it’s a mostly painless interaction. Coke. Water. Coke. Diet Coke. But then I get to this lady at end, and she tells me, “I want a Diet Coke, and then I want lemons on the side, but a lot of them, OK, a lot of lemons, and also I want green olives, OK, and I want a lot of those too.” And then guy to her right was like, “Coke.”

But I couldn’t get past her order, because it didn’t make sense. “I’m sorry, you said you wanted lemons and … ?” and she replied, “Yeah, a lot of them. OK. A whole plate.” So I said to her, “Right, OK, but it was lemons and what else?” At this point I really wished I hadn’t had the misfortune of dealing with any of this. “Green olives,” she confirmed, “A lot.”

Like I said, I’m happy to help out, to an extent. But this was already getting a little crazy. And yeah, if it were my table, and I was maybe looking at a tip heading my way, sure, I’d probably be a little more inclined to accommodate crazy requests. But as it stood, this was just a difficult situation that I could tell wasn’t going end with me grabbing a few olives.

This was during the downtime in between lunch and dinner service, so even though the restaurant wasn’t particularly busy, the whole place was running on not much more than a skeleton crew of servers and managers. There was no bartender on duty, so I had to go behind the bar and fish around to find where they kept the olives. And then I had to skewer them on these little sticks. It was so annoying, all of this on top of their sodas, I had to cut up all of those lemons that she wanted along with her olives.

When I went to run everything out, again, it’s not like anybody was around to help me out, and so I had to make a few trips. On my first go, I had the drinks and the plate of lemons. I left the olives on the bar so I could come right back. When I went to set everything down at the table, the lady didn’t even give me a second, she was just like, “Excuse me? Can I get a plate of green olives? Like a lot of …”

And I just walked back to the bar, because I didn’t want to risk giving her a dirty look, something that communicated nonverbally, “Are you fucking kidding me lady? Do you see my hands totally full with all of these drinks? Can you give me more than maybe five seconds to satisfy your completely unreasonable demands?”

I came back and dropped off the plate of olives. There were three skewers with three olives speared to each. I didn’t even have a chance to set the plate down in front of her when she grabbed one of the skewers and started chowing down. Jesus Christ, I wanted absolutely nothing else to do with this table. What was wrong with this person? Why didn’t anybody else at her table tell her stop acting like a complete crazy person?

This took up way too much of my time, and I found myself immediately running errands for my actual tables. Maybe five minutes later, I had just bused like six plates and was heading back to the kitchen when the olive lady started waving at me from across a row of booths. She held up her empty plate and said in a voice that projected across half of the restaurant, “Can I get some more olives? A lot more, please.”And I just nodded, put my head down, dropped off the plates in the dishwasher, and I disappeared in one of the storage closets. I couldn’t deal with this. I was about to lose my mind over this lady asking for olives. And I didn’t want to do anything stupid, so I just hid. Hopefully her server would walk by the table soon enough and he or she could deal with these insane requests.

Because seriously, what the fuck? You want olives so badly? Is this because you’re crazy? Or are you just super cheap and you’re looking to get a free appetizer out of massive quantities of cocktail garnishes? I remember one time I had a similar experience where a customer kept asking for pickles, more pickles, a whole bowl full. Finally a manager told me,
“You know what? Tell her we’re charging her five dollars for pickles,” and of course the lady said no, but she was pissed, and she left me a shitty tip.

It’s not like you go out to a restaurant to eat olives. Just go to a grocery store and buy a bottle. Go to your house, make sure no one else is home to see what a lunatic you are, and have at it, eat the whole bottle. Drink the brine after you’re done. Everybody does crazy things, that’s fine, I’m not judging. OK, I guess I am judging a little. But leave the rest of us out of it, OK? I’ll get you a Diet Coke, I’ll run your food back and forth, I’m pretty malleable in terms of dealing with whatever you want me to do. But I’m going to stop what I’m doing to get you another plate of olives? Get lost, all right, you’re fucking nuts.

I can’t think of anything to write about

I’ve been staring at this computer screen for almost an hour and I can’t come up with anything to write about. This whole day has kind of been a nothing day so far. It’s raining out, and so I used that as an excuse to not go exercise, to not leave the house at all really. I should have. There are a bunch of errands that I need to take care of, stuff that’s no further than around the corner really.

Like back in November, I ordered this piece of running gear from Amazon. I was planning on using it for the New York City Marathon, but it didn’t show up in time. Way after the race, the Postal Service told me that they’d lost the package, and that they weren’t going to be paying for it either.

Then a month after that, I got an email from the seller. Apparently my package came from China, and they were going to try sending it again. But I got the same problem this time around, that it was being held at the Post Office, that I’d have to go in and wait on line and pick it up. I should just do it, it’s so easy. Every single day, I think to myself, I should just go to the Post Office and pick it up.

But I never do, even when it’s not raining. I guess I’ve been burned by the Post Office too many times to want to waste any more of my day waiting on a really long line that ultimately ends in me not getting my package. But each day that passes, I think there’s some sort of a holding deadline, like after thirty or sixty days, they’re going to send it back to China.

I don’t know why they just didn’t tell me it was going to be such a huge deal to ship a compression running shirt. Honestly, I would have never elected to have something shipped individually from China. It sounds like a logistical nightmare, and the fact that I ordered this thing back in October shows that my worries were warranted.

But I’m not doing anything about the problem, I’m just kind of stuck in this cycle of inaction, me not leaving the house, me sitting here try to get some writing done. I can’t think of anything. Maybe leaving the house would jog the creative process or something.

Or, another errand that I keep pushing off, I need to go to the tailor and have all of my pants fixed. I didn’t realize it, but they way that the seat is oriented on my bicycle, it keeps rubbing up on my inner leg every time I pedal. And so recently I noticed that there’s a hole in every pair of pants that I own, right on my left inner thigh. It’s in a weird enough spot that it doesn’t really stand out. But I can feel the air there, it’s definitely annoying. And holes just keep getting bigger. So I should go and have it patched up.

It’s the same with my shirts for work. I kept ripping them, all in the same spot, and so for a while now I’ve only had one shirt. Every day I have to keep doing the same micro-load of laundry. It’s totally inefficient. I know that I’m wasting water and stuff. But I can’t get myself to get some more. This is probably the problem with the easiest solution. And yet day after day, I find another twenty-four hours has passed where I haven’t done anything.

When I’m working, I’ll tell myself that I’ll wait to get my errands done on a day off. And then when that day off finally arrives, I say to myself, come on Rob, you don’t want to spend your free time doing errands. Save that for a workday.

And that’s it, I never take care of any of my problems. At best, I sit here and complain about my inaction on the Internet. And nobody wants to read that. It’s totally boring. But I can’t think of anything else today. My mind is a total blank and I just want to put up something, anything. Here it is. I apologize if you’ve read this far down.

Devour

This is like a really minor pet peeve of mine, something I’ve noticed just kind of peripherally for a while now. When I think about even trying to describe it, I feel crazy, because it’s so minor. I’m talking about when writers use the word “devour” in terms of reading. I just read some blog post somewhere, and the author was making the case that she’s an avid reader. And she said it, that she devours books.

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And it just kind of sets me off, because, in my mind anyway, there’s so much going on in that choice of vocabulary. The first time I became aware of this weird figure of speech was while I was reading Team of Rivals, the Lincoln biography by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Obviously I’m not going to go through it and check how many times exactly, but she wrote about Lincoln devouring books and newspapers often enough that it stood out in my memory.

Wow, I thought to myself, she really likes using that word to describe Lincoln’s voracious appetite for the written word. And that was it, I finished the book, eventually. It was a really big book. Definitely top five biggest books I’ve ever read in my life. Although, if you pressed me to name four other books in that top five list, I don’t think I’d be able to name anything. Maybe it’s the top one.

Maybe that’s one of my annoying figures of speech that I overuse, top five, top whatever. I’m aware of some of them. I hope that I’m somewhat conscious of phrases or words that I maybe rely on too heavily in my writing. I don’t know where any of it comes from, really, the words that I use, the way in which I speak or write.

Like here’s a little example. The other night I was watching an episode of Parks and Recreation on Netflix, and one of the characters used the word “innocuous.” And for some reason it popped in my head, it stood out amongst all the other dialogue. In the sentence that the word was spoken, I was able to kind of piece together through context what it meant. But I thought about it a little more. Did I know what the word innocuous meant before I’d seen the show?

I have no idea. I can’t think of any previous instances in which I’d used or heard or read the word innocuous. And since then, I keep finding myself wanting to slip it into conversation, or writing. The thing is, I’m not even sure I know how to use it, really. I could look it up, but I’m afraid that if I do, I’m just going to be all about innocuous, like look at this big word I’m using, and I’ll get to the point where I’m using it too much.

I feel like a word like innocuous is probably best used maybe once a year. Anything more, well, I don’t know, it sounds weird. And that’s kind of the feeling that I get when I see somebody writing about how they devour books. I definitely noticed it being used more than once in that Lincoln book, and now I’m hyper conscious of it whenever I see it in the wild.

It’s too original to be used more than, I’d say, once in a lifetime. That’s it. If you’re a writer, you should only be allowed to use it once. Definitely not twice in the same book. And you know what? I take it back, it shouldn’t be used at all. And never in reference to your own reading habits, like that blog post I was talking about earlier. Because even if you’re only using it that one time, it’s like, OK, we get it, you read a lot of books. Congratulations.

Does this bother anybody else? Am I the only person in the world that gets all bent out of shape about trivial crap like this? Because I would never be able to talk about it in real life. I wouldn’t know how to explain it to anybody else. I’m not even sure that I’m doing a good job of articulating what I mean right now.

And I’m not trying to nitpick, because like I said, everybody’s got their own quirks and styles and traps that they fail to notice themselves continually falling into. And maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m seeing a trend or a pattern where there’s nothing there at all. Maybe it’s like innocuous. I notice a word for the first time and after that I find that I’m seeing it everywhere.

This happened a while back when I “discovered” the word zeitgeist in some newspaper article. I’d never seen it before, so I looked it up, I found out what it meant, and then I felt like I saw it being used in every other piece of writing I read. Was I going crazy? Were people all of the sudden using these novel words? Or was it simply the fact that I’d noticed it, and now I was more aware of their occasional use?

Like what other weird words are out there in use that have yet to make an appearance on my radar? When I’m reading a book, am I just glossing over the occasional word or phrase that doesn’t make sense to me? As long as I get the general context of a paragraph or a page, am I missing out on material, a word, a line, that I’m simply not aware that I’m unaware of?

I have no idea, and the more I try to think about it, I’m just getting dizzy, my chain of thought processes is starting to unravel. I don’t know how I got here based on writing about a pet peeve, that it annoys me when people use the word devour in the context of reading. But it does annoy me. It’s like a little verbal trick that’s, in my view anyway, beyond overused. It’s like fondue. The first time you have fondue, you’re like, wow, that’s pretty cool, really interesting. But after that, do you really want fondue again? No, once in a lifetime is enough. Both for devour and for fondue.

Why the triangle offense works in almost any … you know what? No. Bill, I’m not sorry at all.

Dear Bill Simmons:

You know what? No. I take it back, the apology. When I closed the book on you the first time, I should have kept it closed. I feel like such an idiot, crawling back to you last week, apologizing. How about this for an apology? I’m sorry that I’m not sorry anymore. Because yeah, this is it, for real Bill, we’re through.

bstrng

Which is too bad for you, because I have so much more to write about. Like today, I had this whole idea about how I was going to write to you about the Knicks, about Phil Jackson, about the triangle offense. It’s not just a winning strategy for basketball. You can use the triangle offense to come out a winner in almost any day-to-day situation.

Like, say you’re at a restaurant, and you’re worried that you’re not getting enough attention from the waiter. The service is slow, his remarks to basic questions are caked with thinly concealed scorn. What do you do, complain to the manager? No, you grab two buddies and you mount a triangle offense. You order first, then the next guy, then the third, one after the other, giving the server not even a second to gain his footing.

“I’ll have a Coke.”

“Make that two Cokes.”

“Make it three.”

“You know what? I’ll actually have an iced tea.”

“Hold up, that sounds great, make mine iced tea also.”

“Same for me, three iced teas.”

Just around and around and around, it works everywhere, not just on the court, not just at restaurants. But at the mechanic. Every time you go to the shop you always wind up spending more money than you thought you’d have to. The shocks suddenly need replacing, or they want to scrub out the transmission, whatever that means. And what happens? You always wind up paying out the wazoo. Why? Because you’re but a single dot.

Bring along a friend and turn that dot into a line. And then find one more person and make three lines, and turn those three lines into a triangle. When the mechanic is looking under the hood, make sure that you’re all surrounding him from three equidistant points.

“How’s the viscosity on that oil?”

“What’s your opinion on tiptronic transmission?”

“Do you guys have any other air fresheners besides these cotton candy scented ones?”

It doesn’t matter if the questions are only loosely related to cars, just keep them coming, one after the other, and with three people, there’s just enough downtime in between to make sure you don’t stumble over your own words.

But whatever Bill, why am I even explaining this to you? You don’t care about the triangle offense. You don’t care about anything. Maybe it was a little premature of me, but back when I started writing these letters to you a few months ago, I went ahead and had bunch of business cards printed that said, “Staff writer: Grantland.” Do you know how stupid I look after I hand them out and people start asking for links to my work? “Well, you see, I’m not hired just yet …”

And yeah, I guess that’s not really your fault. Maybe I shouldn’t be projecting all of this negative energy your way, just because you haven’t somehow stumbled upon my web site. Yeah, actually, maybe I’m being too hard on you Bill. Maybe I owe you an apology …

No! Wait, that’s what I did last week. I thought you’d see it and tell me, “Rob, that was big of you, apologizing like that. We’re looking for big people like you to write for Grantland. Welcome aboard.” And it didn’t happen, and I just looked like even more of an idiot.

You know what I need? I need like two other writers, and we’ll start hitting Grantland with our own triangle offense. Is that cool Bill? Can I bring two of my friends to have jobs at Grantland with me? Because if the answer’s no, if you won’t bring all three of us on board, then you don’t get any of us. OK?

Not that I even want your stupid job anymore anyway. I can tell when I’m not wanted.

Unless you’re playing coy, in which case, I’m in.

But if you’re just ignoring me, I’m out.

Sorry I’m not sorry.

Disrespectfully yours,

Rob G.

Happy birthday to my best friend, Gelo

I want to dedicate this post to my best friend, Gelo. Happy birthday, buddy. I hope this is the best birthday you’ve ever had in your life. I hope that it’s the best birthday that anybody’s ever had. If you could somehow combine all of the greatest birthdays ever experienced by any human being who’s ever lived, I’d give anything for your birthday this year to make that hypothetical super birthday seem like a day stuck in the waiting room at the dentist, a visit where you have to get all of your wisdom teeth removed, and unfortunately you’ve got an allergy to Novocain and laughing gas, and so the oral surgeon is just like, “Well, sorry, but they’ve got to come out one way or another.”

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Gelo is my best friend. And that’s not a term I throw around lightly. He’s the bartender at the restaurant where I wait tables. I know that I have a tendency to exaggerate, sometimes, but I’m not even kidding you, not only is Gelo the best bartender in the restaurant, I’m pretty sure  the best bartender in New York City. This guy makes picture perfect cocktails sometimes when he’s not even paying attention. There’s a little printer that sits at the end of the bar, it spits out drink orders as the waiters and waitresses punch them into the computer. It can’t even keep up with Gelo. It’s like, before it even has a chance to finish printing the ticket, bam, the cocktail is already made, perfectly garnished, just exactly the right amount of ice.

For real, I’ve actually had customers get up and walk out of the restaurant when they found out that Gelo wasn’t working that particular night. One time this guy ordered a Manhattan, and after he took the first sip, he made this really pained face. Once he finished choking it down, he looked up at me in disgust, “Where’s Gelo? Who made this? Was it Sal?” And yeah, it was Sal. I pointed over to the bar and Sal made a friendly waving gesture. And please, don’t get me wrong, Sal’s a great bartender. It’s just that, Gelo’s the best bartender. He’s so far ahead of his colleagues in both proficiency and speed that even the second best bartender looks like he’s never learned to make a gin and tonic by comparison.

But he’s not just the world’s greatest mixologist, he’s also the best friend I’ve ever had. I was actually a little surprised when I found out that his birthday was today, because I’d always just kind of assumed that we were secretly long lost twins separated at birth. It’s the only way to really describe the bond that we share. Like, when I say best friends, yes, I mean it, he’s my best friend. But the English language doesn’t do justice in providing words even remotely capable of describing our connection. Maybe we’re not actual twins, but we’re definitely soul twins. Like we have twin souls. Soul twins can have different birthdays, I’m pretty sure. Sometimes I wonder if we’re not sharing one soul … you know what? It doesn’t even matter.

What matters is, Gelo, I’m seriously so lucky to have you as a best friend. The other night at work, it was really busy, I mean, the rest of us were busy, Gelo’s never busy, because he’s so good at his job. In fact, if you look at him sometimes, you might think, why is that guy the only one not running around like a crazy person? It’s because he’s already made all of the drinks. He does an entire team’s worth of work in like ten minutes. Anyway, he calls me over, I’m in the weeds, I’m having a tough time, and he hands me a cup, “Hey man, enjoy.”

It was a milkshake. I don’t even know how he had time to make me a milkshake, because yes, we have ice cream, but there’s no blender. Did he blend it by hand? Or did he sneak in a really tiny immersion blender? And it was the best milkshake I’ve ever had in my life. One sip, and time seemed to slow down around me. Suddenly, I didn’t feel trapped under a list of twenty-five things I needed to do at the same time. I just quickly organized my tasks and executed them without getting stressed out. Gelo, thanks man, that milkshake was so fucking delicious. If only I could be drinking it right now, but it’s OK, because knowing that I’ll get to carry around that memory, that first sip of the tastiest vanilla milkshake anybody’s ever had, it’s like, I’m content, happy in the knowledge that our friendship is the best best friendship anybody’s ever had. I hope you get everything you ever wanted for your birthday this year. And then I hope you look at the giftwrap, it’ll say, “To Gelo, You’re my best goddamn friend in the world. From, Rob.”