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What makes a hero?

What makes a person a hero? You hear the word thrown around pretty casually, hero, like look at me, I spent six months aboard the International Space Station, or, hey everybody, I just landed an airplane in the Hudson River. Everybody knows what I’m talking about, the word hero applied to people simply for doing their jobs. And in the second example, it’s doing your job, but not even doing it correctly, because airplanes aren’t supposed to land in rivers, they’re supposed to touch ground on a runway, in an airport.

Come on, when I was in high school and my car skidded out of control and I swerved onto my parents’ front yard, nobody was giving me any rounds of applause, no, it was just my dad, yelling about how much it was going to cost to fix all of those holes in the grass, which, I never really understood how you can get so angry about a lawn, it’s just dirt, grass will grow there eventually.

No, real heroics involve going beyond the ordinary, which, while you might think my astronaut examples apply, they don’t, because think about it, astronauts today aren’t doing half of the cool stuff that they used to do. Maybe if one of them hijacked a space shuttle and went to Mars, without permission, without even the necessary provisions, and then he got there and he found a Martian space colony, and it spawned this whole new era of interplanetary diplomacy between us and the previously unknown Martian people, maybe that guy would be a hero.

Maybe. But just hanging out in orbit, running space tests and doing routine space work, yes, it’s a lot more exhilarating than say, waiting tables, but I wouldn’t be too quick to apply the hero label. Again, it’s all about exceeding expectations, about going way further above and beyond what people would think you’re capable of.

Which is cool, because it leaves everyday heroics accessible to the average person. You don’t have to go to space, you don’t have to pilot a giant plane, all you have to do is take everybody by surprise with something that nobody would have ever see coming. Like take the waiting tables example, say there was a guy that started to choke, and I rush over to his side, he can’t breath, and so I start pushing down on his chest, I mean, I took a first-aid course years ago, but I can’t really remember the specifics.

And it’s not working, so I grab a knife and start cutting a hole in his throat, a makeshift tracheotomy, but it backfires, I miss something because, again, I have no medical training, at this point I’m going solely off of stuff that I’ve seen on TV. And he starts bleeding everywhere. No, I’m not a hero. Not yet.

So I take a bunch of straws and I combine them into one really long straw, and then I cut myself open and I stick one end of the straw into my veins and the other into his. I have no idea if it’s going to work, I’m not even sure our blood types are compatible. But I get lucky, and it does work, and he survives, and we both wake up in the same hospital room, side by side on two adjoining beds, it turns out this guy is a billionaire, he leans over to me and says, “Son, you were a real hero. You saved my life! And now I’m going to reward you with a huge cash reward.” I’m still not done. I’d then have to deny the reward, say something like, “All in a day’s work,” and then I’d have to go back to the restaurant and say sorry to my boss for missing the rest of that shift.

Then I’d totally be a hero. Because you need that extra layer of adversity, that final level of impossibility that you still wind up conquering. It’s like, again, I’m not trying to knock the Subway Hero, but is that guy really a hero? You know who I’m talking about, right? The guy that jumped on top of the other guy when he fell on the tracks? I’d say, courageous, yes, quick-thinking, definitely, but heroic?

I’m not so sure. He knew exactly what he was doing. There was a space in the tracks where he was able to wait out the train. All he did was position both himself and that other guy into place. Anybody could have done it. No, heroic would have been like twenty people stuck on the tracks, and the train’s coming, it’s barreling out of control down the tunnel, there’s no way this is going to end well.

But then this guy jumps from the platform, he opens up his chest, he’s Superman. He puts his hand out and slows down the train just by pushing it, and then with his super speed he gets everyone to safety before any damage is done. Now that’s a hero, that’s what I call heroics. If you’re not really going that extra step, if you’re not wowing me, then what are you doing? You’re just doing your job. You’re just kind of regular. And again, I’m not saying I’m a hero, so I’m not trying to put anybody else down. But just take a minute, the next time you go to call someone a hero, think about it. Can this person run faster than a car? Does he have X-ray vision? No? Maybe he’s not a hero after all.

Daylight Savings Time

Daylight Savings Time is such a scam. One night you go to bed and then thanks to some government bureaucrats, you wake up the next day in a different time zone. You’re not allowed to just do that to time. Who the hell do you think you are, you can just take an hour here and put it a few months over there? No, and every year it gets worse, it used to be that you’d have to manually set your clocks to the new hijacked time, but with computers, with the Internet, it’s like it’s all happening behind my back.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw the higher-ups rob an hour from me, right in front of my face. I was watching TV, it was like one-thirty in the morning, there was nothing on but, I don’t know, I couldn’t get to sleep, so I was watching reruns of all of those really bad Comedy Central shows. I’m looking at the time, thinking to myself, man, only one more minute until Mind of Mencia is over. I really hope the next show isn’t so ridiculously unfunny.

And that’s when it happened. It went from 1:59, to 3:00, just like that. I took out my phone. Three in the morning. Are you kidding me? “Where is my hour?” I started screaming out loud to nobody in particular, “Where is my time going?”

Because, that’s traumatic. At least if you’re going to change the official time, just keep it to yourself. Fine, the banks and post offices are going start opening a little earlier, and yeah, the restaurants and movie theaters will probably have no choice but to follow suit. But what about me? Don’t I have a say in the matter? If I don’t feel like changing my watch, I’m not going to.

I don’t like this idea that you fall asleep and you wake up and it’s like, you don’t even need to be a part of the equation. “Don’t worry Rob,” whoever’s in charge of this is whispering in my ear, “You don’t have to worry about Daylight Savings Time at all this year. Just go to sleep, and when you wake up, everything will be adjusted for you. What’s that? You feel a little tired? You’re a little late for work? Well that’s not our problem. Just because you can’t get to work on time doesn’t mean that it’s the clock’s fault.”

But it is the clock’s fault. I remember one year, maybe it was the year after the cable box incident, I went to bed thinking, OK, I’ve got to make sure to consider Daylight Savings Time when I’m setting my alarm. I thought, I’ll just set the time for an hour earlier. And then it changed by itself, and my alarm time was the wrong time, even though it should’ve been the right time. And I was trying to tell my boss, I was like, no, just listen, please, I know this is two weeks in a row, but this is seriously an excuse here, I’m not kidding, just please listen to this one sentence, this one really long detailed sentence, because it’s not my fault.

I’m scared as to where this is all headed. It’s like, what’s to say I’m not going to go to sleep one night only to wake up and it’ll be months from now? Like, what the hell? Why is so cold out? How come it’s snowing? And I’ll look on the Internet and it’ll just say, “Relax Rob, everything’s fine, do to Global Warming Adjustment Time, we’re going to go ahead and say that today is February 9th. And yes, unfortunately that means that, since we skipped most of last year, you technically never filed your taxes. And so we had to audit you. And do you care to explain yourself here Rob, why haven’t you been paying taxes for the past several months? Can you explain these numbers?”

And what am I going to say? I’ll be shivering, it’s February now and I’m still wearing my summer pajamas, and when did the Internet get so smart? Why is it asking me about my taxes? Isn’t there an option to turn the clock back a little? But not the actual clock, I’m talking like the technological clock, like Windows 95, I remember you’d wake up after DST and there’d be a little window, “Do you want to change the clock?” or something like that, and that would be great, OK, fine, at least it’s giving me the option. What if I want to keep that hour, can’t I just pretend it’s still eight o’clock, even if just for the weekend? Come on, don’t tell me it’s Wednesday already.

Get off your high horse

Someone said to me the other day, “Rob, get off your high horse,” and I thought about it, yeah, I don’t want to be on a high horse, I want to be on the highest horse. And even though this horse is naturally higher than all of the other horses, certainly bigger than the one I was just on, even though that first one was pretty big, I want it even higher, someone get me a pair of horse stilts, my horse knows how to gallop on horse stilts, and I’ll ride it on top of the tallest building in the country, we’ll have all of these ridiculous jumps set up, so that if you’re up there as a spectator, you’ll think to yourself, what’s that guy on that high horse going to do, ride under those jumps?

Because that’s how high they’ll be, like you’ll look at them and the idea that I’m going to get this horse to leap over those posts, no, it won’t even cross your mind. But my high horse stilts, they’re the robotic kind, they’re the kind that amputees aren’t allowed to use in the Olympics because it gives them an superhuman edge, and I’ll go, “Ya!” and my highest horse is going to whinny and then – jump! – we’ll clear every one of them, all at once, we’ll keep sailing through the sky, way past the edge of the building, by this point nobody’s even going to be scared, maybe anxious, but nobody will doubt what I’m capable of next.

Just me, just me on top of the highest horse you’ve ever seen, I’ll have a backpack on that, when I push a button, these two wings will spring out of the sides, I’ll glide for a while, I’ll be able to integrate the horse’s harness right through the backpack, so whenever I go “Ya!” or “Whoa!” or “Ho!” those will all be voice commands, I won’t even have to do anything, my highest horse will be so well trained, it’ll pull the wings up and down, it’ll be the closest thing anyone’s ever had to a Pegasus, we’ll be able to glide, or even get some lift, to go up and down.

It’s like whenever I’m talking, I can’t get in more than two sentences, someone says “Will you get off your high horse?” How about you get off your low horse? My high horse has X-ray vision. It’s complicated, but via the same backpack harness technology that allows us to fly, I’m able to access everything that my high horse is seeing, or seeing through. That’s the only thing I can’t control – it’s still a prototype – when my high horse decides to look only at the surface or use its X-ray vision to, say, see through your clothing. But when it does, I’ll see it, and as you’re berating me, telling me, “Oh Rob! Why don’t you get off of your high horse!” I’ll be like, “Hey Jeff, nice Incredible Hulk underwear!” and you’ll be like, “What? How could you?”

But I won’t even be around to watch you stammer in embarrassment. “Ya!” I’ll shout out as my high horse and I shoot for the stars. And you know that saying, that, “Shoot for the stars, if you miss, you’ll be on the moon!” well, when I shoot for the stars, my high horse and I make it to the stars. And then we stop by the moon on our way back, because what’s higher than the moon? Nothing on Earth. Go ahead and get your telescope, you thought I had a high horse on the surface, yeah, well, now I’m on the highest horse in solar system, I’m up there screaming down to everyone on the planet, I’m saying stuff like, “How do you like me now?”

And, yes, there’s no air on the moon, so unfortunately my voice doesn’t really have that carry, that same effect like it does down here, but my high horse’s whinny, I haven’t figured out how he does it, but it’s even more powerful up there, it’s enough to propel us off the surface – Pegasus wings, activate! – and we’re able to cruise right back home.

So don’t talk to me about high horses. In fact, maybe you should look into investing in your own high horse, a medium horse, whatever you can afford, feed it lots of oats, but put a sock in it, all right? Talking to me about my high horse, why don’t you get off of your soapbox, OK? You’re going to need a lot more soap than that poor excuse for a box can carry.

Ketchup? Ketchup?

The dinner rush started earlier than usual last night, and I found myself running around the restaurant at a more hectic pace. At one of my tables, I had a middle-aged couple enjoying some cocktails, and while I was busy on the other side of the floor, I saw another server drop off their food.

While I had like three or four other things that I needed to take care of at the same exact time, I made a mental note to swing by, to see if this guy might not need any ketchup for his burger. Normally I’d just drop off ketchup automatically, but he didn’t order fries, the burgers come fully dressed, and for whatever reason, my restaurant encourages us to ask, “Would you like ketchup?” instead of just setting out some ketchup.

Excuses, excuses, I know, I know, I should have just had that ketchup out there anyway, just in case, but I was running some food, and when I tried to sneak over to my two-top, another table flagged me down and started handing me dirty plates. So I had to clear everything off, I had to run into the kitchen and set everything down for the dishwasher.

And then on my way back out to the floor, I have to pass by the window, like I said, it got pretty busy, Sundays are always busy, but not usually this early, not all at once like this. I had to run the food. I just hoped that my guests over at table thirteen were enjoying their meals, that if the man did need ketchup, that he’d be able to wait the extra two minutes or so that it would take me to run these plates out.

But just as I set them down, the floor manager got my attention, he was standing across the restaurant, pointing his finger to the side, mouthing out something about I don’t know what, exactly, I can’t read lips, but he was clearly trying to communicate. “Rob,” he leaned in when I walked over, “Table thirteen is pissed. They said they service is lacking, generally, that the guy needed ketchup and mustard.”

Again, I’m willing to take some fault, some. It never hurts to bring out ketchup. At most places, it’s not even questioned. But like I said, our burgers come dressed with three different types of sauce, and he had coleslaw instead of fries. And for real, I was only late by what at the most could have been maybe two, three minutes tops, however long it takes me to do two laps through the kitchen and back out on the floor.

Nope, this guy only needed two minutes to somehow grab a manager’s attention, to complain not only about the lack of ketchup, but about my service in general. And yeah, maybe I wasn’t a hundred percent on top of the game, but I thought things were going fine enough. Just minutes before, the lady had asked me for some extra tonic water for her cocktail. I brought over an unopened bottle and popped it for her right there, she even said out loud, “Wow, what a nice touch, thanks.”

But if there’s one thing I’m taking away from over a decade of waiting tables, it’s that you don’t fuck around with people’s ketchup. The lack of ketchup on a table has a way of turning normally pleasant and sane people into ruthless lunatics. Nineteen times out of twenty, if I’m running a burger or a sandwich to a table, chances are that before I even have a chance to fully place the dish in front of a customer, they’re already bombarding me with that one-word question:

“Ketchup?” That’s it. Just, “Ketchup?” like a tick, like it’s rattled off instinctively, no, “Please,” no, “May I have some,” or “Can you do me a favor and bring me some.” It’s just, “Ketchup?” And chances are, there’s probably already ketchup on the table. I’ll put down the plate, they’ll say, “Ketchup?” I’ll motion toward the ketchup, but it’s like they can tell, they don’t even have to look at the ketchup, they’ll just say, “More ketchup?”

And so, yeah, I’m in the awkward position right now of trying to defend myself when I clearly understand how important ketchup is to the majority of American diners. I don’t even know why restaurants put any effort at all into their food. At my place it’s something like twenty bucks for an in-house ground chuck steak burger, on a freshly baked bun, blah, blah, blah, stop talking and go get me even more of that sugary tomato syrup to pile on my meal.

Yes, I’m sorry I messed up by not getting this guy his ketchup right away. I am. But I was only like two minutes late, I already said that. This man found it necessary to complain to a manager. Like let me see if I can’t get this waiter in trouble because I don’t have my five ounces of ketchup. Worse, when I went to walk by the table a few minutes later, this time the guy was talking to one of the hostesses. I stood there for a minute, until the hostess interrupts, “I’m sorry you had to wait for your ketchup, but I’m not a manager, I’m a hostess.”

And so I stepped in, “Listen sir, I’d like to apologize, I’m really sorry that …”

But he cut me off, his mouth full of hamburger and ketchup, “You know something? The service here is really lacking. I had to wait a while for this ketchup,” at which point his wife interjected, “He’s been waiting for this ketchup!” and the man continued, “I can understand if it’s Saturday night or something, but it’s not, it’s Sunday, it’s not hard, your job’s not that hard.”

That’s when I kind of just froze, I deflated, I was totally defeated, this man looked me in the eye and told me that I’m not very good at my job, a job that’s not that hard anyway. And I’m not a bitter guy, I strive to find happiness in my daily routine, but here I am, I’m almost thirty years old, I’m waiting tables at a restaurant, and I have this man making an effort to find two people he thinks are in charge of me to complain about my performance.

What are you trying to do, what’s your end game? I was nothing but polite, smiling for you while I took your order and brought you your drinks, are you trying to get me fired? Is that your goal? You want to set an example to all of the waiters and waitresses out there, look, if you don’t get me my fucking ketchup, I’ll complain, I’ll get you in trouble?

I had a very strong urge to do something stupid, to slam my fists down on the table and tell him what’s what. But I didn’t. I just kind of blankly looked at him and told him, “Well, I certainly apologize,” and then I walked away, delegating any other tasks to my coworkers, doing whatever it was that I could to not have to interact with them for the rest of the night.

And the manager swung by table thirteen again toward the end of their meal, to continue the apologies for my incompetence, to offer them a free dessert (which they eagerly accepted.) I don’t know. I made a slight mistake. These two went in for the kill. I’m trying to get past it, but man, there’s still that urge, that desire to take the burger out of his hand, chomp off a bite and tell him to fuck off. Seriously, if I’m ever at a restaurant, and there’s no ketchup, I’ll just eat the burger. I’m a big boy. I’m not going to cause a huge scene. Man, I could complain about this forever.

Stuck underground without any money for a ride

A while back I got caught in a thunderstorm, I ran down into the nearest subway station and figured I’d just call it a day, head home. But it was bad luck, poor placement and worse timing, I was something like twenty-three cents short for a single ride, and the only two Metrocard machines in the station had the same big handwritten signs taped to the front, “cash only.”

I didn’t have any cash and, since I was relatively dry, I couldn’t imagine taking my chances outside, running the five or six blocks for the next station. The downpour had driven in a steady stream of likeminded people, and so I figured, I don’t have a choice, I’m going to have to ask somebody for a swipe.

I mean, I’m not one to beg for change, but it’s not like I didn’t have the money, I had it, it was just somewhere else, not in my pocket. And besides, I’ve seen people ask for swipes before, I’ve even given them out. Wasn’t it about time that I cashed in on some very minor subterranean cosmic karma?

“Excuse me,” I stood by the turnstile and started addressing the line, not anybody in particular, but just kind of directly ahead, “I’m stuck, the machine’s not working, can anybody give me a swipe?”

And whatever, I wasn’t expecting everyone in the city to just stop what they were doing to give me their attention, but I was kind of hoping that maybe one person might, maybe one or two, and like right away, like come on, I’m stuck here, you can’t help somebody else get on the train?

But nobody, I asked one time, and nobody even so much as looked. So I got all self-conscious, like do I ask again? Do I say the same exact thing? Or should I let the line advance a little more so I’m not repeating the same questions to the same people? I fell into a pattern, it was like every twenty-five seconds or so, I’d ask another five to ten people, and my requests got shorter, “Excuse me? Do you have an extra swipe?”

The best that I got was some lady who at least acknowledged my problem, she looked at me, not really sympathetically, and she said, “It’s unlimited,” referring to her Metrocard, “They’re all unlimited.” And yeah, I hadn’t thought about that, those unlimited cards make it impossible to swipe more than once in something like a fifteen-minute period. But come on, somebody had to have a regular card, I always kept a regular card, someone had to have a swipe.

But just as I was getting ready to ask the fifth or sixth group of people, I heard a man’s voice right behind me, “You!” he said. I turned around, it was a cop, he was pointing at me. “I’m sorry, do you have me confused with someone else?” and he continued, “Oh no, no, no, it’s you all right, you think I wouldn’t forget? That you’d get away with it?”

And I seriously had no idea what he was talking about, but he started getting closer, “Two summers ago, you hopped the turnstile, you thought you got away,” and I totally remembered. This was impossible. Two summers ago, yes, I was out for a long run, when out of nowhere the sky turned pitch black and started pouring. Look, I’m fine with running in a little rain, even a downpour, it’s like, what am I going to do? I’m already soaked from sweat, there’s no sense in stopping now.

But this storm, there was loud thunder, I saw a building two blocks in front of me take a direct hit from a bolt of lightning. That crack, that deafening thoom that I felt vibrate throughout my entire body, yeah, I guess I got a little spooked. I sprinted toward the nearest subway station.

When I got inside, I had no money, I didn’t have anything on me except for my keys, but I was all hopped up on adrenaline, there was a massive throng of bodies all trying to escape mother nature, and so, I wasn’t even thinking, I just acted, I kept running and I jumped right over the turnstile. It was much easier than I expected, but no sooner had I made it to the other side, I heard, “You!” it was a cop. They’re pretty strict about fare enforcement, I think the fine is something like over a hundred bucks, and so I saw this guy and I made a run for it.

Again, I wasn’t thinking. The platform has a finite amount of room, and this guy was on my tail. But, it was unbelievable, my luck, there was a train idling in the station with its doors open. I ran down a few cars, and right before the bell went off to signal their imminent closing, I slipped inside, I made it. Then I got cocky, the train started pulling away, and I gave a little shit-eating grin, a slight wave to the cop still on the other side of those doors.

And now here I was face to face with that same officer, I couldn’t believe he remembered me. Was he that consumed by my getting away? He remembered my face after all this time? I tried to fake my way out, “Hey officer, I think you’ve got the wrong guy,” but he wasn’t buying it. I abruptly changed course, “Listen, I’m not doing anything wrong here, what’s the problem?”

“Oh yeah? What are you a lawyer?” he was even closer, “No panhandling on the subway.” Was he going to take me in? Was this going to be something on my record, like I’d have to explain it every time I filled out a job application or applied for a loan? No, I thought, , it worked before, I can only hope that it works again.

And so I jumped the turnstile. But this time I didn’t make it across. The tip of my foot got caught on the pole and I face-planted right to the cement floor. My nose was bleeding, I chipped one of my front teeth. And nobody even really stopped, they just kept walking around me, that ceaseless line of bodies escaping the rain and heading for the train.

But it was bad, there was a significant amount of blood, even the cop started to feel sorry for me. “Just … just get the hell out of here. Just cut the shit, all right?” and that was it, he let me go. So yeah, another free subway ride, but now I had to find a dentist, I had to clean up. I’d have much rather just been wet, not this, bruised, caked in blood, humiliated.