Dear Waitresses

I like terrorizing the waitresses where I work for two reasons:
1) They don't work directly for me
2) They are usually young and easy to mess with.

A new waitress started a few weeks ago.  She was younger than usual, so I thought I would go easy on her, so when I was in the kitchen getting a drink, I announced it was time for everyone's favorite game: The New Girl Guesses How Old Everyone Is!!!!  She was not happy about this in the least bit, but agreed to play.  Carrie, in her mid thirties, was now 40, as was her husband Steve.  Lisa was now a younger 35.  The waitress, who we shall refer to as Slumpathus, then turned to me, and without even hesitating, said "45".  The rest of the kitchen staff felt better about there guesses, and Slumpathus refused to quantify how she came to that decision.

Now, any time I see her, I just give her a glare, and she blurts out "I didn't want to play the game!"  This won't save her when the revolution comes.

A couple of weeks past this, I met up with Kentucky Jim for dinner.  Unfortunately, he brought The Angry Scholar with him.  After a round robin tournament of rock-paper-scissors and Inkum Stinkum, it was decided that we would be having Italian food for dinner.  Once Kentucky Jim got his horribly racist remarks under wraps, we were seated al fresco, and ordered drinks.  Our waitress barely looked out of high school, let alone capable of serving alcohol.  We proceeded to make some jokes which she joined in on, and created a good rapport with her.  Through that, we were able to find out that she was 21, originally from Canada, and that she thought The Angry Scholar's head was too large, yet also hypnotically lopsided.  Inevitably, masochist I am, I asked her to play the game.  Three men, right guess across the board.  No one, even some people that had know us for a period of time, would guess that I was younger than those two, but she gleefully called me the baby of the group. 

She also taunted Kentucky Jim with cheesecake, his one true kryptonite, and made perfect food recommendations for The Perturbed Academic and I.  So, moral of the story is, young American girls have much to learn from young Canadian girls, especially in the ways of waitressing and age guessing. 

Dear Bogey the Dog

In my life, there have only been a few animals that did not like me.



This first I can remember was my mother's lhasa apso.  Ginger only loved my dad and vengeance, so I stayed clean of that mop of death.  I remember having a recurring dream where that dog attacked my face to try to get some cheese that I was eat.  I am not sure it ever really happened, so I adamantly insist it did. 

Why Matthew McConnaughey had the dog, I have no idea. 

 Then, came the maincoons.  For some reason, that breed of cat has never completely cottoned to me.  First came Sweet Lou, a rescue I even helped nurse back to health.  I was rewarded by guarded stares and general lethargy.  Later, my friend Karl Spackler would adopt a different mainecoon, Chairman Meow.  Meow is a sneaky one.  Her presence is never seen.  She is only know by the sound of scurrying and a hint of wind whipping past you. 

Until now, the worst has been the unholy bastard dog owned by my sister.

The cone is for our protection

He is some sort of mutt mix of a border collie, an Oscar Meyer train whistle, and the entire cataloger of Soulja Boy's discography.  He is loud, destructive, and about as loveable as a bad case of crabs.  Worse, I proved that he was a drug user.  I told him, "Buster, hugs not drugs. Come hug me!"  He barked for the next thirty seven hours and then swallowed a button.

I genuinely love animals.  I just want to pet them, and hug them, and hold them until they can't handle it anymore.  It pains me that these poor animals will not allow me to love them.  However.  I like to think that these are isolated cases, because, other than the detestable Buster, the animals don't like too many people in general.  My hopes were dashed when I met Bogey.

Bogey belongs to my friend Dave.  He is a mix of a chihuahua and a dachshund and all I heard forever was how loveable and loving this dog was to everyone.  Every time I'd visit Dave, Bogey was away visiting Dave's parents.  Recently, Dave moved, and Bogey was with him all the time, so I was finally ready to get the hugging going. 

Let us just say, Bogey was not as advertised.  He first named the nickname "Dour Dog", because he always looks like this:

 

No matter the circumstance, Bogey looks like he's learned that the world is unfair, and that nothing he every wanted to accomplish can be achieved.  Dave has seen this dog shed real tears when it was worked up.  I can deal with this, but for the fact that if I enter a room, Bogey immediately positions himself behind Dave's legs.  Only Dave can protect him from the giant that is clearly there to rape and/or eat him.  Dave tried to trick him, and picked him up and handed him.  If a dog has ever screamed "Unwanted Touching! I need an adult!", this dog did.  He was put down, and went back to the sanctuary of Dave's flip flopped feet. 

As I sat in Dave's living room, watching an ungodly bad movie on Chiller, Bogey sat forlornly on top of a nearby chair, staring despondently at me.  I looked at him, and he tried to sink lower into the fabric.  "Bogey", I said, "if you keep this up, I am changing your name.  Bogey is a fun name.  You are a Debbie Downer."   Bogey went boneless and slowly oozed to the floor, hoping to go unnoticed as he sought refuge with Dave. 

"Ok, that's it.  Your new name is Stephan.  Stephen Brontalewski.  Not even Steve.  You are too uptight to be a Steve."

Little puppy tears welled up in Stephen's eyes as I sat and pet the cat.  He slowly crept over, fueled by jealousy and an unflattering nickname.  The cat rolled in ecstasy as I scratched him stomach.  Stephan slowly found his way onto the couch, and insinuated himself between myself and the cat.  He stared at me, and I at him.  I hoped this meant that he was finally ready to be friends.

Instead, Stephan Brontalewski dramatically rolled onto his back in a very "Paint me like your French women" pose, and gave me a look like, "This is it.  Be gentle." 

The mood was ruined, and he continues to be Stephan to this day. 

Dear Lemuel the Brain Chigger

Lemuel is a good friend of Gene the Brain Tick.  Unlike Gene, Lemuel is an agent of chaos.  He's not happy just feeding on my insecurities and blowing them up.  Lemuel is the cause.  Let's put it this way: if Gene is the grease fire on my brain, Lemuel is the gleeful ingenue with an oily rag collection and an affinity for lighting sparklers and throwing them with reckless abandon.

Those that have known me for awhile, or even just met me once, or possibly even glanced at this blog in passing, might get the impression that I am a laid back, type B surfer type.  I put up a fairly good front, but in fact, I am wound fairly tight,  I suffer from what is innocuously called "Generalized Anxiety Disorder".  This is akin to calling a chainsaw wound a "Randomized Flesh Realignment".  Paired with an ever present degree of depression I've dealt with for years, and a skewed sense of self worth, I've made myself the belle of the ball. 

Things got bad enough a few years ago after a relationship ended and things got tough at work that I went to my doctor for help.  Like mos trips to the doctor for me, this did not help.  The time I saw him previously, I went to get a pinched nerve fixed and was wrongly diagnosed with a tumor on my pituitary gland.  This time, I was given pills that gave me all of the side effect with none of the cure, so I gave up on them and continued with my normal coping mechanism: pushing things into a tiny ball of hate in my chest that sporadically bursts on the innocent. 

This works for only so long before you are either freaking out on people in public at random, pissing your friends off by complaining about the same things that are wrong with your life, and/or barely being able to cope at work without anxiety and anger controlling your every action.  I went back to the doctor, we talked about my issues, and he gave me pills that he thought might work better. 

The wonderful thing about the pills is that they worked to fix most of the problems I had.  My anxiety attacks are down about 95%.  I can get through a day of work or a rush hour drive without my chest tightening to sickening lengths.  My brain doesn't flood at night with lost seratonin and chemicals that can't find the right receivers, leaving me emotional and pushing the ever present feeling of loneliness to the only thing I can think of.  In fact, I don't really have those feeling at all.  And that is the bad thing about the pills.  I don't exactly have any strong feelings, unless apathy is a feeling, then I have a shitload of that.  If "only wanting to sit in my recliner and watch reruns of Supernatural while drinking coffee" is a feeling, than I am the best at that feeling. 

I laugh at tv shows.  I can enjoy things still, and I can still get pissed off, but for the most part, I'm just in the vaguely velvety room where I can see the feelings through the door, but they are in the other room.  This doesn't bode well for a writer, or a comedian, or asshole, or whatever you want to call me and what I do.  This is why I haven't been posting.  I just can't get the ire up, or the comedy.  I think this post feels pretty forced honestly.

I have a choice: I can take the pills and be a bit less of a miserable person, or stop taking them to try to be a bit better at something I am good at and that I enjoy.  For the time being, I am taking the pills.  I'll keep trying to write this blog, and hopefully it's still something people want to read.  I hope so, but I couldn't even do something as meaningful and powerful as Allie Brosh did with her Hyperbole and a Half admittance of depression. 

What I can say is that if I have a choice where I am not sitting in bed a night and trying to remember the last woman that actually showed me affection, or who the last person that wasn't family was that said they loved me and actually meant it was, but I'm just worse at writing this blog that hasn't gotten me famous in three years, I'll finally try to be happy for once.

Hopefully you're all down with that too.

I'll try to be funny again next week, I promise.