Her and I

Anywhere from 40-60 hours a week, I put on the show...and I hate it. I have put on my little dancing monkey suit, slapped on my fake smile, laughed at the saddest, most played out attempts at humor and anecdotes, enthusiastically responded like a wide eyed puppy when referred to as 'Chief', 'Boss', 'Hoss', 'Slick', 'Homie', and basically any other pretentiously condescending nickname a drunk happily slurs my way because he can't remember my real name for far, far too long. This place, here...this is my oasis away from all that...and if you've never been on the 'other side', it's extremely hard, if not impossible, to understand this fact but...the view from here is nice. I’ll get explain more in a moment…

I've been a solider is the service industry warfront for a solid nine years. I started in high school, working in a local independent pizzeria when I was a junior. I originally just viewed it as an excuse to get out of the house a few nights a week and a good way to make some extra cash to buy pot. Very quickly, I realized the one aspect of the service industry that is simultaneously the most amazing advantage and also its most tragic downfall; you can make a lot of cash…very quickly. Unfortunately, I knew this when I started college and hopped from restaurant to restaurant from bar to bar, working, paying my way through school and rent and bills. Given, she (the industry) has been good to me in that sense, but we have a love-hate relationship, like that pussywhiped buddy of yours that keeps getting back together with THE SAME GIRL even after she just banged half the cast of I Love New York, Season 2 because they were at Macdittion’s Saturday. Don’t get me wrong, you ‘like’ that girl, she’s bad ass to party with on the weekends, but it you kills you every time you see your buddy crawl back to her because you know he’s miserable and he’s even said himself he doesn’t want her for the rest of his life. Well, that’s how kind of how her and I are, but were more like a summer fling. I planned on using her for what I need, then come August, I gasta move on baby, I’m sorry. This fling I’ve got going was supposed to put me through school so I can get a real big boy job, lasting no more than 4 years, 5 tops. Well, unfortunately (a lot of this is her fault by the way), I’m on the Van Wilder, 9 year plan. Around my second or third junior year, I had a brilliant idea to change majors with only 7 classes left, so our summer fling lasted much longer than I had ever hoped for…and now, I can’t shake this bitch.

Well, I can see graduation in the mere distance so it finally feels like August again. I thought I was bitter and burnt out on slinging drinks and dealing with obnoxious drunks before, but now with the end goal in sight, I’m on a whole new plane of resentment. Obviously, for job security, I can’t comment about the shitfaced quarks and pitiful performances I witness while I’m working. Here however, this place, this is mine, this is my escape, this is my oasis from all that. This is the one medium I can utilize as an outlet to keep me from wigging out the next time I hear someone order deep fried cider wings (with extra blue cheese, of course), extra crispy calamari, a bowl of beer cheese soup, and a Diet Coke to drink, because ‘I’m on a diet.’ The absurdities about people in general I’m forced to realize behind the bar have driven me as close to insanity as I ever would like to be. My only hope is to share them with you guys so at least somebody can take joy in my misery.