Beyond Flashpoint

As it was slowing down Friday night Crystal was talking with my manager, and I was bored so I decided to get a laugh.

“Rodney, I’d like to place a personal complaint against Crystal,” I deadpanned.

“Okay, let me know and we can start the paperwork,”

“Crystal said that she would kill me and burn everything I ever loved because I cut her off at the POS a few minutes ago,” I said.

Rodney thought for a moment before replying, “So,that must be a lot of comic books?”

Now reading comic books is nothing I’ve ever referenced or admitted to at work, but I read as a dork, so yeah, Rodney was right. There’s a pile of boxes sitting in one of my closets. Thing is comics have gotten to the point where I can’t read them anymore.

Outside of the obvious movies, The Matrix, American Splendor, Scott Pilgrim Vs the World and Road to Perdition were all based on graphic novels. Some of the most creative work being done today is being done in comic books, but sadly either I’ve moved beyond them or they’ve moved past me.

The problem is that mainstream comics, the names even non comic book readers know like X-Men, Iron Man, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash are so crossover-driven these days you can’t read one book, you have to read five just to follow the story.

Take Green Lantern for example, he’s always been one of my favorites in the DC universe and he’s written by Geoff Johns, who is a stunningly good writer. Problem is for the last year or more its all been either run up or involved in a company wide crossover called Darkest Night where a bunch of dead heroes and villains came back to life and two issues later is involved in another crossover. The Flash started a new stand alone series last year, did an interesting six issue arch, then did a few fill-in issues before starting to run up for some new mega-crossover called “Road to Flashpoint,” which will have its own mini-series, various one shots and at least fourteen tie in issues outside of the main title. At $3 each that means at least $45, and I’m sorry, but no story is worth that much.
Every year Marvel property has an annual company-wide crossover event. I stopped trying to keep track after “Civil War,” there’s been several since then.

I’m sorry, but I don’t have the cash to invest in so many books, nor the time figure out what books I’d have to buy in order to get the whole story.

The problem with Indie books, while they’re self contained there’s a lot of crap out there. For every Road to Perdition or Walking Dead there are a dozen wastes of time and money. Again, I don’t have the time or money to invest into finding the right ones.

I guess at thirty-three I’m finally too old for comics, and I’m not sure if its my fault.

Thanks Mom and Dad

As it turns out I have one more thing I can blame on my parents, psoriasis.
It’s an annoying skin disease that causes outbreaks, and after going 33 years without any hint I was carrying it in my body it broke out last fall after a case of untreated strep throat.

The reaction has fairly over the top with people saying, “Oh my God I’m so sorry,” but so far I have a mild case that only got as far as it did because I didn’t recognize it and get it treated for three or four months. Right now it seems to be responding to sunlight and medication and hopefully I’ll not have a another outbreak again.

Psoriasis is a genetic disease that has never been recorded in my family history ever, and This is the first outbreak in my life to date and people are treating it like it’s a major, life scaring disease, and it probably is for some people, but I’m not too that point yet. As I did my Google research I saw the word “Suffer” with psoriasis a lot, and it seems a little over the top.

The doctor and his squadron of PA’s that diagnosed me were like, “Good for you that you don’t mind wearing short sleeves and shorts out in public,” because sunlight helps knock down psoriasis lesions. I know its something serious and I appreciate the sympathy but I know people who were diagnosed with HIV before their 18th birthday, it kind of puts, “Genetic skin disorder that may never reoccur,” into context. Seriously, as a gay man who grew up with the specter of AIDS looming when you find out that you have an incurable disease and its not fatal, its kind of a relief.

Now in my childhood I was a paranoid outcast on occasion so its not like I don’t have issues, but I was never teased because of my body. I was called faggot, a lot, but I never had any hang-ups about my body and this doesn’t even change that. I took off my shirt halfway through my jog today to help get some sunlight. I wasn’t in Piedmont Park but I’m kinda beyond being intimidated because I’m physically imperfect.

Maybe I’m just at the beginning of this thing and it will change as this disease progresses, but I’m done with hiding.

Man's best friend? Sure...

I’ve always suspected that if Charlie and I were to die unexpectedly, like say a CO2 build up, and our bodies were to go undiscovered for a period of days Jake, Charlie’s dog, would eat me first. Now I know that’s what would happen.

My roommate’s aunt gave him a restaurant quality bread knife. I know it’s a restaurant quality knife because I work in one. A few days ago I was slicing bread with it and accidentally put a quarter-inch deep gash in our restaurant quality cutting board.

So he was using this knife we call “The Katana” to slice some onions when he ran to the bathroom, blood dripping from his thumb.

Despite my repeated recommendations to go to an urgent care clinic to get stitches the roommate decided not get stitches and wrap up his thumb in duck tape and gauze. In his defense it was on NFC and AFC Championship Sunday and neither he nor I wanted to miss the games. I called my mother, a retired nurse practitioner, and asked if we had to go to the hospital. She suggested we had to and seemed appalled when I asked if we could wait until after the Steelers game.

It was about two days later when we started to realize that something was attracting Jake’s attention. Jake started taking swipes at the wad of duct tape at the end of his thumb.

“No!” he commanded the dog who continued to stare at his wounded digit. “No, no eating my thumb.”

So beyond having to ask for help with simple tasks -- such as opening a bag full of frozen chicken -- my roommate also had to content with Jake nipping at his thumb, hoping to get a bite of dead Charlie flesh.

Other dogs too were attracted by the scent and kept nipping at his thumb until he finally visited his sister’s house. Now his sister, having two children, had a proper first-aid kit and he used the surgical scissors to prune the dead flesh, and suddenly no more dog sniffing at his bandage hoping for some man meat.

This had done nothing to dissuade me from the idea that if we were to die and our bodies not be found for several days that Jake would wait until he got hungry, and we started to smell a little bit, before ripping off my hand, going and sitting by Charlie and eating it.

Remind me to buy a CO2 alarm.

Surviving Displays of Public affection

When I swallowed my first martini of the night on Monday like it was a shot it wasn’t the unsettling plea of an alcoholic, but rather an acknowledgment that I had survived one of the worst weekends of the year better than most of my coworkers.

Valentine Day is one of the better weekends of the year for restaurants and one of the most trying times for its staff. We broke our sales expectations every day for Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, but we damn near broke the staff as well.
Everyone thinks that servers make bank on Valentine’s Day and while its better than an average weekend its not that great. The way I see it it’s about 15 percent more money for 150 times the effort. The problem from the server perspective is that it’s essentially amateur hour.

Big holidays, and Valentine’s Day has become a big holiday, brings out people who eat out a lot, but don’t eat at sitdown restaurants a lot. The sheer volume of people who don’t know how to, or don’t want to tip is incredible, and the thing is I came off pretty well. I walked with about 10 percent of my sales, meaning I averaged 14 percent, which while not good is far from how some of my servers faired.

One woman, a great server and a wonderful person, treated a table like gold and got a $5 tip on a $175 check. So after our mandatory 4 percent tip out she lost $2 waiting on them. A minimum tip on that check should be around $25 because your check doesn’t pay for the service, it pays for the food. The basically stole about money from this mother of four as sure as if they had reached into her purse and took it.

I got a lot of random sub-10 percent tips, like $3 on $50 and so on, but I came off well in comparison. One of the last tables on Monday night ran up a $90 tab and left their server $1. Normally that would be considered a fuck you, but I just don’t think these people knew any better.

One woman asked her server, “Where is your dollar menu, because I didn’t wait that long just for some expensive shit.” The server responded, “Ma’am, we don’t have a dollar menu and we don’t have a drive through either.”

Seriously folks, stick with what you know. A well done cheeseburger is a well done burger, fried chicken is still fried chicken, so why do you have to go "Somewhere nice," in order to eat it.

How to flirt with servers

So one of my co-worker’s guests hands him back the check presenter. On the back of the receipt is a handwritten note (See right) where he says wanteds Geo to, “Hit him up.” Also notice what I’m guessing is a grammar error. I think he meant to say, “Service was great,” instead he wrote, “Service what’s great,” so he comes off a little conceited and demanding.

Not only was the guy wrong about Geo (He’s not gay, nice guy and comes off a little gay I think, but not gay.) he went about his business the wrong way. Not only is his gaydar a little off but he only left a three dollar tip on a $30 tab. Seriously.
Personally speaking I’ve met more guys working as a server than I did as a full time reporter for the gay newspaper in town. Catch me on the right day, and be the right guy, I don’t mind the idea of going by your hotel room after work.

As a whole, servers are open to the idea of going out with someone we meet through work, but you have to go about the right way. We’re not going to go out with someone who doesn’t know how to tip. Because as Geo put it, and a number of my coworkers agreed with, not knowing how to tip is showing that you don’t have very much class. Servers do evaluate people on whether they know how to tip, and starting off a relationship with a cheap tip doesn’t bode well for any potential relationship.

Back during the days when I worked for a big monster mega bank I traveled a lot, both around Atlanta and the south. I did discover one of my longer relationships by stopping for lunch. How? Because I went about it the right way.

I was in Alpharetta on work and wanted to stop for a decent lunch while I filed some paperwork. I asked the hostess if there was any single gay boys working that afternoon and if I could get a seat in his section. They were nice enough to comply, and I’m sure ran and told him hey there’s a gay guy in your section. So I started flirting a little bit during my lunch and it went well. I not only tipped twenty percent on my card I left a nice note with my number and left an additional $20 in cash on top of the tip. No, I wasn’t paying for sex, I was trying to show that I was a nice guy who understands what one large tip can do to your weekly outlook.

I wrote that he was a very sweet guy and asked if he wanted to get coffee sometime. He called and we dated for a while. Had I left him a ten percent tip there would have been no way I’d ever see him again.

It’s one thing to not have good gaydar, it’s another to not have any class.

Pennies Matter

A large part of retired people were in town for some convention across the street and we had to split it through two servers. Beyond the fact they all ordered water I knew this table was going to be different when the server I split the table with, said, “This one is special?”

“Special in a good way?” I asked, trying to be hopeful.

“They’re already talking Spanish to me.” Juan Carlos is Ecuadorian and speaks with a pronounced, and may I say sexy, Latin accent.

“Oh, that’s a good sign?” I asked

“No man, in the racist way, a lot of mucho gracias, and como stas.”

Oh, I case I never said it before, saying whatever random phrase you happen to know in a server’s language to them is insensitive, offensive, and yes, even a little racist.

They exhibited a lot of other signs you tend to see in retirees. They asked a lot of questions, completely random questions like, “Can you describe the Chicken Bellagio for me?” That dish is described perfectly in the menu, but of course she couldn't or didn't want to read that. So after I rattled off the exact menu description of that and several other dishes verbatim she settled for a different menu item. Their bill is incredibly low for the eight people that I have, and of course they have to split the bill and get exact change, to the penny. Pennies are important to old people.

One woman had like sixty-seven cents due back to her and put it in the check and some of it slid out as I was handing everyone their individual check. I didn’t think anything of it because normal people don’t care about a random thirty cents. Thirty cents must be a lot in the life of a retiree because that woman flagged down another server, gave him my check and said that some of her change had spilled out and she would like her full change.

She came late and her total bill came to $12.37. Now we’re talking about thirty cents. You would have to be a complete and total cheap ass bitch to care about thirty cents, but she did. Her party was leaving but she wasn’t about to leave without her thirty cents.

So I made her exact change, to the penny because pennies are important to old people for some reason. So I handed her back her all important pennies, and handed it to her. I didn’t say anything, but the subtext was, “You are the most obnoxious woman I could imagine.”

This woman who was so empathic about getting back the thirty cents that was due her didn’t leave a tip. No one in her party left a cent over the mandatory 18 percent grat, and that’s why restaurants put automatic gratuities on large parties. Restaurants don't put it on because that's what you should tip, but because its a safety net for us as servers. It's a bottom floor of what's acceptable for a large party. I tip the girls at Waffle House at least three dollars and my check doesn’t normally get above seven bucks, so I don't really understand how someone can think that $1.32 is an appropriate tip at an upscale restaurant.

Irony

I knew as soon as I saw the part full of young attractive college girls milling about in the lobby I was in trouble. Of course the gay guy would get the party full of pretty college girls, not any of the college age straight guys we have.

Sure enough, eleven young women sat down my section. Nine waters, two sodas and a total bill coming to $125 for eleven people before the ordered deserts. For a reference, the four women who sat after them had a $110 check by themselves. Hamburgers in my restaurant start at $11 so you really have to work to keep your average at $10.50 a person and it was just dead obvious they were cheap, and that was before the checks came.

Each girl wanted her own check, even the ones who were splitting items wanted their own check. So I had to not only find eleven check presenters on a busy Friday night but I had split one item three ways, two items two ways and make sure everything was accurate before I could get them out of my section so that some adults could sit there. They managed to surprise me.

One of the girls, a homely looking blond, asked, “All I have is a lot of quarters, is it okay if I pay you with that.”

I know I had a visual reaction of some kind because what went through my head was, “No you can’t pay me with quarters, what the fuck do you think this is McDonalds? I do run a blog where I bitch about how stupid people are and you will be featured Monday.”

Sadly the best thing I could muster is, “I don’t see why not.” When what I really wanted to say is, “Kroger has Coinstar Machines that take your change and give you paper money. Why didn’t you go there before going out?”

Judging by the debit cards they went to Kennesaw State, which apparently doesn’t teach even simple math now or those girls would have know how to take a total and divide it by eleven.

They were young, and poor, and I get that, but when you’re in college I never would have gone as far upscale as my restaurant. While college girls are notoriously bad tippers I really didn’t expect the quarters. I had to give up another table because it took me twenty minutes to process their payment.

If you want a separate check for eleven people that’s a pretty big ask of your server. When you ask for separate checks and four you pay in twenties and person gives you seven and half dollars in quarters that’s just fucking inconsiderate. I had to give up a table because it took me twenty minutes to count all the quarters and break four $20 bills. I used the dumb girls quarters to make change for her friends. I wasn’t about to jingle around the restaurant like a Salvation Army bell ringer.

After take care of what was probably the most complicated bill I’ve ever done in all my years of serving did the girls appreciate the effort I made? Effort a lot of servers wouldn’t have done? No, they did what most pretty, young girls have done in my life. They remained completely self-absorbed and snatched up every one of those quarters and pranced out of the restaurant.

Note: While appreciate my lesbian sisters and am appreciate of my straight girl friends I have to say waiting on parties of nothing but women is one of the most trying things I do as a server. This is not meant as a generalization of women, but just an example of the crap I have to go through every day. Like the party of two after them who ordered the exact same thing, asked for separate bills and then paid in cash. Really? Really? Its that hard to divide a total in two?