The Usual Rule
When I worked at a restaurant, there were about 30-40 patrons I would consider “regulars.” Only 4-5 of them had a “usual” order. Usuals are interesting. When does an incidental order become a usual order? After 20 times in a row? After 100 times in a year? What’s the rule? Ironically, the more unusual the order is, the better it will be remembered, and the quicker it will be established as one’s “usual.”
Fortunately for you folks who are depressed because you feel you don’t have the will power and dedication to have a restaurant staff learn your usual, I think there’s a very simple cheat you can employ.
Pick a restaurant. Any restaurant. Ok, no, not Applebees, for the love of God, you masochistic freak. Any other restaurant. Go in, sit down and wait for your server. Then say, “I’d like the usual please.” Your server – let’s call him Jacques – will look confused. He’ll say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what your usual is.” Then you tell him.
Go back within 2-3 days. Order your usual again. If it’s Jacques, there’s a 50% chance he remembers it. If not, he’ll definitely get it next time. If it’s someone new, when you get that raised eyebrow look, say, “Oh, sorry, I thought Jacques would have told you.” Then order. This server – let’s call her Penelope – not only has the same first step as Jacques, but when she next sees him, she’ll be like, “Jacques, yo, like, some dude tried to order his ‘usual’ and said you were supposed to tell me.” They’ll laugh and mock you, but they’ll remember your usual. And chances are, they’ll tell the other servers – Gary, Ramon, Cynthia, Xing Lu, et al – the story and to be on the lookout.
And there you have it. Your 2-4 step process to having an established “usual.” You’re welcome.
The Price of Bending Over
I want to do extensive studies on people picking up change on the ground. I wonder how most people decide whether or not the change is worth bending down to pick up.
There are obviously the people that will pick it up regardless of value. Sacajawea dollars, buffalo nickels and tarnished pennies are all identified with the same level of enthusiasm. Ironically, I assume most of these people to be old women, most of whom should avoid bending down when not necessary.
Then there are people like me who are first stricken with a sense of laziness and the feeling that it’s not worth the effort of stopping walking and bending over to retrieve some small fraction of a dollar. Then the second guessing comes. “C’mon, it’s free money. Put it in a jar. It’ll add up eventually.” At this point, if it’s a quarter, I pick it up, even if I have to backtrack the few steps I’ve taken since I first noticed it. Less than a quarter, I continue to ponder. Dimes and nickels are mostly insignificant, but often I’ll grab them just to put my mind at ease. Pennies I clearly don’t need, but sometimes the whole “lucky penny” superstition hits me. And even though I’m not superstitious, I have irrational thoughts of getting angry at myself if something unfortunate were to happen later that day and I had to think back to when I didn’t pick up the penny. So yes, I pick up pennies. And I put them in a jar. And they add up. About 100 of them equals a dollar.
Overly Egressive
I was just at Best Buy, where apparently the recent rain/wind storms damaged the outer exit door. Everyone entering used the entrance normally by walking through both sets of sliding doors. Those exiting had to use the inner sliding exit door, then shuffle over to the left and go through the outer entrance door. Got all that? Good.
On the inside of the outer exit door (the broken one), was one of those metal pull-down gate things. On it was a bumper sticker-sized sign that read “Not a means of egress.” I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this is one of the least useful signs ever.
For one, what’s with that wording? Yes, egress means exit – nothing wrong with it semantically. But consider the average person. What percent of people really know what egress means? Maybe 15? I think 5 might be closer to reality. So congratulations, sign writer guy, on finding a more sophisticated way of saying “not an exit”. There’s a reason your job is writing text for stickers and not teaching doctoral level English courses.
And secondly, exactly what part of not “egressing” wasn’t clear by the fact that there was a GIANT METAL GATE blocking everyone from doing so? Would anyone have walked up to it, looked unsuccessfully for instructions, and then attempted to raise, slide or pass through the gate when there was a fully operational door 8 feet to the left? No. The answer is no.
So, sticker writer guy and sticker placer guy, I hope you both read this and take it to heart. I don’t want to encounter your preposterous signage anymore.
French Friends
I think everyone has a few of those built-in mental cross-ups that make you spell or confuse the same words all the time. I consider myself a very good speller, but some words just continually come out wrong. For example, when I want to write both, I always write bothe and then delete the e. And regardless of how many times I look it up, I can never really remember whether the correct spelling is license or lisence.
I think my favorite such nuance is my inability to write fried without first writing friend. Just moments ago I referred to eating friend onions. I don’t have any friends that are onions, but I like to think that if I did, I wouldn’t eat them. I have also written French friends on various occasions. Someone with half a brain could figure out what I meant, but for the majority of the population, there might have been some confusion.
To clear things up, French friends do not come with a Whopper meal at Burger King, I do not dip them in ketchup and I don’t like the burnt ones any better than the rest. That being said, if Burger King is looking to improve relations between the U.S. and France, perhaps throwing in a couple friends wouldn’t be a terrible idea.
Giant Bar Tabs
As referenced in the movie I Love You, Man, it took Andre the Giant 1-2 barrels of beer to get drunk. That’s a lot of beer. I also recall a story in which, during a tour of Japan, Hulk Hogan gave Andre a birthday gift of 6 bottles of wine, which were all finished before the end of the 5 or 6 hour bus ride, with Andre still sober enough to wrestle that night.
While such a tolerance would be fun to brag about, he must have had some seriously outrageous bar tabs in his day. He probably downed a beer in like 5 seconds, which would get annoying for the bartender who either had to ignore his other customers or deal with an angry and possibly drunken giant. And what about closing time (cue Semisonic background music)? When Andre was 39 beers in and wanted more, I bet the clock wasn’t convincing him to go home.
I bet there was at least one divorce caused by Andre’s drinking and the bartender not getting home till 8 in the morning. “No, honey, really… there was a giant in the bar who kept drinking and wouldn’t leave!” The wife, cranky because she hadn’t slept well while wondering with whom her husband was cheating, would laugh at him, then kick him out. Then he would have to sell his bar and find another way to sustain himself. He should have become a professional wrestler and fought Andre the Giant… would have made for a great storyline.
