Hitting For the Cycle

It seems fitting, today being the last day of the Major League Baseball season, that I would “hit for the cycle”. My own version of the cycle.
Unless I remain home alone all day chances are I am going to run into some variety of asshole. Or at least a moron. Or maybe it’ll just be an idiot. Almost always, though, someone will manage to piss me off. The whole pissing me off thing? That seems to be the purview of my coworkers. They suffer from a condition that is best described by its Latin phrase, lazyassmotherfuckerswhodonotdotheirjobs.

Today I left my house. It being a banner day, I bumped up against an asshole, a moron, and an idiot. Sometimes I’m just lucky that way. Additionally, I worked today and was exposed to sufferers of the aforementioned Latin-named affliction. In the interests of brevity, let’s just call them motherfuckers.

Let me tell you, there is nothing I enjoy more than opening the restaurant after the motherfuckers closed the night before, because who doesn’t look forward to an early morning scavenger hunt?

My number one favorite activity involves hunting up the proper ladles for the salad bar. Foraging for to-go supplies comes in at a close second; mainly because it involves retrieving the giant ladder, dragging it across the kitchen, climbing up to reach the top shelf, and then trying to balance the environmentally-friendly, yet surprisingly heavy, takeout boxes without breaking a hip, which is something I would rather avoid. And don’t even get me started on sorting through 11,000 knives and spoons to uncover the 17 soup spoons and 5 coffee creamers that are currently on hand. That’s a real eye-opener.

I don’t bitch. I don’t complain. I just do what needs doing, all the while generating a list of motherfuckers (in my head). I file them away for later. It’s a little bit like saving up for the proverbial rainy day. Instead of putting by a few bucks like a normal person would, I stockpile grudges like a mental patient.

Speaking of mental patients, I waited on a guy today who belonged in restraints and, as luck would have it, was also an asshole. I got three tables at once. No problem. I can handle that. I had all of their drinks, along with 3 baskets of bread, on a tray. This guy, for some reason, didn’t spot his beer, but did manage to see a glass of wine on my tray. He, literally, flipped out. He started waving his arms wildly and sputtering at me. Sputtering. And waving.

I will admit that I was initially taken aback by his behavior because I thought for a moment that he might have been giving me some international sign, for stroke or heart attack or shoulder dislocation, with which I was unfamiliar. Until he said, “I didn’t order any damn wine. I ordered a beer!” Oh. Okay. This was a condition familiar to me. He was just an asshole. I put his beer in front of him and smiled. I know from experience that limiting one’s contact with assholes is the best method for discouraging their behavior.

Just in case I had any doubt about placing him in the asshole category, he once again launched into the sputtering and the arm waving as he demanded to know why I had brought him and his party 3 baskets of bread. He helpfully pointed out that if they ate 3 baskets of bread they wouldn’t be hungry for lunch. Experience has taught me to mirror behavior whenever possible. It calms people. Puts them at ease, even. This particular asshole seemed enamored of hand gestures. I used a sweeping hand gesture to indicate what should have been obvious to him following the beer incident: that I had other tables. Asshole.

A little while later I noticed a moron wandering aimlessly around the dining room. I thought he was on his way to the rest room. I saw him looking at all of the paraphenalia on the walls. He continued meandering around. Something about his purposeless milling about caught my attention. So, I asked the host where the guy was sitting. The host told me that he wasn’t sitting anywhere, that he had come in and said he was just going to “have a look around.”

It turns out that he had a camera. A pretty big camera. Hanging around his neck. A camera that he was now engaged in using to take photographs of all the shit on the walls. The crazy thing is, this is not the first time this has happened, nor is he the only moron I have ever had to tell that photographing our establishment is prohibited. He looked at me like he could not comprehend what I was saying. Maybe because he couldn’t. He kept telling me that it was okay because he was a photographer. I began to speak very slowly. As one should when dealing with morons. I asked him if he would allow me to come to his place of business and start snapping away. I asked him if he might find this type of behavior at least mildly out of the ordinary. He finally left. Moron.

My daughter had a field hockey game this afternoon. Many of you already know that field hockey games are simply a conduit for my pumpkin coffee drinking and pumpkin spice muffin eating habit. Nothing has changed in that area. Twice, even after saying it at the outset, I told the woman behind the counter exactly how I wanted my coffee and what size coffee I wanted. I also ordered my muffin. At the same time.

Why can’t this be my Dunkin’ Donuts worker????

First, she handed me an iced coffee, even though I had said “hot” when I ordered it and I had said “hot” again when she asked me twice as she was making it. Still I got iced. And a crumb muffin. It took several tries and what seemed an eternity for her to complete my very simple “hot black pumpkin coffee and pumpkin spiced muffin” order. Idiot.

I have to go to work again tomorrow. And then to Kohl’s for a new pair of black pants. Wanna bet I hit for cycle again? The motherfuckers-assholes-morons-idiots cycle.