So alright, I walk into work this evening, to be greeted by a bad look by Mary, the boss. Whatever, nothing new. I pretend not to notice this and put on a fake smile and warmly greet everyone. Two minutes after punching in, I am walking towards the walk in cooler to grab some supplies for the salad bar. As I proceed, Mary quickly comes up to me, and gnarls “Elliott! Don’t you ever punch out someone else again for me! That’s just shows how much respect you have for me! It’s bullshit!!!”

I assume she is talking about yesterday morning, when I was working with the new waitress Sarah, who is an old friend of mine. I told her I would punch her out because she was having trouble with the clock system, not a big deal. I say to Mary in a calm voice “Oh, alright, I’m sorry, Sarah was having trouble with the clock system so I did it for her.”

Mary replies, even more fustration built in her voice, “I’m not talking about Sarah! You punched out Jess last week 30 minutes after she left last Monday!”

Now confused, as Jess was fired just a couple days ago, Sarah was hired to replace her, I state “Last Monday? I did not punch her out last Monday. She left early, and she gave Jim 5 cigarettes or something for him closing for her.”

Mary beckons Jim over, as he is cooking tonight, “Jim, did you punch Jess out last Monday?” in a rather calm, sweet voice.

Answering, Jim states “Nope, I don’t know who did.”

Jim goes back to work, and Mary states how my punch out time was the same as Jess’s, and that Jim was punched out 3 minutes before either of us. I don’t know what to say to this, so I tell her just that, “Mary, I don’t know what to tell you, but I did not clock out Jess.”

Mary storms off, now pissed “Well, whatever, the clocks show elsewise.” Leaving me to think “This is me showing respect for you? You randomly walk up to me and accuse me of something I had no part in, when the cook, who everyone knows is desperate for cigarettes and will do anything for them, also a convict, fired before, has stolen money and such from people who work there before, is the only other possible suspect? My respect for you Mary only extends as far as you do mine, and if this is what you are resorting to, then fuck you, and you can embed that shred of respect into a spear and shove it right up your ass.”

The night proceeds on, Mary pissed at the universe and me left in a nonchalant mood; it is not the first time she has PMS’ed on me before. Doubt it’ll be the last either. I am bussing some tables, and Mary walks out from the bar and shouts halfway across the dining room “WE NEED SOME HOTBAR CHEESE OUT HERE!” to me. I have trouble understanding this, so I repeat what I hear, “Some jalopeno cheese out there?” Mary turns red, her veins appear to be convulsing and ready to pop out of her head and go supernova, “HOT-BAR-CHEESE!” “Oh, hot bar cheese.” I reply, now understanding, while focusing on the twitching veins in her face, standing exploding distance away.

Three trays of hotbar cheese later, we are out of prepared ones, and I have never run out of cheese for them before, so I am uncertain as to what to do. Mary walks back to yell at the waitress for some miscellaneous reason, and I ask Mary what I should do now that we are out of prepared cheese. She growls sarcastically like she doesn’t want to look at me even “You have to make some, you can just ask someone, you know. The cheese is right here.”

“OK, thanks.” is my response, while I stomach my true reply until she walks away, “The fuck do you think I’m doing right now, broad? Looks like I’m fucking asking someone right now, huh?” I state aloud but quiet enough so only the dishwasher, my friend Brent, and I can hear, as I make rude gestures at Mary while she walks away, still pissed.

I am growing in my anger a little, but nothing terrible, when Mary is there, this is a good night so far. We have this club come in every few Mondays, called “The Lions Club.” Not a big deal, I set up the tables for them and such, when they arrive they are seated. Low and behold, I spot one of the members and he spots me, it’s my favourite teacher: Mr. Linzmeyer. You recall, the one who got me kicked out of Algebra II last year; the one who confiscated my mobile phone the first day of school this year? The one who’s so fat the floor creaks when he walks and the amount of oxygen he intakes should be taxed he’s overconsuming to such a great extent? You know, that one? Right. I lower my head and be polite to the guests like it is in my job duty to do, masking the impulse to want to throw the entire salad bar at him, wouldn’t be a hard target anyways… In response to my nodding my head as a gesture of hello, he rolls his eyes, and snarls a “Heh”, turning away to risk earthquake once again.

OK, so fuck it, I don’t really care, I don’t have to see him just because he is eating there, as I’m mostly in the back making food and bussing tables in the front half of the restaraunt anyways. By this point, Mary is gone, thank god. This is where the rest of it gets good, and not fun to write about anymore. More or less, I see linzmeyer one more time as I nick his plate off the table, along with the rest of the party’s. The night goes on, and I am given a ride home by Brent, since he owns a large GMC Bronco-like vehicle and we attempt to stash my bike in it. It somehow turns into sexual innuendo, and we are making comments like “Harder Brent, push!” “It’s not in yet!” “Can you take your belt off? It keeps preventing it from getting in!” as well as several humourous, but enthused grunts and uproarious positions when doing them and shoving the bike inside. We finally get it in there, and begin the journey home. One thing about Brent’s GMC though, is that his exhaust is broken, so he needs to drive with the windows down. Here it is, 35 degrees, going down Bridge Street in this old, rusty, paint chipped, 1980-some truck thingy, windows down, cold air rushing in, us freezing our asses off in our pathetic jackets and we’re headbanging and grunt singing along to “Evanesence – Bring Me To Life”, as it’s streamed over 104.1 Rock. It was truly a sight. Never before have I heard such a disturbing and terrible karoake version of Evanesence, which consisted only of grunting and making retard like noises, since neither of us knew the words.

After arriving at my house, Brent and I enjoy a few more jokes trying to get the bike out (“Here it cums!” “I’m ready, just give it to me!” “Damn this thing is big!” “Is it supposed to do that?”), and we finally excrete the bike from the GMC. I tell him I’ll see you tomorrow at school and he leaves after I tip him for gas money.

A few hours later, here I am now, finishing this blog posting. It’s a bit out of the usual life examination one, just a story of anger and humour. But as to not kill out the old method of posting completely, I’ll leave you all with a very, very, deep and uber important life moral: Wear warmer jackets if you’re going to be driving with the windows down in Wisconsin winter, or your nipples will be harder than the rocks in Bush’s concrete head.