Jackie Chan

Can I get a side of whoop ass with that toast Jan?

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There’s really not anyplace to eat near the fat camp, especially late at night. After closing down the local bar, we were always hungry and looking for someone to take us to the diner. It was the only place to get something to eat 24 hours a day and I could never drive because I was always completely drunk. The food was unbearable if you were sober but, like I said, it was the only thing open late-night and thankfully, we were never sober in there. We went there so much that Jan the waitress became quite fond of me. When I say that she became quite fond of me, I mean that she would put up with my nonsense because I was always drunk and obnoxious…

Jan was very patient with the drunks and she made really good toast. She had a tendency to screw up my order, but I usually attributed that to my pickiness and slurring drunken speech – not her waitressing skills. Jan was in her mid-fifties, had big hair like Flo from Mel’s Diner, had extremely long nails, and had a deep raspy voice from many years of chain smoking. I know exactly what you’re thinking and you’re right; she was hot!

Jan, Is that you?

One night I was out with my cousin Leaky and her friend Diana. She was a nice enough girl, but she was extremely intimidating and she didn’t take shit from anyone. She didn’t appreciate my sarcasm – which she let me know often – and was actually more like a bodyguard than a friend. Let me try to paint a picture and tell you about Diana – she was built just like a FedEx drop-off box, had both her eyebrows, her lips, and ears pierced with all manner of metallic symbols and objects, a razor-thin moustache over that constant frown, and she had really short curly red hair like a certain little orphan whose name rhymes with Fannie. Picture a female Mr. T without the jewelry and you’re not far off. I used to like to refer to her as “the Enforcer” but obviously not to her face since I was afraid of her. I really do say it about a lot of people, but she truly was crazy.

Put a curly wig on top and it’s not that far off from what she actually looks like.

To illustrate her insanity, we were in her car after picking up another friend, when she saw a guy randomly walking down the street. She threw on the brights and gassed it to the floor! The guy saw her veering towards him and bolted off while she was screaming out the window “Why are you running? Why are you hiding behind that car” as she was holding the horn down and swerving at him. Did I mention it was after midnight on a weeknight on a random side street? I was like; “Hello crazy, of course he’s running away like Carl Johnson – You’re chasing him down a dark street”…Needless to say the guy went running scared through someone’s yard towards the next block over to get away from this lunatic.

So back to the diner – Diana agreed to take us because she hadn’t been drinking and I was starving and whining non-stop about going. As we walked in the diner, I could see the look of grave concern on Jan’s face and I just assumed that she was as puzzled about Diana’s hair and clothing choices as we were. Apparently, I was much worse than usual in my level of drunkedness. I thought I was acting all subtle and smooth like jazz but, in hindsight, there was nothing subtle about me stumbling in the door and screaming: “Jan, I will fuck you on this counter RIGHT NOW if you bring me some rye bread toast immediately.” I’m not saying for sure whether she wanted it or not, but that was the quickest toast I have ever gotten in any diner, anywhere before or since.

Everyone in the diner thought it was funny and was laughing: everyone except for Jan. Jan proceeded to scold me and threaten to throw me out…”You can’t act like that in here. You better behave or you’re out again” to which I started giggling uncontrollably. Then she got mad and screamed “Out! You’re not doing this tonight” and had her hand strategically positioned on her hip while the other hand waived me towards the door like an air traffic controller with a flare. I begged her to let me stay since I was starving and anyway I didn’t have the keys to the car – I should have taken her advice and left then- little did I know.

Not one of my shining moments…

I really needed to pee so I took a bite of some of that delicious toast and stumbled off to the bathroom urinal to relieve myself. The next thing I remember was someone grabbing my arm and I went all Wu-Tang. I was swinging like Marky Mark in The Fighter because you do not mess with a guy at a urinal in the Men’s Room. That’s how I remember things going down.

What ACTUALLY happened was that I was peeing at the urinal and leaned against the wall for balance and apparently blacked out/fell asleep in the process. Sensing something was wrong since I obviously don’t shit in public with all this Imodium AD flowing through my veins, my cousin thought I needed someone to check on me. I think you can see where this is leading…

She senses something might be off, yet sends Diana in to see if I’m OK. She came in, saw me passed out and grabbed my arm so as not to startle me when I came to. Needless to say, when she grabbed me it startled me and I immediately went all funky bunch and tried to throw a cuff or two. A normal person in that situation would be a little more understanding when a drunken person with absolutely no coordination is throwing punches – not Diana.

Once I went all Iron Mike, Diana responded like Jackie Chan. She threw an elbow, somehow kicked me in the face as I was falling and then threw me onto the floor. She threw me onto the filthy public bathroom floor! As if that wasn’t enough – she dropped on top of me with the sharpest elbow on the East Coast and started punching the drunk out of me. Homegirl got all out crazy and was giving me a full throttle beat-down right there at the urinal. She seemed heavy before – but with the sheer might and gravity of her torso pummeling me, I really thought that deuce and a half of Diana might literally break me. Remember what Bane did to Batman in The Dark Knight Rises – well He’s got nothing on Diana!

Bane or Diana?

I’d like to tell you that I connected with a few good shots in on her as she was picking up her next title fight belt, but the truth is I didn’t connect with anything but the bathroom floor. She was doing a real number on me, but in my defense, I was mostly just trying to get my pants buttoned up and put my junk away. Not the best visual, but imagine my fear about having my privates hit that very public and filthy bathroom floor! No amount of penicillin is gonna make that go away.

Usually in circumstances like this, there is a savior – someone who sees the wrong in this situation and does what they can to assist because it is the right thing to do – not that night! You know who my savior was? Not my cousin, who was laughing at my screams while she finished eating my toast back at our table. No, my savior was Jan who heard the commotion and screaming (mine) and came running in. She kicked the bathroom door open (almost hitting me in the face with it, by the way), grabbed me by my ear and proceeded to drag me out the bathroom towards the front door like I was a rolling suitcase. Turns out she wasn’t saving me at all – she was throwing me out! I thought she was coming to my rescue and was like “Thank God, she’s kicking the shit out of me! What took you so long?  Wait, why are you throwing me out – she attacked me!!! Hey that hurts – let go of my ear! Can I at least take the toast to go?” Needless to say, the view from my perch on the front steps where she deposited me was not pretty.

As I sat on the front steps beaten and defeated, I tried trying to compose what was left of my tattered pride and shake it off. I had just been the victim of a drive by ass kicking, and there they were eating and having a good laugh at my expense. I’m sure it would have bothered me more if I hadn’t passed out again while I sat there on the steps leaning against the glass door.

Rye Bread Toast, how I love thee…

Jan actually did bring me some toast out on the steps a little while later – which made me laugh because it confirmed what I already knew to be true: she wanted me….she’s lucky the bully beat down took every drop of energy I had in me or I might have tried to make a move on her…Granted, she didn’t apologize for dragging me out by my poor little delicate ear, but the toast was all I needed to know everything would be all right…

This has absolutely nothing to do with this post – I just thought it was funny.

Girl Scoutstitutes: Brownies of the night – It’s not Samoa-sed to be like this!!!

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I’m concerned here people! In much the same way that vegans are everywhere trying to scare the dickens out of me by pushing their crazy lifestyle, another enemy has started gaining momentum: Girl Scoutstitutes – the cookie pusher in a beret.

Granted, they don’t look at you with disgust because you have the scant odor of Mc Nuggets on your breath, but let me tell you – there are some tough little bitches in those troops.  In the same way that a junkie tries to get you hooked on the dust – these little intimidators are ruthless with the tactics they’ll use to shove those damn Tagalongs down my throat. I actually blame a certain Girl Scout’s mother (who shall remain nameless) for at least ten pounds of my recent weight gain. Don’t you dare tell me about self-control and that no one is forcing me to eat them: this is reaching epidemic proportions across the the country and it’s time we take back the streets! We need to stop these cookie monsters and their peer pressure immediately!  

Maybe it’s always been like this, but it seems to me that lately they’re resorting to guerilla tactics and using any means necessary to peddle those damn cookies? I’m afraid to leave the house on weekends. I went to pick up lunch on Saturday and right there in the strip mall parking lot was a makeshift cookie counter set up. There were about six mothers and ten girls waving flags and they were actually chanting. I couldn’t hear until we drove near them that they were chanting “be patriotic and buy Girl Scout Cookies.” Once again, I was shamed into submission and now they’re using a red scare to make you buy them! For God sakes, I was forced into it or otherwise now I’d be labeled a communist! I like a chilled Thin Mint as much as the next fat guy, but what the hell is patriotic about buying cookies? They’re not a branch of the USO are they? Where’s my right to choose?

Try going to a supermarket and see if you can make it past the barricade at the front door without buying some. Then they try to hit you on the way out – and look at you with a suspicious eye when you say you bought them on the way in. Why we succumb to the pressure and dig through the bags to prove it to this coven of witched is beyond me, but we do. My friend was heading into the market (they’re not always super by the way) with her boyfriend and they were approached too. They explained that they had purchased them from a parent at work when the little psycho went on the attack like a dragon and spit out with fire “You should be supporting your local chapter!” If that was me that she said it to, I would have gone all Jackie Chan on her. I am not afraid to cut a bitch. Sure they have you outnumbered and you don’t realize how tough they actually are until you throw them out of the way so you can meet the First Lady.

 True story, I did throw some Girl Scouts out of the way so I could meet Laura Bush when she was First Lady at a meet and greet. It was a mixture of me being really excited, them looking bored and not appreciating the moment quite the way I thought they should be, and quite frankly, they were in my way so I tossed them. Meeting the First Lady, any sitting First Lady for that matter, is a privilege and an honor and is to be treated as such. Those little gum snappers were acting like it was just another day. I’m not expecting Justin Beiber-like pandemonium, but come on…It’s not one of my proudest moments…OK, who am I kidding? Yes it is – I got to meet the First Lady – screw those Girl Scouts!  

This is what happened to the last guy that wouldn't buy cookies from the Girl Scouts!

 

Also, let’s just address the elephant in the room now. I’m not trying to be weird or offensive, but how are Girl Scouts really that different from prostitutes? No emotions here, let’s just look at the evidence. I’m not saying that your little girl is going straight from the troop to the pole, but here are the facts: They both stand outside storefronts to sell their “stuff.” They both stroll up to random cars with a smile and a “product to sell” and then walk away with cold hard cash in hand. The Girl Scouts have a cookie named Thank U Berry Munch – Do I even need to explain that one? Most importantly of all, they both charge you money to eat their cookies! Ok, that last part was just wrong in oh so many ways and I apologize for that, but is anyone else as disturbed by the Girl Scouts as I am?

I need to say that if you are a Troop Leader or the parent of one of these Girl Scouts that I’m talking about – don’t light up the comment board below with how your kid is different. You’re what we call an enabler. You make your relatives and the people at work feel bad and guilt them into buying them. You post your Facebook status as “It’s that time” and the first thought I have is that it’s that time all right – to avoid you!  You may be reading this and thinking that I am definitely not talking about you, because you’re different, but I am talking right to you sister! Stop pushing those delectable morsels at me! I’ll buy them just the same, but stop the insanity and the mind games. And then, after you agree to buy the cookies, they try and guilt you into getting more to send to the troops. I am all for supporting the troops and think they are making unbelievable sacrifices so that I can rant about Imodium and little cookie trollops safely, but come on. If I was half-way across the world being bombed and shot at every hour and then you sent me a box of cookies – I’d be pissed. That had better be a joke and underneath them in the box would be some Jack Daniels or I’d be beating the shit out of you!!!

Four Star Generals aren't even this decorated...

 

I know volunteering in a non-profit and I totally understand the fundraising aspect of being part of an organization like that – every one of those organizations needs to fund itself. But my Cookie Queens, why is it that you are only selling them at a certain time of year? You’re not causing demand or creating a desire that you can’t always fulfill like they do with the Mc Rib’s limited availability. (It always comes back to the Mc Rib doesn’t it?) If the cookies are being sold to fundraise, then sell them in stores and sell them year-round. You’ll make more money if they’re readily available and you won’t piss people off.  

While I’m up on that soap box again, if anyone can explain to me why the pumpkin muffin (the absolute most deliciousest of any treat in the world) is only available for a limited window in the Fall – please explain it to me. Same principle applies, you’re not causing demand here; You’re pissing me off! They’re not fresh and pulled from the farm right to the counter – they’re made from a packaged powder mix that is probably older than my dog. I’m not complaining at all because that packet produces one of the great pleasures of my life, but come on. Make that shit available all year and stop the nonsense! I need my pumpkin muffin like I need air to breathe. It happens to me every year, but on that day when the drive through attendant tells me they’re no longer available, it just gets me right here (points to chest) and always takes me by surprise.  Then I have to deliver the same argument to the poor window attendant and get into the same fight all over again. I can’t keep doing it, it just hurts too much.

Think Dunkin Donuts is safe? Nah, the girl Scouts got them too. I went to get my bagel on Saturday morning and, low and behold, there’s a cookie fortress set up at the drive thru window. I have never prayed for a flash flood rainstorm like I did right then. They weren’t set up so that they were in the way of your car, but so that they were right next to your driver’s side window as you pulled out of the drive-thru. Very strategic – I’m sure there are drills run and a lot of off-season training done to hone these strategies.

Of course, the Dunkin dimwit at the window had toasted my bagel when I asked him not to. (Another epidemic sweeping the nation at an alarmingly high rate – if someone says don’t toast my bagel, then don’t toast it – how hard is that for people to not toast my bagel and when I say that I want a little butter – I ONLY WANT A LITTLE BUTTER! It’s not a suggestion, it’s a preference. If I say that I want so little butter on my bagel that I will literally start to choke on it because it is that dry, than why are you putting so much butter on there??? Why are they taunting me?) I had to pull up next to the cookie fortress to wait for my replacement bagel and as I put it into park, I pretended not to see all twelve of those tiny kids coming at me like a flock of locusts – one of them even in a cookie costume – when I heard it. “How many boxes can I get you!” Not “Hi, would you like to buy some cookies?” No, it was like here’s my fist where’s your wallet? There was no questioning in her voice whether or not I would buy, it was a statement that I couldn’t say no to – how many are you getting! I didn’t even get to respond because I saw all the kids and their mothers looking down to read the magnetic placard that I have on my driver’s side door:

I really forget it’s on there sometimes and these mothers were giving me the hard core stink eye, so if course, I was shamed into buying more cookies. AGAIN. They were looking at me like I was the scumbag and there was something wrong with me when they were the ones pimpin their little girls to run up to men in cars to get their money. Lizzie Grubman had the right idea when she took control of the situation in a crowd with her car. It wasn’t in the papers, but I’m sure Girl Scouts were somehow involved there too…

I’m not trying to cause a cookie holy war, but enough is enough. This “cookie season” is also the same time as Lent and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I’m not getting all religious and I’m no saint by any means, but how is it possible that these devilish treats are only around during the time when we are undergoing our spiritual “spring cleaning” and supposed to be fasting or giving up something. For those unfamiliar with Lent, it’s when you see all the fast food advertisements for fish sandwich specials and when you think it’s funny to say to a coworker with ashes on their forehead “I didn’t know you were a smoker.” Ok, I say that to them too, but back to my point: it cannot be a coincidence that these servants of the dark side are only peddling their wares during this period. I don’t have concrete proof, but just wanted to throw that out there to start the discussion…       

I’d like to say that I have boycotted Girl Scout cookies this season and rose above the peer pressure and demands of these terrorists, but I’m not that strong. There’s too many of them and at one restaurant parking lot they had 50’s costumes on chanting into a microphone with a speaker. I’m too weak for all this and have succumbed to the charms of the Thin Mints yet again, like Young Frankenstein to that violin. This time, I have bought too many, ate too many, and then ate some more, but I stand before you with a vow: Next year I will be stronger or I will run one of those little bitches down in a parking lot trying.

How have I not had the shit kicked out of me yet?

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As hard as it is to believe for anyone that knows me, I have never actually been in a fist fight in my life. Many, many, many, many times, I really should have had the stuffing knocked out of me, but by some grace of God – I have eluded the fisticuffs (although there have been a few scuffles). I never got to throw even one punch in any of them, but that’s not really the point I guess. Not even when I went up to that girl in The Dark Horse Tavern and told her that her face looked like diarrhea because I thought I was helping her out, not even a slap. Of course, I was drunk and slurring my speech when that happened, but she got my meaning and just as an FYI: if someone is trying to help you, I think you should at least hear them out! 

In Elementary School, I used to incite the girls that I liked so that they’d chase me around and then beat me up when they caught me. I was young and had crushes and besides, I actually liked it when they beat me up. My first love was Elizabeth Taylor (when I saw her in Cleopatra at the age of five, I knew one day she’d be mine), but my next love was a girl in second grade named Jennifer who could run faster than any of the other girls (and most of the boys) in our class. When she eventually caught up to me, and she always did, she would take hold of my hand or my ankle and swing me around so fast like a carnival ride…Granted, she would eventually let me go and I’d usually go flying face-first into a chain link fence or a brick wall, but she did hold my hand for those few brief moments… 

I have three older brothers and one younger sister, so there were always fights in our house growing up. Usually, the fights were between my brothers Angelo and Anthony, but my sister was always the wild card. She was the one who would say “You know, Mommy says you can never hit a girl, right” and I would tell her that of course I knew that and before I could even ask why she was asking me that, she would haul off and punch me in the face. Literally, closed fist punch me in the face. Of course, I was stunned and disoriented and then she would run to my mother saying I was after her which would have my mother screaming at me to leave her alone. That bitch was crazy back then and to this day I still refuse to sit next to her at family dinners in case she has a flashback or something. I mean, this is also the girl who took a razor and gouged the hair and at least ten layers of the skin off of my right ankle while screaming “Wanna shave your legs too” and then ran off while I lie there bleeding. It has been over twenty years since that happened and the hair still doesn’t grow over that scar.     

As a point of reference, I don’t count the time that I got jumped by those three guys on Wellwood Avenue trying to get my wallet, as a fight. My wallet was in the chest pocket of my poncho (no jokes, a lot of people wore ponchos) and the zipper, of course, got stuck on the material of the poncho as I tried to give it over to them. I’ve never been a hero or what you’d call brave – I think the technical term is actually that I’m a Pussy. When I didn’t hand my wallet over, they knocked me to the ground and just kept kicking me in the head, face, and chest figuring any smart person would give them the wallet and let them be off. That whole time, I was trying to get the zipper unjammed and give them the wallet, but I couldn’t get it loose. Finally, I just said “Take the fucking Poncho and the wallet already” and tried to take the poncho off. I don’t know if you have ever tried to remove a poncho over your head while three people are steadily kicking you in that same head at full speed, but it ain’t easy – so it just added to the confusion.

As this was happening, there was a lady who was about sixty years old sitting on her porch swing at the house we were in front of watching the commotion and saying (not even screaming, but just saying at regular voice) “You boys better move that away from here before I call the cops” to which I gingerly replied back at her (trying to poke my head through the barrage of kicking feet wailing at my noggin so she could hear me clearly) “HEY LADY, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR? – THEY’RE BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF ME – CALL THE FUCKING COPS ALREADY!!!”

Long story short, I couldn’t get the zipper undone and then a cop car drove by (she never did call, the cop was patrolling the area and randomly passed by) and they ran off. As I tried to get myself up off the ground, she just kept saying that she didn’t want trouble in front of her house. If that cop wasn’t there and I had my bearings, I most certainly would have went all Jackie Chan on her ass, but I was a little bit shaken up and, truth be told, she probably could have taken me in a fight too.  

At the police station, I didn’t want to get my mother nervous (it was the middle of the night and she had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy) so I called my friend Elaina’s house to ask her to come and pick me up. That was a mistake. Apparently, that Yenta had hung up the phone, told her mother, then called my mother and then between the two of them, called everyone they knew and more than twenty people showed up at the police station. It probably wouldn’t have been bad if my mother and Elaina’s mother hadn’t started a vigil in the waiting room like Kris, Bosley, and Julie did when Kelly was in surgery after being shot in the head on the last episode of Season Five of Charlie’s Angels.

As I walked into the waiting room and saw all of them there and heard my the aforementioned Yenta‘s wailing and crying, I remember thinking “Oh my God, this is humiliating, what could possibly be more embarrassing than this?” I found out the next morning, when I woke up to my mother hysterical crying on the phone with someone – “They beat the shit out of my baby, my baby boy” (as if she were talking about an infant.) I went to the kitchen and let her mutter on with her call thinking it was her friend Bonnie and as she hung up, I tried to tell her that I was alright and not seriously hurt and asked her to calm down. I asked her to hand me the phone so I could call in sick to work to which she replied “Who do you think I was just on the phone with? That was your boss, Joyce, I called in sick for you. She is so upset” I literally had the shit kicked out of me again right there. Needless to say, I was ragged on quite a bit at work over the next few months for being 20 years old and having my mother calling in sick for me while crying hysterically to my boss…     

So I don’t necessarily consider any of the above an actual fist fight (they were more like drive-by shootings) and as a side-note, I do have really nice hands. I think that one day I could possibly be a professional glove model or ring model, so I would hate to scar them up with bruising and teeth marks from a fight…so it’s really not practical for me. Don’t worry though, because I will update this entry if, by chance,  I ever do get into a fist fight where I actually get to throw a punch – not just receive them.