A Hooters Tale...
A few years back, way back, I worked at a little joint that goes by the name of Hooters. Working at said high class establishment, we often got some pretty fun opportunities. This story is about one of them.
There is a little place in Pennsylvania that has a big ass fucking party every year. I know, just living in that state is reason enough to party out your sorrows (sorry 3 Mile )= ). Anyway, every summer Latrobe, PA puts on a show called Rolling Rock Town Fair - I think it is still around. Well folks, your favorite old Hooters Hag got the opportunity of a lifetime, I was invited to attend this lovely tea party. Our Labatt Blue rep (they own Rolling Rock as well) had some tickets for this concert. These were not just any tickets though. Our store was given four complete passes that covered two nights at the Seven Springs Ski Resort, a pre-party Friday night and all day VIP passes to the concert on Saturday. It was decided after a much heated debate and naked mud wrestling, that our General Manager, my friend and fellow Hooty-Hoo Mistress MMMMM..., our Labatt Blue Rep and myself would attend this lovely getaway.
MMMM... and I planned and shopped for our weekend. We decided that it would be best if we drove together and GM and Labatt Rep (I would give him a better moniker, but I can't remember his name) would drive together. MMMM... and I got an early start and be-bopped along the Ohio and PA turnpikes to the stylings of DJ BJ, also known as my very good friend KY.
Apparently the guys had planned in a way only those with an X AND Y chromosome can and decided that it would be an even better trip if they killed off a case of beer on the way. At least they didn't have to pay for it. Well, we met up at the resort to see GM pissing out all of that beer behind his truck. We were straight up classy all the way.
That evening, there was a pre-party for the concert at a hotel about 45 minutes from where we were staying. This thing was laid out to the max. Great food, open bar.... For those of you who are not acquainted with me personally, an open bar = fun for all. There was debauchery and dancing on tables, strip poker and shave the rock star. You get the picture. By the end of the night, everyone was pretty well plastered and I somehow got elected to drive GM's big ass Dodge Ram truck back to the resort. (A disclaimer - I was stupid and irresponsible and am eternally grateful that I did not hurt myself or anyone else while driving that evening. There is never an excuse to drive after you have cleared out a fully stocked bar, but it happened and it's over and I would never do it again)
Being unfamiliar with the landscape of Western PA, the drive was trecherous. Once we got off of the highway, it was about 20 miles of pitch black, winding roads through the mountains to get to our resort. Several times we had to stop because someone had to pee, puke or there was a deer in the road which apparently are easy lays. Finally, we made it back to the resort in one piece, although the deer that was violated along the way had a long road of recovery ahead of her.
I am not sure where Labatt Rep stayed, but we had a condo with a suite of rooms. MMMM... and I had one room while GM had the other. We kept partying and after a while, everyone got tired. Then GM did the one thing you NEVER, EVER do when you are alone with people you hold power over. He fell asleep. That is correct, he passed out on his bed in the presence of two people whose lives and capital earning potential he held in his small, dwarflike hands.
If you have never worked in the service industry, then you don't know how much the employees tend to beat up on the GMs. That person is the one we trash the most. It is who we complain about when we have shitty tips, or a bad section or we don't get cut off of the floor early so we can go party with the group of bachelors that sat in our section earlier in the night. He is the one who puts baby powder in the ceiling of the girls room so that anyone hiding a stash up there gets covered in the shit and loses their drug money for a week. You get the picture now?
Actually, this GM wasn't too bad. He treated us pretty well, but he was fucking one of the girls on the side and because of that she got the best shifts and sections over everyone else. That wouldn't have been a huge deal, but she was a complete cokehead and treated everyone else like total shit. Plus she would steal you blind if you turned your back on her.
So MMMM... and I did what any drunken person with opportunity would do at that point. We totally fucked with him. I can't list everything we did to him, but suffice it to say his bed and most of his belongings were completely destroyed. The very last thing we did was dump an entire bag of BBQ Fritos over his head. Then we took pictures. A lot of pictures. I still have these pictures in a photo album and look at them every once in a while. Then we went to sleep.
The next morning, we stumble out of bed and remembering what transpired the previous eve, tip toed out to the other room to peek in on our beloved GM. Uh Oh... he wasn't in his bed. We heard the shower running. Oh shit, what did we do? Then we saw it. On the bed. A glorious and wonderful sight. Sometime during the night, the GM had rolled over and decided that he was hungry and ate ALL of the BBQ Fritos. Every last crumb. Then he proceeded to return to dreamland. He must have been dreaming about Pygmy Orgies and getting Raisin Bran shoved up his pooper, because he started drooling. And drooling. And drooling. GM drooled out orange Frito Juice all over his lovely Seven Springs bed. It looked like someone had squeezed bright fucking orange shit all over the bed. MMMM... and I started laughing hysterically. I don't know why it was so funny, but at that moment in time, to us, it was the funniest thing we had ever seen.
Not long after GM comes out of the shower and sees us cracking up and what does he do? He starts laughing right along with us. It was at that moment in time that he became more than just a friendly manager and actually became a friend. It is rare to find someone like that in a corporate controlled environment, but there he was. We learned more about his personal life in that one weekend than we had in the two years we had worked for him up to that point.
GM then became the Frito Bandito from that time forward. In fact, after we returned from our trip, we told all of the girls the story and they started calling him the Frito Bandito too. It wasn't long after that, the end of the summer, that FB got transferred out to another store. He was still in the area, but I never saw him much. Eventually he moved to Tennessee to run a Hooters that needed some shaping up, but I will never forget him. The rest of the trip that we took was a blast and one day I will post about the random chicken sandwich that was in every picture we took at Town Fair, but I learned a very good lesson that weekend. Not every manager is a corporate lackey and even if they are, they are people too with personal histories and wonderful stories.
I know that this post is probably pretty boring for those of you who don't already know it. I hope that I relayed it well enough with my limited abilities. Maybe one day, when I figure out this whole blogging thing, I will post some of the pictures that we took that weekend so you can see what I am writing about.
To the Frito Bandito:
I hope that life is treating you well and there is plenty of fishing where you are. It is not often that servers get the opportunity to work with people like you.
Love,
ADW
Friday, April 27, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Sheeeeeitttt
Fuck it!!!
I am soooooooo busy with work right now. I love my job - I work in technology, but damn this is getting re-dunk-ulous.
I am dreaming right now of a hammock, a cabana boy, the hot sun and a cold drink...
I posted a question to one of my friends, but I would like anyone out there to take a stab at answering it:
You have a Pickle, a Sand Wedge and an Armadillo, what do you do with them???????
I am soooooooo busy with work right now. I love my job - I work in technology, but damn this is getting re-dunk-ulous.
I am dreaming right now of a hammock, a cabana boy, the hot sun and a cold drink...
I posted a question to one of my friends, but I would like anyone out there to take a stab at answering it:
You have a Pickle, a Sand Wedge and an Armadillo, what do you do with them???????
Thursday, April 19, 2007
All About Me...
The super funny and ubersexy Denise, whose blog I am addicted to, sent me these interview questions which I am just now getting around to answering.
Anybody else out there want to play this little game??? Come 'on, it'll be fun. Just do the following:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your weblog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
Don't be a bunch of pussies.
OK? OK.
Now back to my favorite subject - ME!!!
1. Have you ever met anyone famous?
Yeah - lots. Not to sound bragadocious, but athletes, rockstars and Hooters kind of go hand in hand. I worked in downtown Cleveland (The Flats) and we were super close to Jacob's Field, Gund Arena (now the Q) and Brown's Stadium, plus a shitload of concert venues. Some of the folks I met were great, but some were huge fucking assholes.
2. Have you ever had an eargasm?
Only once and it was an accident. I still can't figure out how I did it. Otherwise my work days would be a lot more fun.
3. If you had to choose one final meal, what would it be?
hmmmm...... Could I be someone else's meal instead?
4. What celebrity(ies) do you have a crush on?
None. Really. I could care less about celebrities. Humor and Intelligence turn me on more than anything else and most celebrities are lacking in both of those categories.
5. What is one country/city that you REALLY want to visit
Are you fucking kidding me? One day I will have to post about my childhood. I was born in Spain and I have been to a dozen countries. I have also lived in 10 different states. I love to travel, but there is nowhere that I am dying to go. I guess if I had to choose, I would go back to Spain to visit my birthplace. We moved to the states when I was 3 and I have not been back since then.
OK - now it's your turn......
Anybody else out there want to play this little game??? Come 'on, it'll be fun. Just do the following:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your weblog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
Don't be a bunch of pussies.
OK? OK.
Now back to my favorite subject - ME!!!
1. Have you ever met anyone famous?
Yeah - lots. Not to sound bragadocious, but athletes, rockstars and Hooters kind of go hand in hand. I worked in downtown Cleveland (The Flats) and we were super close to Jacob's Field, Gund Arena (now the Q) and Brown's Stadium, plus a shitload of concert venues. Some of the folks I met were great, but some were huge fucking assholes.
2. Have you ever had an eargasm?
Only once and it was an accident. I still can't figure out how I did it. Otherwise my work days would be a lot more fun.
3. If you had to choose one final meal, what would it be?
hmmmm...... Could I be someone else's meal instead?
4. What celebrity(ies) do you have a crush on?
None. Really. I could care less about celebrities. Humor and Intelligence turn me on more than anything else and most celebrities are lacking in both of those categories.
5. What is one country/city that you REALLY want to visit
Are you fucking kidding me? One day I will have to post about my childhood. I was born in Spain and I have been to a dozen countries. I have also lived in 10 different states. I love to travel, but there is nowhere that I am dying to go. I guess if I had to choose, I would go back to Spain to visit my birthplace. We moved to the states when I was 3 and I have not been back since then.
OK - now it's your turn......
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Funny Things Kids Say
You know how parents always brag about how smart/cute/funny their kids are? I don't. I don't need to bcause once people meet my kids, they find that out for theirselves - ask KY, she is stalking my baby boy.
My children are 2 (almost 3) and 10 and are a boy and a girl respectively. Over the past years, both of my kids have said things that made me feel completely ignorant. I will share some of those items with you today.
SuperDiva (approximate age 3) in a conversation with me about allergies:
SD: "Why can't you have that?"
HG: "Because it has crab in it."
SD: "Why can't you eat crab?"
HG "Because mommy is allergic to shellfish."
SD: "Why?"
HG: "I just am, it will make me sick to eat it."
SD: "WHY?"
HG: (Getting Frustrated) "Because it will."
SD: "What does shellfish mean?"
HG: I can't eat anything that has a shell on it."
SD: (Taking her time... I can literally see the wheels spinning in her head as she is thinking about this concept) "Well, you can eat eggs, can't you?"
HG: Doh.... "Uh, yeah I can."
SD: "Then you can eat things in shells."
HG: "Never mind, you are way smarter than me already."
Conversation with HootersBoy just the other day:
HG: "You cannot have that candy, you have had enough junk today."
HB: "Please?"
HG: "NO!"
HB: Batting his eyelashes and making a cute little face. "Please mommy, I love you mommy."
HG: "No, too much candy will make you sick."
HB: Holding out his little hand. "Trust me mom.."
Hah - it was super cute and funny, by no candy was to be had.
HootersGirls, SuperDiva (Age 4) and good friend Chocolate Bunny having lunch one day at a crowded eatery:
HG: "I am really pale, I need to get some color before we go to Las Vegas."
CB: "Well go tanning then"
HG: "I know, but it is such a pain and I get bored in there and it takes so long to build up your tan. So what do I do? I get impatient and go in for too long and get burnt."
CB: "You are an idiot."
SD: (to CB) "Wow, you must have gotten stuck in the tanning bed."
HG: "OH....My...Gosh......"
CB: Laughing Hysterically. "That's exactly what happened. HG, your kid cracks me the fuck up."
There is an honesty in children that is not tempered with biases and bigotry until they get much older. What my child said was how she perceived the situation to be and there was no harm meant. It really was funny and Bunny still tells that story to people.
There are so many other fun stories, like the time I took my grandmother and her best friend out to lunch for my grandmother's birthday and relayed a message to her from Chocoalte Bunny. I told her that Bunny was going to hire her a stripper for her birthday. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking about SD being there (she was about 3 or 4 at the time) and she jumped up on her chair in the midde of Olive Garden and started dancing around and singing, "stripper, striiiiiiper, stripppppper, stripperstripperstripperstripper." You get the picture.
Anyway, sometimes my kids say funny shit and I may post about it. This is more for my failing meory than anything else, but feel free to comment about some of the things your kids (or any kids you may know) say as well.
My children are 2 (almost 3) and 10 and are a boy and a girl respectively. Over the past years, both of my kids have said things that made me feel completely ignorant. I will share some of those items with you today.
SuperDiva (approximate age 3) in a conversation with me about allergies:
SD: "Why can't you have that?"
HG: "Because it has crab in it."
SD: "Why can't you eat crab?"
HG "Because mommy is allergic to shellfish."
SD: "Why?"
HG: "I just am, it will make me sick to eat it."
SD: "WHY?"
HG: (Getting Frustrated) "Because it will."
SD: "What does shellfish mean?"
HG: I can't eat anything that has a shell on it."
SD: (Taking her time... I can literally see the wheels spinning in her head as she is thinking about this concept) "Well, you can eat eggs, can't you?"
HG: Doh.... "Uh, yeah I can."
SD: "Then you can eat things in shells."
HG: "Never mind, you are way smarter than me already."
Conversation with HootersBoy just the other day:
HG: "You cannot have that candy, you have had enough junk today."
HB: "Please?"
HG: "NO!"
HB: Batting his eyelashes and making a cute little face. "Please mommy, I love you mommy."
HG: "No, too much candy will make you sick."
HB: Holding out his little hand. "Trust me mom.."
Hah - it was super cute and funny, by no candy was to be had.
HootersGirls, SuperDiva (Age 4) and good friend Chocolate Bunny having lunch one day at a crowded eatery:
HG: "I am really pale, I need to get some color before we go to Las Vegas."
CB: "Well go tanning then"
HG: "I know, but it is such a pain and I get bored in there and it takes so long to build up your tan. So what do I do? I get impatient and go in for too long and get burnt."
CB: "You are an idiot."
SD: (to CB) "Wow, you must have gotten stuck in the tanning bed."
HG: "OH....My...Gosh......"
CB: Laughing Hysterically. "That's exactly what happened. HG, your kid cracks me the fuck up."
There is an honesty in children that is not tempered with biases and bigotry until they get much older. What my child said was how she perceived the situation to be and there was no harm meant. It really was funny and Bunny still tells that story to people.
There are so many other fun stories, like the time I took my grandmother and her best friend out to lunch for my grandmother's birthday and relayed a message to her from Chocoalte Bunny. I told her that Bunny was going to hire her a stripper for her birthday. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking about SD being there (she was about 3 or 4 at the time) and she jumped up on her chair in the midde of Olive Garden and started dancing around and singing, "stripper, striiiiiiper, stripppppper, stripperstripperstripperstripper." You get the picture.
Anyway, sometimes my kids say funny shit and I may post about it. This is more for my failing meory than anything else, but feel free to comment about some of the things your kids (or any kids you may know) say as well.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Give me back my pineapple
This was the day that I knew I had to stop bartending for a while.
I would like to say that I am not a violent person, but there is always somebody out there who likes to test your patience, you know? I do not and have never started an altercation with someone in my life (I will turn into a fembot version of the Incredible Hulk if you piss me off), but I must fucking wear a big ass sign on my ass that says - "please try to kick me". When I was working full time in the service industry, stupid ass monkeys were always trying to pick fights with me. How you ask? By the time I had been working in the service industry for over a decade, the following would pretty much get me to put 'em up:
1. Walk into my establishment already hammered
2. Look at me funny - that was at my discretion to decide
3. Bang your fist on my bar
4. Call me "Hey you"
5. Ask to see my titties, ass, love muffin, tattoos, piercings, etc.
6. Offer to "take you away from all of this"
7. Use derogatory language toward any group of people
8. Steal
9. Try to come behind the bar
10. Make out, fuck, give head anywhere in my bar
11. Spit (saliva or cum)
12. Harass any other employee in my business
13. Refuse to pay for your drinks
14. Try to walk out on your tab
15. Take your dick out and piss all over my floor (I'll tell you the story another time)
You can see where I am going people and I could probably list well over 100 of these, but that would be really fucking boring. What I am trying to say is that I am not exactly the type of person who will put up with any shit from anyfuckingbody. Does that make me a hardass? No. What that makes me is a person who has been abused by customers for a really long ass time and one who decided not to take it anymore.
I pretty much had carte blanch to do whatever I felt like at my last job with the exception of getting myself hurt. I can totally understand why someone would want to kick my ass, because I didn't let them get away with the shit that they normally would at other bars in the area. I am, however, not a stupid person. If I felt someone needed to be brought down a peg/cut off/sent home, I would not start shit with them unless I knew I had some backup. The last thing I want to do is start a brawl with me caught in the middle. Anyway, I made sure I had my buddy Shaved Nutsack watching my back when I decided to ruin someone's day.
Then comes the day when I just couldn't take it anymore. I had just finished one of my degrees and I figured I would spend another couple of years in college to get the next one instead of looking for a "real job" (this is offensive when people say this to you because we are probably making more money bartending than you are with your brand new Bachelor's degree, unless it is in dick sucking and you better be fucking great at it to even come close). I was going over my options with HootersMan and had pretty much decided that another summer or two by the pool during the day was where I was heading, instead of taking a pay cut to get an 8-5 using my degree (obviously not a BBJ - Bachelor's in Blow Job). And then came Cinco de Mayo. We had a guy come in who was a "Jimmy Buffet" type from the islands (Put-In-Bay and Kelly's) to do a concert. All day we decorated the bar with tropical themed items, including these honeycomb fold-out 3-D pineapples that we put all around the bar. We sold tickets and were packed for the concert. Everyone had a good time and there was not a whisper of any fighting, but that was because this was an older 40's crowd.
After the concert was over, we opened the doors to everyone and there was a cover charge to get in - this sometimes helps to keep out a more low-class crowd (anyone who knows where I work will understand the comedy in that statement). We got our second rush around 10:30 or 11:00 that evening and one of my regulars - Labatt Blue Guy - sat in my area of the bar. I was pretty busy all night, but I noticed out of the corner of my eye some early 20-something punk walking around the bar stealing the 3-D pineapples. I tried to get Shaved Nutsack's attention or one of the other bouncers, but I couldn't see them through the crowd. Anyway, after a while the little prick came around to my side of the bar and was trying to take LB's pineapple. Mr. LB told him that he liked the pineapple and that the kid could not take it. That is when the kid threatened to beat LB's ass at the top of his lungs, in about seven different ways. That is when I lost the rest of my mind.
It was not that I didn't think LB could take care of himself. It was not like I hadn't seen this type of thing happen before - drunken punk starting trouble. I don't know exactly why I snapped, but that little turdstain was NOT getting the pineapple. I launched myself over the beer cooler and grabbed that little fucker by his collar as a hush went over the crowd. Fifteen seconds before, you had to scream to be heard and now you could have heard a pin drop in the room, it was that quiet. I enunciated every word like I was speaking to someone new to our language. I said "you little motherfucker, you have exactly 30 seconds to put all of those pineapples back down on the bar and get the fuck out of here. Hey, does anyone know if he has a tab? No? Good. Now I suggest you apologize to Mr. LB here for causing him any kind of distress and you BETTER FUCKING MEAN IT!!!"
What happened? The little twat laughed at me. Bad, very bad idea. You see alcohol tends to make folks who wouldn't normally act like this, act like this. But that is never a good idea, because there will always be some cunt of a bartender out there who will call you on it. Needless to say, all I could hear was the sound of blood rushing into my ears. I saw Shaved Nutsack making his way over out of the corner of my eye and I decided that he would probably make it over in time to keep me from getting my ass kicked. I didn't really care either way to be perfectly honest. I grabbed the little fucker around his throat and started pushing down on him as I came over the bar. Nutsack got to me just as the void's face was changing colors. After Nutsack pried my hands from around the fucker's throat, I said "you now have 15 seconds to do what I said before, or I am going to start swinging and right now I could fuck you up pretty bad (I couldn't, but he didn't know that, and furthermore, neither did I at the time - adrenaline y'all)". The kid must have seen the crazed glossy look I had because all of a sudden, he remembered his manners and apologized to me, Mr. LB, Nutsack and anyone else he could see.
Nutsack escorted him around the bar to replace the pineapples and took him over to his buddies. He then came over to me and asked me if the shit could stay since he apologized and replaced the pineapples and used to be a student of his back in the day. I told him "no fucking way", so he went off to make the kid leave. Do you know why I told him to make the kid leave? Because I am a bitch? Undoubtedly. But there is an even bigger reason why I did it. Follow through. You have to be able to follow through on your threats as an employee and you MUST have the rest of the staff backing you up. Why? One reason is you will look like a fool if the outcome isn't what you prescribed. The most important reason is that you have to show people you won't back down and you won't tolerate the kind of behavior that was displayed that evening. If you do, then pretty soon your bar will be overrun with riffraff and if you want to make a decent living, you can't work in a place like that.
Now you might place the argument that my behavior was out of line and you would not be wrong in that assessment. When I got home from work that evening (really about 4:00 in the morning), I sat down in the dark and started thinking about my options. That is when I decided to get a job outside of the service industry and start a career. I still work with people who are assclowns and dillholes, but they respect me. If you have not been in the industry before, it is hard to explain, but bartenders and waiters/resses do not get a lot of respect. You are treated like crap and then expected to smile and fawn over those people. I still fill in now and again when I want to have a little fun and see some old friends, but I am happy with the decision I made back then.
Just remember this story the next time you have to wait an extra 30 seconds for your drink order to be taken, or when you get the wrong side dish with your dinner. Shit happens and your server is not out to get you. Saying please and thank you will get you far with folks in the service industry. Just because we are working for you, doesn't mean we don't deserve your respect.
Thank you for listening to my rant,
HG
I would like to say that I am not a violent person, but there is always somebody out there who likes to test your patience, you know? I do not and have never started an altercation with someone in my life (I will turn into a fembot version of the Incredible Hulk if you piss me off), but I must fucking wear a big ass sign on my ass that says - "please try to kick me". When I was working full time in the service industry, stupid ass monkeys were always trying to pick fights with me. How you ask? By the time I had been working in the service industry for over a decade, the following would pretty much get me to put 'em up:
1. Walk into my establishment already hammered
2. Look at me funny - that was at my discretion to decide
3. Bang your fist on my bar
4. Call me "Hey you"
5. Ask to see my titties, ass, love muffin, tattoos, piercings, etc.
6. Offer to "take you away from all of this"
7. Use derogatory language toward any group of people
8. Steal
9. Try to come behind the bar
10. Make out, fuck, give head anywhere in my bar
11. Spit (saliva or cum)
12. Harass any other employee in my business
13. Refuse to pay for your drinks
14. Try to walk out on your tab
15. Take your dick out and piss all over my floor (I'll tell you the story another time)
You can see where I am going people and I could probably list well over 100 of these, but that would be really fucking boring. What I am trying to say is that I am not exactly the type of person who will put up with any shit from anyfuckingbody. Does that make me a hardass? No. What that makes me is a person who has been abused by customers for a really long ass time and one who decided not to take it anymore.
I pretty much had carte blanch to do whatever I felt like at my last job with the exception of getting myself hurt. I can totally understand why someone would want to kick my ass, because I didn't let them get away with the shit that they normally would at other bars in the area. I am, however, not a stupid person. If I felt someone needed to be brought down a peg/cut off/sent home, I would not start shit with them unless I knew I had some backup. The last thing I want to do is start a brawl with me caught in the middle. Anyway, I made sure I had my buddy Shaved Nutsack watching my back when I decided to ruin someone's day.
Then comes the day when I just couldn't take it anymore. I had just finished one of my degrees and I figured I would spend another couple of years in college to get the next one instead of looking for a "real job" (this is offensive when people say this to you because we are probably making more money bartending than you are with your brand new Bachelor's degree, unless it is in dick sucking and you better be fucking great at it to even come close). I was going over my options with HootersMan and had pretty much decided that another summer or two by the pool during the day was where I was heading, instead of taking a pay cut to get an 8-5 using my degree (obviously not a BBJ - Bachelor's in Blow Job). And then came Cinco de Mayo. We had a guy come in who was a "Jimmy Buffet" type from the islands (Put-In-Bay and Kelly's) to do a concert. All day we decorated the bar with tropical themed items, including these honeycomb fold-out 3-D pineapples that we put all around the bar. We sold tickets and were packed for the concert. Everyone had a good time and there was not a whisper of any fighting, but that was because this was an older 40's crowd.
After the concert was over, we opened the doors to everyone and there was a cover charge to get in - this sometimes helps to keep out a more low-class crowd (anyone who knows where I work will understand the comedy in that statement). We got our second rush around 10:30 or 11:00 that evening and one of my regulars - Labatt Blue Guy - sat in my area of the bar. I was pretty busy all night, but I noticed out of the corner of my eye some early 20-something punk walking around the bar stealing the 3-D pineapples. I tried to get Shaved Nutsack's attention or one of the other bouncers, but I couldn't see them through the crowd. Anyway, after a while the little prick came around to my side of the bar and was trying to take LB's pineapple. Mr. LB told him that he liked the pineapple and that the kid could not take it. That is when the kid threatened to beat LB's ass at the top of his lungs, in about seven different ways. That is when I lost the rest of my mind.
It was not that I didn't think LB could take care of himself. It was not like I hadn't seen this type of thing happen before - drunken punk starting trouble. I don't know exactly why I snapped, but that little turdstain was NOT getting the pineapple. I launched myself over the beer cooler and grabbed that little fucker by his collar as a hush went over the crowd. Fifteen seconds before, you had to scream to be heard and now you could have heard a pin drop in the room, it was that quiet. I enunciated every word like I was speaking to someone new to our language. I said "you little motherfucker, you have exactly 30 seconds to put all of those pineapples back down on the bar and get the fuck out of here. Hey, does anyone know if he has a tab? No? Good. Now I suggest you apologize to Mr. LB here for causing him any kind of distress and you BETTER FUCKING MEAN IT!!!"
What happened? The little twat laughed at me. Bad, very bad idea. You see alcohol tends to make folks who wouldn't normally act like this, act like this. But that is never a good idea, because there will always be some cunt of a bartender out there who will call you on it. Needless to say, all I could hear was the sound of blood rushing into my ears. I saw Shaved Nutsack making his way over out of the corner of my eye and I decided that he would probably make it over in time to keep me from getting my ass kicked. I didn't really care either way to be perfectly honest. I grabbed the little fucker around his throat and started pushing down on him as I came over the bar. Nutsack got to me just as the void's face was changing colors. After Nutsack pried my hands from around the fucker's throat, I said "you now have 15 seconds to do what I said before, or I am going to start swinging and right now I could fuck you up pretty bad (I couldn't, but he didn't know that, and furthermore, neither did I at the time - adrenaline y'all)". The kid must have seen the crazed glossy look I had because all of a sudden, he remembered his manners and apologized to me, Mr. LB, Nutsack and anyone else he could see.
Nutsack escorted him around the bar to replace the pineapples and took him over to his buddies. He then came over to me and asked me if the shit could stay since he apologized and replaced the pineapples and used to be a student of his back in the day. I told him "no fucking way", so he went off to make the kid leave. Do you know why I told him to make the kid leave? Because I am a bitch? Undoubtedly. But there is an even bigger reason why I did it. Follow through. You have to be able to follow through on your threats as an employee and you MUST have the rest of the staff backing you up. Why? One reason is you will look like a fool if the outcome isn't what you prescribed. The most important reason is that you have to show people you won't back down and you won't tolerate the kind of behavior that was displayed that evening. If you do, then pretty soon your bar will be overrun with riffraff and if you want to make a decent living, you can't work in a place like that.
Now you might place the argument that my behavior was out of line and you would not be wrong in that assessment. When I got home from work that evening (really about 4:00 in the morning), I sat down in the dark and started thinking about my options. That is when I decided to get a job outside of the service industry and start a career. I still work with people who are assclowns and dillholes, but they respect me. If you have not been in the industry before, it is hard to explain, but bartenders and waiters/resses do not get a lot of respect. You are treated like crap and then expected to smile and fawn over those people. I still fill in now and again when I want to have a little fun and see some old friends, but I am happy with the decision I made back then.
Just remember this story the next time you have to wait an extra 30 seconds for your drink order to be taken, or when you get the wrong side dish with your dinner. Shit happens and your server is not out to get you. Saying please and thank you will get you far with folks in the service industry. Just because we are working for you, doesn't mean we don't deserve your respect.
Thank you for listening to my rant,
HG
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Bedazzle Me Queasy
There is a tearoom that I go to a couple of times a year and it is a wonderful place to eat. If you ever find yourself in Avon, Ohio, please try it out, their food is simply amazing. The chef/owner of this Antique Salon and Tearoom has put together an amazing menu. In fact, I think we will have our next Hooters reunion there (insert comments here).
Anyway, I took Super Diva to the Tearoom for lunch this past Saturday and as usual, the meal was stupendous. We each tried the Artichoke and Spinach soup and the taste is unexplainable, but I will try. It was like eating a warm bowlful of heaven. It was the same feeling you got as a child when you came inside after a long day of building snow forts in the frozen tundra that is Cleveland in any of the months between October and May and you had that first sip of hot cocoa. It was, dear readers, fanfriggingtabulous. I am sure that there were 3,296 calories in the soup alone, but who the fuck cares. I ate all of mine and some of SD's.
There was only one fault I could find in this magnificent repast. What could possibly have tainted such a fine meal, you ask? Well, normally we go to the Tearoom in warmer months when we can sit outside on their lovely little patio, but since we just received a fucking spanking from Mother Nature this last week, that option was not available. So we were sat in one of the two small indoor dining salons. Everywhere you look in this place; there are some pretty neat antiques. They also offer a wonderfully eclectic selection of wines throughout the building. BUT there is also a wide variety of clothing and accessories and therein is where the problem lies. Being a former donner of the orange shorty shorts, I can tolerate a small amount of sparkle. But nothing I have seen in the past prepared me for the Liberace type design of the tank tops, denim jackets, belts and purses that were on display in our dining room. The sparkle, sequins, rhinestones and glitter were pervasive. I was surprised that birds weren't swooping down and pecking at this shit, there was so much of it.
Now I am aware of the fact that every person has a different sense of fashion, but this is what the Wide Lawns ladies must look like when they get all decked out. This shit was atrocious. There were denim fucking jackets hanging all over the place and they came in three colors - acid wash, black or white - or as I like to say, tacky, tackier and straight up white trash. Under each of the jackets were wife beater tank tops with things like high heels and cutesy little sayings in RHINESTONES!!! I can't explain it, but suddenly I started getting a little bit sick. It was like I was in some shrine to Dolly Parton and couldn't get out. So I did what every good eater does, I called up my superpower tunnel vision and looked only at my food.
I have to say that the horrible "fashion" surrounding me aside, the meal was excellent as usual. But, let this be a lesson to all of you out there. Just because someone sells you a twenty dollar gadget on a TV Infomercial, it does not mean that you should turn this hobby into a business. And just because your wife gives you great head (or the prospect of such), you should not let HER taste ruin your customers' appetites. The sad thing is, people actually buy this shit and it ain't cheap. I looked at a few of the items (after I donned my shades) and here is a breakdown on how much it costs to look like a cheap streetwalker:
Jacket - $295.00
Purse - $175.00
Belt - Free with purchase of purse, but on its own - $75.00
Tank Top - $45.00
Additional accessories not available at the Tearoom, but purchased separately:
4" red platform stiletto mules
Crotch eating, tight as hell Black Capri Pants
2 tons of jewelry
All of that adds up to a shitload of money and for what? I just don't get it. I am sure that some people might find some of my statements objectionable, but then again you are probably wearing the outfit I listed above.
I will leave you with something my grandmother use to tell me all of the time when we would see someone on the street dressed in gaudy clothing:
"Honey, money don't buy taste and that bitch's is all in her mouth". God I miss my grandma!!!
Anyway, I took Super Diva to the Tearoom for lunch this past Saturday and as usual, the meal was stupendous. We each tried the Artichoke and Spinach soup and the taste is unexplainable, but I will try. It was like eating a warm bowlful of heaven. It was the same feeling you got as a child when you came inside after a long day of building snow forts in the frozen tundra that is Cleveland in any of the months between October and May and you had that first sip of hot cocoa. It was, dear readers, fanfriggingtabulous. I am sure that there were 3,296 calories in the soup alone, but who the fuck cares. I ate all of mine and some of SD's.
There was only one fault I could find in this magnificent repast. What could possibly have tainted such a fine meal, you ask? Well, normally we go to the Tearoom in warmer months when we can sit outside on their lovely little patio, but since we just received a fucking spanking from Mother Nature this last week, that option was not available. So we were sat in one of the two small indoor dining salons. Everywhere you look in this place; there are some pretty neat antiques. They also offer a wonderfully eclectic selection of wines throughout the building. BUT there is also a wide variety of clothing and accessories and therein is where the problem lies. Being a former donner of the orange shorty shorts, I can tolerate a small amount of sparkle. But nothing I have seen in the past prepared me for the Liberace type design of the tank tops, denim jackets, belts and purses that were on display in our dining room. The sparkle, sequins, rhinestones and glitter were pervasive. I was surprised that birds weren't swooping down and pecking at this shit, there was so much of it.
Now I am aware of the fact that every person has a different sense of fashion, but this is what the Wide Lawns ladies must look like when they get all decked out. This shit was atrocious. There were denim fucking jackets hanging all over the place and they came in three colors - acid wash, black or white - or as I like to say, tacky, tackier and straight up white trash. Under each of the jackets were wife beater tank tops with things like high heels and cutesy little sayings in RHINESTONES!!! I can't explain it, but suddenly I started getting a little bit sick. It was like I was in some shrine to Dolly Parton and couldn't get out. So I did what every good eater does, I called up my superpower tunnel vision and looked only at my food.
I have to say that the horrible "fashion" surrounding me aside, the meal was excellent as usual. But, let this be a lesson to all of you out there. Just because someone sells you a twenty dollar gadget on a TV Infomercial, it does not mean that you should turn this hobby into a business. And just because your wife gives you great head (or the prospect of such), you should not let HER taste ruin your customers' appetites. The sad thing is, people actually buy this shit and it ain't cheap. I looked at a few of the items (after I donned my shades) and here is a breakdown on how much it costs to look like a cheap streetwalker:
Jacket - $295.00
Purse - $175.00
Belt - Free with purchase of purse, but on its own - $75.00
Tank Top - $45.00
Additional accessories not available at the Tearoom, but purchased separately:
4" red platform stiletto mules
Crotch eating, tight as hell Black Capri Pants
2 tons of jewelry
All of that adds up to a shitload of money and for what? I just don't get it. I am sure that some people might find some of my statements objectionable, but then again you are probably wearing the outfit I listed above.
I will leave you with something my grandmother use to tell me all of the time when we would see someone on the street dressed in gaudy clothing:
"Honey, money don't buy taste and that bitch's is all in her mouth". God I miss my grandma!!!
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Salon Encounters
I stopped by salon the other day to make an appointment with my fagulous hair dresser Manho Cho and he tells me that my girl KY is on her way in for an appointment. For some reason, completely unplanned, we both get our hair done within days of one another -EVERY SINGLE TIME. It freaks Manho out and trust me, this is one diva you do not want to send into a tizzy, she gets the vapors.
I think that KY and I are on the same hair "cycle". It's like clockwork.
Anyway, I am standing there making my appointment for the next week when the phone rings. Manho answers and hands me the phone. This is the conversation that took place:
ADW: Hello?
KY: Hello? ADW?
ADW: Yes
KY: Are you there (at the salon)?
ADW: (Pause)
KY: Duh, of course you're there. I'll be there in two minutes.
I guess you had to be there, but it was funny shit. This girl is hands down the funniest person I have ever met and she does so without really trying. I am not sure if she even realizes what she is saying half the time. Random statements make their way out of her mouth at every turn, but it makes for amusing conversations.
Happy Easter Everyone!!
I think that KY and I are on the same hair "cycle". It's like clockwork.
Anyway, I am standing there making my appointment for the next week when the phone rings. Manho answers and hands me the phone. This is the conversation that took place:
ADW: Hello?
KY: Hello? ADW?
ADW: Yes
KY: Are you there (at the salon)?
ADW: (Pause)
KY: Duh, of course you're there. I'll be there in two minutes.
I guess you had to be there, but it was funny shit. This girl is hands down the funniest person I have ever met and she does so without really trying. I am not sure if she even realizes what she is saying half the time. Random statements make their way out of her mouth at every turn, but it makes for amusing conversations.
Happy Easter Everyone!!
Friday, April 6, 2007
Larry, Larry quite contrary
Another Hooters post...
I have a problem with liars. People who habitually lie are constantly hurting those around them and end up getting caught ayway.
Let me tell you about "Larry". Larry was a member of the 6' plus class. One hiring blitz netted us four new girls over 6' tall and Larry was one of those girls. At first she seemed sweet and fun, but once I got to know her I could sense there was something a little off. After being a corporate trainer for various companies, you can get a pretty good read on someone and while I couldn't quite put my finger on it, there was something about Larry that didn't sit right with me.
The other girls disagreed with me. Everyone loved Larry. She was bright and fun and cute, what was there not to love about her? Well, she was a cum guzzling cunt. Yes I said the C-word, it is a favorite of mine. I own that word. I don't let the word bother me and it is exactly appropriate to ues that word to describe Larry.
The lies started off as little ones. First she said that she was adopted. Then she said that she was half Japanese - NO FUCKING WAY was this girl half Japanese (curly auburn hair, pale white skin with freckles - absolutely no asian features whatsoever). Then she said that her dad was the head of a large group of Italian-American "business" men and that he was uber-wealthy. I could keep up with these stories, but you can see what kind of tales she was telling. They didn't add up, period.
Next came a whopper. Apparently she was going to be flying to New York to model during fashion week. Now don't get me wrong, Larry was a lovely girl (on the outside anyway), but she was no fashion model. Plus by this time, the other gals were starting to catch on to her falsehoods. So we did what any self respecting group of people would do, we checked the story.
Supposedly Larry was flying out to New York in June to model runway for Calvin Klein for their Fall Fashion show. Hah! If you are going to lie about something, at least get your back story straight. Everyone knows that Fashion Week for the new fall fashions was held months before. Fall Fashions are shown in the Spring and vice versa. Even though we all knew this, one of the girls double checked to make sure there wasn't some other type of show going on. Nope - no fashion shows for Calvin Klein in June.
Ok - so she lied about that. She was still a fun girl and some of the ladies were still friendly with her. No problem. Even though she was a huge whore. This girl would uck anybody (not a mistake, just put any letter in front of the uck and that is what she would do). My girl Asian Persuasion (once you go Asian, forget the Caucasian), caught her giving a BJ to one of our cop friends in the parking lot one night. At least take your uniform off you trashy little fucktard. It's hard enough to do a job where a lot of folks already perceive us as "trashy" without proving them right. Dumb Ass.
So she's a whore and a liar. People were already starting to alienate her from the "club". Then the unfortunate happened. Larry got cancer (it's been a while, but I think it was Ovarian - correct me if I'm wrong girls). It was awful. She would come in to work her shifts sick and exhausted. She was in the process of scheduling her first round of chemo at a hospital in Pittsburgh, a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive for her. Girls started trading shifts with her. She would get the best sections, but then she didn't feel well enough to close (FYI - the better sections in a restauant are usually the ones that are "closing" sections which means that person has to stay all night and close down the restaurant afterwards). She would come in late for shift, which would normally mean that you get to pick your section last, but we would all let it slide since she was so sick.
One night a bunch of the girls were going out. Our Hooters was located in a downtown area that was known for having a large assortments of clubs and restaurants all within walking distance from one another. Larry went out as well. The group was having a great time until Larry realized that her purse was missing. She started freaking out. KY found her purse and returned it. Larry gushed out her thanks. Why? Apparently she had $18,000 dollars in there for her Chemo session the following day. WHAT???
OK - stop right there - shit is not adding up. $18,000 for chemo. Could be right, but who pays for that in cash. Plus aren't you a student? Or do mobsters with half Japanese adopted daughters not carry health insurance? But isn't your mobster dad extremely wealthy? Why are you paying for your own chemo anyway? And why the fuck are you driving to Pittsburgh when the Cleveland Clinic is 5 minutes away and is one of the best hospitals in the world? AND - if you are so sick that you can't close, why in the fucking hell are you going out drinking and partying the day before your fucking chemo sesson.
Yes folks, Larry lied about having cancer. Who does that? Evil, evil girl. I have personally had a serious cancer scare (caught the problem one stage before full-blown cancer) and I am constantly fearing that the problem will return and be worse than before. Cancer is not a joke - a lot of folks die every year from all kinds of cancer. What a horrible, sad thing it is to think of some twenty-something girl going through that torture and pain, just to find out that she made the shit up to get better sections and not have to work as hard as everyone else.
What happened to Larry's Hooters career? Well, I know she left not long after we realized what she was doing. I am sure that the pressure started in various ways (I can't really remember the details), but I know that it was very blatant. We didn't want to be associated with someone like that anymore. Management had nothing to do with it. Hooters girls take care of their own and while none of us were angels, there are certain lines you don't cross and faking cancer is the lowest, nastiest thing you can do.
I would love to say that Karma turned around and bit her on the ass, but I cannot. First, I would never wish cancer on anyone. Not even a dick-sucking, lying whore like Larry. Second, I saw Larry again a few years ago when I was bartending at another place and she was still a pretty girl - on the outside. She had a long wait for drinks that night. A long enough wait that she eventually went somewhere else, since I made the staff aware of what a shitty person she was.
Now, Larry's is a story that comes up every time more than two of us get together. I think that her tale is still brought up for a few reasons, but there is only one that matters. This group of ladies that I have been blessed to know and love is filled with wonderful, intelligent, witty(more so than I) and caring people. While we may have our own issues, none of us has ever done something as low as Larry and the retelling of this tale reaffirms our strength in ourselves and each other.
I truly and sincerely love you all (you know who you are). Thank you for being my friends and family for the past eight years. Your friendship and love mean more than you will ever know.
Now go run a bus tub you fucking whore!!!
Love,
ADW
I have a problem with liars. People who habitually lie are constantly hurting those around them and end up getting caught ayway.
Let me tell you about "Larry". Larry was a member of the 6' plus class. One hiring blitz netted us four new girls over 6' tall and Larry was one of those girls. At first she seemed sweet and fun, but once I got to know her I could sense there was something a little off. After being a corporate trainer for various companies, you can get a pretty good read on someone and while I couldn't quite put my finger on it, there was something about Larry that didn't sit right with me.
The other girls disagreed with me. Everyone loved Larry. She was bright and fun and cute, what was there not to love about her? Well, she was a cum guzzling cunt. Yes I said the C-word, it is a favorite of mine. I own that word. I don't let the word bother me and it is exactly appropriate to ues that word to describe Larry.
The lies started off as little ones. First she said that she was adopted. Then she said that she was half Japanese - NO FUCKING WAY was this girl half Japanese (curly auburn hair, pale white skin with freckles - absolutely no asian features whatsoever). Then she said that her dad was the head of a large group of Italian-American "business" men and that he was uber-wealthy. I could keep up with these stories, but you can see what kind of tales she was telling. They didn't add up, period.
Next came a whopper. Apparently she was going to be flying to New York to model during fashion week. Now don't get me wrong, Larry was a lovely girl (on the outside anyway), but she was no fashion model. Plus by this time, the other gals were starting to catch on to her falsehoods. So we did what any self respecting group of people would do, we checked the story.
Supposedly Larry was flying out to New York in June to model runway for Calvin Klein for their Fall Fashion show. Hah! If you are going to lie about something, at least get your back story straight. Everyone knows that Fashion Week for the new fall fashions was held months before. Fall Fashions are shown in the Spring and vice versa. Even though we all knew this, one of the girls double checked to make sure there wasn't some other type of show going on. Nope - no fashion shows for Calvin Klein in June.
Ok - so she lied about that. She was still a fun girl and some of the ladies were still friendly with her. No problem. Even though she was a huge whore. This girl would uck anybody (not a mistake, just put any letter in front of the uck and that is what she would do). My girl Asian Persuasion (once you go Asian, forget the Caucasian), caught her giving a BJ to one of our cop friends in the parking lot one night. At least take your uniform off you trashy little fucktard. It's hard enough to do a job where a lot of folks already perceive us as "trashy" without proving them right. Dumb Ass.
So she's a whore and a liar. People were already starting to alienate her from the "club". Then the unfortunate happened. Larry got cancer (it's been a while, but I think it was Ovarian - correct me if I'm wrong girls). It was awful. She would come in to work her shifts sick and exhausted. She was in the process of scheduling her first round of chemo at a hospital in Pittsburgh, a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive for her. Girls started trading shifts with her. She would get the best sections, but then she didn't feel well enough to close (FYI - the better sections in a restauant are usually the ones that are "closing" sections which means that person has to stay all night and close down the restaurant afterwards). She would come in late for shift, which would normally mean that you get to pick your section last, but we would all let it slide since she was so sick.
One night a bunch of the girls were going out. Our Hooters was located in a downtown area that was known for having a large assortments of clubs and restaurants all within walking distance from one another. Larry went out as well. The group was having a great time until Larry realized that her purse was missing. She started freaking out. KY found her purse and returned it. Larry gushed out her thanks. Why? Apparently she had $18,000 dollars in there for her Chemo session the following day. WHAT???
OK - stop right there - shit is not adding up. $18,000 for chemo. Could be right, but who pays for that in cash. Plus aren't you a student? Or do mobsters with half Japanese adopted daughters not carry health insurance? But isn't your mobster dad extremely wealthy? Why are you paying for your own chemo anyway? And why the fuck are you driving to Pittsburgh when the Cleveland Clinic is 5 minutes away and is one of the best hospitals in the world? AND - if you are so sick that you can't close, why in the fucking hell are you going out drinking and partying the day before your fucking chemo sesson.
Yes folks, Larry lied about having cancer. Who does that? Evil, evil girl. I have personally had a serious cancer scare (caught the problem one stage before full-blown cancer) and I am constantly fearing that the problem will return and be worse than before. Cancer is not a joke - a lot of folks die every year from all kinds of cancer. What a horrible, sad thing it is to think of some twenty-something girl going through that torture and pain, just to find out that she made the shit up to get better sections and not have to work as hard as everyone else.
What happened to Larry's Hooters career? Well, I know she left not long after we realized what she was doing. I am sure that the pressure started in various ways (I can't really remember the details), but I know that it was very blatant. We didn't want to be associated with someone like that anymore. Management had nothing to do with it. Hooters girls take care of their own and while none of us were angels, there are certain lines you don't cross and faking cancer is the lowest, nastiest thing you can do.
I would love to say that Karma turned around and bit her on the ass, but I cannot. First, I would never wish cancer on anyone. Not even a dick-sucking, lying whore like Larry. Second, I saw Larry again a few years ago when I was bartending at another place and she was still a pretty girl - on the outside. She had a long wait for drinks that night. A long enough wait that she eventually went somewhere else, since I made the staff aware of what a shitty person she was.
Now, Larry's is a story that comes up every time more than two of us get together. I think that her tale is still brought up for a few reasons, but there is only one that matters. This group of ladies that I have been blessed to know and love is filled with wonderful, intelligent, witty(more so than I) and caring people. While we may have our own issues, none of us has ever done something as low as Larry and the retelling of this tale reaffirms our strength in ourselves and each other.
I truly and sincerely love you all (you know who you are). Thank you for being my friends and family for the past eight years. Your friendship and love mean more than you will ever know.
Now go run a bus tub you fucking whore!!!
Love,
ADW
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Stupid Filter
I hate Panera Bread!!!! They are dirty blog blockers. Can't get to Manola's blog from here. I am a loser. Panera can take their stupid ass SonicWALL firewall and shove it for all I care.
Fuck it...
Fuck it...
Monday, April 2, 2007
ARGHHHHHHHH
I just realized I am a soccer mom. Where has my life gone???
Helppppppppppppppppppppp....
Just kidding - I love my life and I wouldn't trade it in to be single again.
Helppppppppppppppppppppp....
Just kidding - I love my life and I wouldn't trade it in to be single again.
We are Cobra Kai...
I am so happy the weekend is over. For those of you who find that statement confusing, you obviously are not involved in the oh-so-exciting life of youth soccer. We had NINE, count 'em, NINE soccer games this weekend and I am exhausted.
On Saturday, my ten year old daughter had a travel tournament that was held about 30 minutes away from our home. Her first game was at 10 AM and the last game ended at 4:45 PM for a total of four games. Her team actually went undefeated and won the tournament and my daughter scored close to half of the goals over all four games. I am extremely proud of her, but not for the reasons a lot of parents would have. I am proud of the way she played as a TEAM member. This is a new travel team for my daughter and this was the first time she had played with this group of girls. SD (SuperDiva) is an awesome little athelete and she very easily could have taken over the team and just scored all of the goals. She did not do that. Instead, she helped show the other players on the team how to be better players and helped them score goals as well. SD took the lead and there were numerous times when she had obvious straight shots on the goalie, but she chose instead to pass the ball off to other girls to help them get goals. She had 8 goals over the four games that day, but more importantly, she had at least that many assists that resulted in the other player getting a goal. Not too many adults think this way, much less a child and I am so very proud of her for being such a great little girl (obviously raised well, no?).
On Sunday we had to drive 2 hours to Toledo, Ohio for another tournament; this time for SD's premier soccer team. They won this tournament as well and all of the girls did a wonderful job. The parents.... I am not too sure about. Don't get me wrong, I love the parents on SD's premier team. A lot of us have known each other since they started playing league soccer five years ago and we have added the rest of the parents over the last five years. We get along extremely well and all like to have a good time together. That said, there are always a few people who can't seem to get along and this group is no exception. We have recently added another group of ten year old girls (B Team) and there were some "rostering" issues at yesterday's tournament. The head of our premier group (THE MOST WONDERFUL PERSON AND COACH EVER!!!) asked a few of the girls if they would mind playing down to help the B Team out and they said they would do it. Now Coach had already told ALL of the girls (A and B Team) that if the A team won the tournament, he would pay extra to get trophies for everyone. He did this because we could have easily brought one powerhouse team to win the thing, but Coach wanted all of the girls to get playing time and have the experience.
That said some of the parents were PISSED OFF that their daughters were playing down and made a HUGE deal about it. I couldn't believe these people. You would think that this was the end of their (10 years old, remember) daughter's soccer career. The kids had no problem, but some of the parents even threatened to leave the team - whatever. I offered to have SD play down, but Coach said no. Coach said that these girls had already offered to do this and he would take care of the parents. I think everyone realized that something that shouldn't have even been an issue was totally blown out of proportion into a Peyton Place scale drama. Our A team went on to win all 4 games and we had to book it out of there so we could make game #9.
Game #9 = going to hell in a handbasket
Enter Cobra Kai AKA the Bile Gizzards
Our last game of the day was a makeup game for one of our indoor premier sessions. We had to beat this team in order to win the session (the girls like winning the t-shirts and spaghetti dinners). The team we were playing (the Bile Gizzards) had no hope of winning the session, but they stood in our way of being in first place. NO BIG FUCKING DEAL!! We could have cared less about winning this thing as all of the girls were tired after playing 4 40 minute games in 5 hours and rushing 2 hours home to come straight to another game. Plus SD had played the 4 games the day before. They were tired, it showed and the Bile Gizzards jumped to a 3 point lead. Then the girls decided that they did want to win and came back to tie the game. Once this happened the Lizard's true colors showed. Someone had obviously trained these girls to play dirty and they knew how to get away with it. They were fucking vicious. I cannot believe the dirty underhanded things they were doing to our girls. They did all this shit when the ref wasn't looking and got away with all of it.
There was one little girl who was extremely horrible - we'll call her Johnny Lawrence. She was seen kicking, tripping, shoving and hitting girls. She also knocked one of our girls into the wall and then pretended like SHE had a bloody nose in order to get away with it. I hate to say this about a child but the kid was a little bitch. And whoever taught her to play dirty is an even bigger bitch - CUNT even. None of the bullshit mattered because our girls got the ultimate revenge - they came back to win the game by two goals. The Bile Gizzards were Cobra Kai to the end though, because when it came time to do the high five line, Johnny hit one of our girls so hard she went down. That is when COACH (greatest ever -I keep repeating this) called the kid out as having poor sportsmanship and proceeded to tell the Lizard's coach that his team played dirty and the kids were bad losers - Johnny especially.
I felt bad for the kids on the team who were obviously upset by what happened and were openly crying, but the blame is on the coach and parents who support that kind of fucked up behavior. If these kids are acting like this at 10, can you imagine what they will be like when they start high school sports. No one will want to play with a dirty player and the coaches won't want them on the team and the parents will be shocked, but they shouldn't be. Raise your kid to do the right thing and in the long run it will come back to them. Karma's a bitch and I don't need to do or say anything because in the end, people who raise their kids to act like little bastards are going to be scratching their heads when the same kids become felons and heroin addicts.
I try to teach my children to respect other people and treat them the same way they themselves would like to be treated (I love the Golden Rule lesson). This advice doesn't always show through, but at least I am trying to do my best to raise my children to be good productive people. I cannot say the same for others, but I don't worry about those people. I can only do my best with my family and hope others do the same.
I will end this post with a little food for thought:
Children Learn What They Live - Dorothy Law Neite
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
If a child learns to feel shame, he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement he learns confidence
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world.
On Saturday, my ten year old daughter had a travel tournament that was held about 30 minutes away from our home. Her first game was at 10 AM and the last game ended at 4:45 PM for a total of four games. Her team actually went undefeated and won the tournament and my daughter scored close to half of the goals over all four games. I am extremely proud of her, but not for the reasons a lot of parents would have. I am proud of the way she played as a TEAM member. This is a new travel team for my daughter and this was the first time she had played with this group of girls. SD (SuperDiva) is an awesome little athelete and she very easily could have taken over the team and just scored all of the goals. She did not do that. Instead, she helped show the other players on the team how to be better players and helped them score goals as well. SD took the lead and there were numerous times when she had obvious straight shots on the goalie, but she chose instead to pass the ball off to other girls to help them get goals. She had 8 goals over the four games that day, but more importantly, she had at least that many assists that resulted in the other player getting a goal. Not too many adults think this way, much less a child and I am so very proud of her for being such a great little girl (obviously raised well, no?).
On Sunday we had to drive 2 hours to Toledo, Ohio for another tournament; this time for SD's premier soccer team. They won this tournament as well and all of the girls did a wonderful job. The parents.... I am not too sure about. Don't get me wrong, I love the parents on SD's premier team. A lot of us have known each other since they started playing league soccer five years ago and we have added the rest of the parents over the last five years. We get along extremely well and all like to have a good time together. That said, there are always a few people who can't seem to get along and this group is no exception. We have recently added another group of ten year old girls (B Team) and there were some "rostering" issues at yesterday's tournament. The head of our premier group (THE MOST WONDERFUL PERSON AND COACH EVER!!!) asked a few of the girls if they would mind playing down to help the B Team out and they said they would do it. Now Coach had already told ALL of the girls (A and B Team) that if the A team won the tournament, he would pay extra to get trophies for everyone. He did this because we could have easily brought one powerhouse team to win the thing, but Coach wanted all of the girls to get playing time and have the experience.
That said some of the parents were PISSED OFF that their daughters were playing down and made a HUGE deal about it. I couldn't believe these people. You would think that this was the end of their (10 years old, remember) daughter's soccer career. The kids had no problem, but some of the parents even threatened to leave the team - whatever. I offered to have SD play down, but Coach said no. Coach said that these girls had already offered to do this and he would take care of the parents. I think everyone realized that something that shouldn't have even been an issue was totally blown out of proportion into a Peyton Place scale drama. Our A team went on to win all 4 games and we had to book it out of there so we could make game #9.
Game #9 = going to hell in a handbasket
Enter Cobra Kai AKA the Bile Gizzards
Our last game of the day was a makeup game for one of our indoor premier sessions. We had to beat this team in order to win the session (the girls like winning the t-shirts and spaghetti dinners). The team we were playing (the Bile Gizzards) had no hope of winning the session, but they stood in our way of being in first place. NO BIG FUCKING DEAL!! We could have cared less about winning this thing as all of the girls were tired after playing 4 40 minute games in 5 hours and rushing 2 hours home to come straight to another game. Plus SD had played the 4 games the day before. They were tired, it showed and the Bile Gizzards jumped to a 3 point lead. Then the girls decided that they did want to win and came back to tie the game. Once this happened the Lizard's true colors showed. Someone had obviously trained these girls to play dirty and they knew how to get away with it. They were fucking vicious. I cannot believe the dirty underhanded things they were doing to our girls. They did all this shit when the ref wasn't looking and got away with all of it.
There was one little girl who was extremely horrible - we'll call her Johnny Lawrence. She was seen kicking, tripping, shoving and hitting girls. She also knocked one of our girls into the wall and then pretended like SHE had a bloody nose in order to get away with it. I hate to say this about a child but the kid was a little bitch. And whoever taught her to play dirty is an even bigger bitch - CUNT even. None of the bullshit mattered because our girls got the ultimate revenge - they came back to win the game by two goals. The Bile Gizzards were Cobra Kai to the end though, because when it came time to do the high five line, Johnny hit one of our girls so hard she went down. That is when COACH (greatest ever -I keep repeating this) called the kid out as having poor sportsmanship and proceeded to tell the Lizard's coach that his team played dirty and the kids were bad losers - Johnny especially.
I felt bad for the kids on the team who were obviously upset by what happened and were openly crying, but the blame is on the coach and parents who support that kind of fucked up behavior. If these kids are acting like this at 10, can you imagine what they will be like when they start high school sports. No one will want to play with a dirty player and the coaches won't want them on the team and the parents will be shocked, but they shouldn't be. Raise your kid to do the right thing and in the long run it will come back to them. Karma's a bitch and I don't need to do or say anything because in the end, people who raise their kids to act like little bastards are going to be scratching their heads when the same kids become felons and heroin addicts.
I try to teach my children to respect other people and treat them the same way they themselves would like to be treated (I love the Golden Rule lesson). This advice doesn't always show through, but at least I am trying to do my best to raise my children to be good productive people. I cannot say the same for others, but I don't worry about those people. I can only do my best with my family and hope others do the same.
I will end this post with a little food for thought:
Children Learn What They Live - Dorothy Law Neite
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
If a child learns to feel shame, he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement he learns confidence
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world.
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