Sometimes You Quit Your Job to Speak Your Mind

10 Feb

We are currently living in an environment in which our freedom of speech is under siege more than ever before.  We are denied access to vital information, misinformed by those who we trust to keep us aware, denied the opportunity to safely express our opinions.  Students are threatened with expulsion, journalists with incarceration, employees with termination all simply for holding others to reasonable standards of behavior.  And all this is so incredibly intertwined with money, power, ego, and entitlement that those of us lacking access to any, and sometimes all, of those things can be left completely voiceless, powerless.  That shouldn’t be so.  At a time when people reference the Bill of Rights almost constantly, why do so many of us feel so very silenced?

I have always been an opinionated girl.  What started out as indiscriminate screaming as a toddler has evolved into well thought out and incredibly strongly held beliefs about all manner of things.  It is one of my favorite things about myself but also what gets me into most of the jams I find myself in.  Sometimes I wish I could just keep my mouth shut, simply not care as much as I do, but then I wouldn’t be me.  The fact of the matter is that I care. If I had to go out on a limb and articulate what I care about more than anything else it would probably be equality.  At the same time,  if I had to say what it is that I personally work on harder than anything else, it is seeing everyone as equal.

I think that we are all raised in environments that, due to a myriad different factors, value certain people over others.  Be it due to skin color, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, class, appearance, profession, native language, accent, mental or physical ailments, we have a very unfortunate tendency to assign worth to individuals.  I am by no means innocent of this very thing.  The thing about it, though, is that I am trying.  I am trying, while understanding the privilege that I was born with, to shed preconceived notions of people, to make myself more tolerant, more understanding, more open, more human.  One of the by-products of this journey is that I am acutely aware of when I, and those whom I love, are treated as somehow lesser than.  It happens to me because I am Jewish, because I am female, because I work in the service profession.  It happens all the time and, just as I think others do not deserve that kind of treatment, I believe that I deserve better.  And so I speak and I write and for that I am not sorry.

Honestly, I am angry that I am writing this right now.  I think it is crazy that I have to sit here and talk about the fact that I believe people, all people, should be able to wake up in the morning and feel safe.  We should feel safe in our homes, on the streets, at our jobs.  We should feel as though we are of some value, some worth.  We should feel as though our friends and families are in our corner.  That should simply be part of being.  None of us should go through life constantly being told that we are not deserving of simple human kindness and yet, day after day, this is what happens to so many of us.  We shouldn’t have to justify our existence, our choices.  I was born female, I was born Jewish, I chose to bartend.  All of these things have made me who I am and I am not ashamed of any of them and I never will be.

If you come into the place in which I work and you disrespect me, my coworkers, my employers, you had better believe I am going to have something to say about  it.  Being drunk does not give you an excuse to treat other people with utter disregard.  We should never be called names, be threatened, or have things thrown at us simply for doing our jobs.  Nobody should.  We all are worth something, but by treating others poorly because you think your money or your degree somehow makes you worth more you are simply devaluing yourself.  Threatening a small business with a baseless, frivolous lawsuit simply so you don’t have to be held accountable for your own poor behavior devalues your profession.  Threatening someone’s freedom of speech simply because it gets your nose out of joint devalues the law itself.

So I quit my job.  I quit my job because I was asked to take my blog posts down and apologize to those who were bothered by them and I will not do either of those things.  I quit my job because a few members of an otherwise kind, intelligent, fun and caring group of legal professionals decided to lob an empty, and I believe ethically questionable, lawsuit at a bar because a barely-read blog detailed the extremely poor behavior of a few.  (One of whom, might I point out, has already had his name and profession published in the New York Post in connection with a drunken assault charge.)  The thing is, I never published last names and I have only published first names, and common ones at that, twice.  Once was retroactively, after I received an anonymous comment from an email address that was created for the occasion and subsequently disabled and after I quit my job, and the other because the person repeatedly threw things at me, on camera, which seems to me grounds for an assault charge.  And yet I left their last names out, and will continue to do so, not because I am afraid of being sued but because, for whatever reason and in the face of years of poor treatment and bad behavior, it seems like the moral thing to do.  Sometimes a girl just needs to vent, she does not need to impact someone else’s life in any real and negative way (possible ego bruising aside).  But that’s just me.  Some of these people might be assholes, but they are human beings and deserve to be treated as such.

And besides, my integrity is simply too valuable to me.  I might not have as much money as some other people, and my resume might not be as impressive, but I feel damn good.  I have a right to say what I believe and I have the obligation to attach my name to what I say.  If that means that people don’t like me, that people threaten me, that people undermine the ethics of their own profession, that is their problem, not mine.  I have always been me and I always will be.  If I like you, believe me you will know it.  I will tell you in no uncertain terms.  But if you are disrespectful to me or someone I care about, I will tell you what I think.  That is my right and my obligation as a person who gives a damn.  You want to use your education to scare a few kind, hard-working, small business owners to death?  Go for it I hope you’re proud.  I will use mine to simply treat people with the kindness and respect they deserve.

Good luck and enjoy the bar, it’s all yours.

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I Want to Be Friends with the Person Who Runs the Jet Blue Twitter Account

4 Feb

I figure that since my blog is sort of blowing up thanks to a rather, um, unkind message I got on an old blog post, that I would take advantage of the situation to share with some of you readers, both new and old, a bit about the minutiae of my day.  So come along!

Tomorrow I am going to New Orleans.  Well, let me reword that.  Tomorrow I am supposed to go to New Orleans.  For those of you who don’t live on the East Coast and/or don’t program the location of some far flung friends into your phone so you can obsessively check their weather and alternate between intense jealousy and a sort of self-righteous belief that you made the superior geographic life decisions, there is a storm a’coming.  But didn’t the we just have a storm, you might ask?  Yes, yes we did.  It was yesterday.  Starting this evening we are supposed to have a sleet and snow extravaganza.  I decided that, given the forecast, I should probably go on the Jet Blue website and check the status of my flight.

Canceled.

Damnit.

So I poked around the website and since at that point I had not received any information about how I might get to New Orleans as soon as possible, I decided to call them up.  I was informed by the prerecorded lady that it was going to be at least a 30 minute wait.

Damnit again.

So I did what any other reasonable person who lives in this technological world but is also tied to the phone and its accompanying hold music:  I took to Twitter.  What happened amused the hell out of me and made me come to the following three conclusions:  (1) Twitter is an incredible source of entertainment; (2) I want to become friends with the person who runs the Jet Blue Twitter account because that person is hilarious; and (3) I will make even more of an effort to fly Jet Blue because clearly they know a little something about staffing.  Like I always say (or, well, like I am going to start saying now): make me laugh and you’ve got a customer for life.  So this is what went down:

@franklyrebekah (that’s me!): Stuck on hold with @JetBlue.  Seriously, “The Power of Love?” Please do something about this hold music.
@franklyrebekah: AND now it’s Benny and the Jets.  Talk about instant gratification. Thanks @JetBlue #onhold #sobored #canceledflights #travel

(At this point my old high school friend, Seth, asked if it was Huey Lewis, Marty McFly, or Jimi Hendrix.  Unfortunately, it was Celine Dion.  I hashtagged that my ears were bleeding)

@JetBlue: @franklyrebekah Sorry about that one…
@JetBlue: @franklyrebekah… but we’re glad it got better so quickly! Thanks for hanging in there.  Someone will be with you as soon as possible.

Anyway, blah blah blah, then I told them that I talked to someone and she was really nice.  Then they told me to send along my confirmation number and they would pass the compliment along.  Then I admitted that I don’t understand how to use Twitter properly.  Then they managed to not mock me.  Also they sent funny hashtags like #NoMoreHoldMusic and, in regards to my flight actually taking off on Thursday AM (I got on a new one!) #FingersCrossed #ToesToo.

You know, this all seemed a lot funnier when it was actually happening.  But I guess here is the actual thing.  Sometimes it is easy to forget that on the other side of the computer is a real person.  I guess it was a nice thing to know that I (potentially) amused the person in charge of the Jet Blue Twitter account and that they, in turn, decided to amuse me right back.  In a world overrun by anonymity, it is nice to know that there are people out there that, even though they are anonymous in that they are the voice of a company and have to represent and promote a specific image and message, they still find the space to express a little good humor.  Also, and this is sort of an unrelated lesson that I learned this week, we should always assume that the person we are talking about online could potentially read the words that we type.  So we should be aware of whose feelings might get hurt and decide whether or not we care.  I know that, going forward, I will continue to write my posts with my opinions and observations and I will continue to put my name on it, but I will take a step back and really think about the impact my words might have on the person I am discussing.  With some people, honestly, I could give a shit.  But there are some who I don’t think I have necessarily been fair to.  So, I will work on that.

Anyway, thanks to the person who is in charge of the Jet Blue Twitter account for amusing me in the midst of an otherwise disappointing situation.  Keeping my fingers crossed for a Thursday departure.  New Orleans, here I come.

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Apparently I’m a Failure

2 Feb

So the other day my good friend Glen posted a link online from a blog written by an actually successful writer.  It’s called “How I knew I’d Made It” and is worth the read.  But if you’re lazy or busy or have all your available tabs open on your phone and can’t possibly dream about closing one of them, I will summarize it for you.  This guy, John Scalzi, who has written books and had them published and everything, said that the moment he knew he had made it was when he went to a gas station, filled up his tank, and drove away, for the first time in his life, without looking to see how much he had spent on gas.  He had grown up poor and, as a result, had always known exactly how much he spent on every item because dealing with each day’s available money was sort of like a balancing act.  He had to be sure that buying something now didn’t mean he couldn’t purchase something he needed later that day, week or month.  Gas was a biggie.  He had to figure out exactly how far he needed to go and estimate how much gas it would take to get there and, perhaps, back, and would ask the station attendant for things like $3.14 worth of gas.  That day, driving away and not having accounted for every penny, was the day when he had finally allowed it to get through his head that he could afford things.  That’s when he knew he had made it.

I have often joked that I would know I made it when I got a comment on this blog with a random, personal attack in it about my character or my appearance or something.  I imagined it would come on one of my more political posts and would be something along the lines of “shut up you fat bitch no one would ever fuck you,” or something like that.  I figured it would come from some weird dude in like, North Dakota or something, who spends too much time playing video games and maybe has a bad skin condition.  I actually even had a long conversation with my brother, Aaron, about it.  He had called to ask me my opinion on something and the conversation kind of wound its way everywhere, finally landing on the article I was working on for this online magazine I occasionally contribute to.  It was an article about consent.  We talked about it for awhile and then he said to me something along the lines of,

“Well, I think that is a really interesting approach to the issue but I have to tell you, one of these days you are probably going to end up getting linked to some MRA webpage or subreddit or something and there is going to be a whole shit storm.  You should probably have a contingency plan.”

So we talked about it.  It’s actually something I have thought about before.  The more people read your blog, and admittedly I don’t have all that many readers, the more likely it is that someone who reads it will feel the need to send a nasty comment.  It’s the law of numbers, or something.  Anyway, we decided that the best approach would be to engage with the commenter if it seemed necessary, but not on the site of the repost, if my blog was indeed reposted, but on my own page where I have control.  See, where I do believe in a democratic form of government, I do NOT believe in a democratic form of blog and therefore I have it set so I have to approve every comment before it appears on my page.  I figured I could read through the comments I received and then make a clever take down of the person, if it seemed worthwhile, and then continue to moderate the comments.  He thought that was  good idea.

Well, it happened.  I got my first mean comment this morning which was sent, I imagine drunkenly, at 2:30am and from a person I know.  Here it is, from someone who called herself “Your Superior:”

“A pathetic article by a pathetic neurotic child. Pretty easy to discount the ramblings of a 30-something year old woman who, by her own admission, makes less than $2 an hour. See “Life–How to fail at it” for an accurate description of Rebekah Frank. As for the guys she’s referencing, they’re both highly accomplished fun charming attorneys worth a thousand of this pathetic “bartender”. LOL at “my bar”, you sad employee. You’re a failure. Live with it. You and your … boyfriend are a match made in heaven. Two losers commenting on those who actually have lives. Hahaha. Enjoy living on the crumbs successful people deem to bestow on you.”

I left out some of the choice words this person decided to use about my boyfriend because, as he said first thing this morning when I showed him the comment, “wow, that sucks but you put yourself out there.”  That’s true, I did, but he didn’t.  And I honestly don’t know what he has to do with any of this.

Alright so I went back and reread the post this commenter is referring to and, honestly, I was a little meaner than I needed to be.  Especially about one of the guys, the guy who really wasn’t involved in any of it.  It was the result of about 5 years of being subjected to the rudeness of his friend that came out and really, I should have been more responsible about it.  To that person, I do apologize and I will edit the post accordingly.

As far as the rest of it?  Well, this commenter is welcome to his own opinion.  (Yes, I do know who the commenter is and no, I won’t tell.)  But here’s the thing.  The other day, my friend and coworker Liz said to me, “your blog is all about not being a jerk,” and you know what?  When you boil it all down it really is.  It’s about going through life and holding your own and trying to treat other people with respect.  My blog is just a smattering of stories — some of them my own and some of them stories that land in the political sphere — where someone doesn’t treat someone else well and then I write about it.  I never use names, unless that name is already in the public realm, like that of a politician or someone involved in a well-publicized sexual abuse scandal.  A lot of the reason I write the blog, and most of the reason that I write the bartender posts (aside from wanting to entertain people) is because I am a human being and oftentimes those on the other side of the bar forget about that.  I do not want to tend bar forever, although I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.  I know plenty of people who have made a career out of it and I have the utmost respect for them — it is not an easy road to toe.  I just know that it wouldn’t make me happy.  I worked this job while I attended, and graduated from, a master’s program and now I am still working it while I pay off my massive loans and plan the next move.  I have met some incredible people, on both sides of the bar, and I do not regret one second of it.  What I do regret, however, is that my idea of success — one tied up in being happy and making those around me happy — is one that is not recognized or valued by a lot of people.  It is something I have struggled with my entire life.  So, commenter, you think you are my “superior?”  That’s cool.  You think I’m a failure?  Okay, that’s fine too.  And “the crumbs successful people deem to bestow on me” educated me, pay my rent, and are sending me to Peru in a few weeks so, thanks to all of you.

Listen, I’m not perfect.  I have done things that are not kind.  And I am sure that if I went online and read something mean about my friends I would be angry about it also.  But of course, my friends would also not treat people the way this person treated me, my coworkers, and countless other service professionals.  They wouldn’t be my friends any more and I wouldn’t waste my time defending them at 2:30am.

Tip #13 on Being a Good Bar Customer

31 Jan

The hits just keep on coming, folks.  If you want to catch up on the earlier tips, you can go to them here: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII.  Did I get those right?  I haven’t done roman numerals in a long time.  But the Super Bowl is coming up and that’s basically the only time you ever see roman numerals so I figured I would get in the spirit.  Go sports.

So you guys.  We have made it all the way to 13 tips.  When I first started doing these lo these many years ago, I figured I would have five, maybe six, tips.  But no.  People just keep upping their game.  They keep fucking up, and I keep writing about it.  This might turn out to have as many tips as Sue Grafton has mystery novels.  Only time will tell.

So over the past number of years that I have worked behind the same bar, I have had this reoccurring nightmare of people walking behind the bar. It’s like, I’m there, working, and I can’t seem to get to people fast enough.  There are barely any people there and they order relatively simple things, but I just can’t seem to put them across the bar in any reasonable amount of time.  I just sort of wander around, looking for things, spilling, forgetting.  And then, they come.  One after another after another people just start filing behind the bar so I am left trying to make drinks while shooing people away.  It’s awful.  Thankfully, that has never happened in real life. Well, until a few weeks ago.

It was a normal Sunday.  I had sports on.  So, this trio came in, one girl and two guys.  The guy must have been married to the girl because he had a picture of her as the background of his debit card.  I thought that was weird and decided that if I ever get to a point in my life where I think that is a reasonable thing to do I will pack up some belongings and move into a cave for however long it takes for me to figure out exactly where everything went so horribly wrong.  The guy ordered three “beers.”

Eye roll.

I told him I wasn’t really sure what he meant by that and asked what kind of beer he generally likes.  In a surprising turn of events he decided upon the hoppiest thing we had on tap. Those beers went unfinished.  Oh well.  The reason that I give you all these seemingly inane details is that I had already kind of pegged this group as a little off.  Not that they did anything wrong, but just that I had to be prepared for the potentiality of weirdness.  I actually kind of like that.  I mean, normal, more or less predictable people are great but every once in a while it is nice to throw some weird in there.  Keep things interesting.  Anyway, it was one of those days where I had a pretty full bar but all the drinkers were really pacing themselves.  So even though I had lots of people in there, I had very little to do.  I paced.  I made awkward comments to no one in particular.  I washed a few glasses.  I received a text message!  Before responding I did a quick walk around the bar, checking to make sure everyone was sufficiently drinked (they were) and I settled down to respond to the text which was, as it turns out, hilarious.  I have a lot of funny friends.  For those who don’t know, I work in a long bar.  I think we probably have something like 24 seats at the bar?  Maybe more?  Anyway, I was standing in the middle of the bar with my back to the backdoor when all of a sudden I hear a small little “excuse me…?” and a tap, tap, tap on my shoulder.

Oh. My. God.  I froze.  I whipped around and made a face that looked like this squirrel which I know I have used before but whatever I don’t care.  I am this squirrel and no, Aaron, 2008 cannot have its meme back, it is mine.  So this woman, obviously a member of the weird crew, had walked like 10-12 feet behind the bar and what did she want?  What in the world could have been so pressing at that very moment that she couldn’t have (a) asked me for it like 30 seconds earlier when I had checked on her group, (b) waited another 30 seconds for me to walk back to where she was standing, or (c) walk on the other side of the bar, where she belonged, and say “excuse me” over the piece of wood separating us that isn’t, I have learned, a force field that disallows me from hearing what happens on the other side.  In fact, I would say that that piece of wood actually intensifies sound, making me able to hear orders from a ways away while my back is turned and I am having a conversation with someone else over my right shoulder.  What she wanted was a piece of chalk to mark down her score from darts.

…………

There she was, behind the bar waving a piece of chalk in my face and repeating the word “chalk” while she pointed at it because clearly I have no idea what chalk is.  So obviously I got mad.

Lady, waving the chalk.
Me: Get out from behind my bar.
Lady, still waving the chalk.
Me: Seriously, get the fuck out from behind my bar.
Lady, now seriously confused but still doggedly waving the chalk.
Me: This is unreal.  Under no circumstance do you ever walk behind someone’s bar.  Ever.  Get out from behind the bar.  Now.  And no, you cannot have any goddamn chalk!

I was really mad.  I felt like I was dealing with a toddler only this toddler was a little bit taller than me, really stupid, and badly in need of a writing implement.  Oh, and she was hurling pointy things through the air which, I have to tell you, did not make me feel confident in my safety.  The woman-child who, for those who have forgotten, is featured as the background of her husband’s debit card, spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out why I was so mad and why she couldn’t have any chalk.  She then went back to happily hurling things.

Oh and, by the way, she barely even touched her half pint of whatever the hell it was.  It is possible that she was on drugs or had been drinking somewhere else but I don’t know.  I have served a lot of drunk and drugged out people and they have never walked behind the bar.  I guess she could have just been stupid but I have also served a lot of stupid people and they also haven’t ever walked behind the bar.  So I don’t know.  This one is a mystery to me.  But I am happy to know that, thanks to all those nightmares over the years, I was more than prepared to handle this particular interloper.  Oh psyche, you have outdone yourself yet again.

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In Case You Were Worried…

26 Jan

…as predicted, the big, ugly, scaly, lizard-like dry spot above my right eye was simply dry skin and with the regular application of lotion it has more or less cleared up.  I have not turned into a lizard.  I have not been eaten by my cats.  I am still the same girl of medium-stature but now I am a girl of medium-stature with a disappearing dry spot instead of a girl of medium stature who is nervous about turning into a lizard person.  So I feel pretty good about that.

I think actually that is all I have to report right now.  Stay tuned because my life is incredibly interesting and unpredictable.

……….

My Friends. So Happy About Them.

23 Jan

Hey guys.  I know I just wrote yesterday and normally I don’t post two days in a row but this is a special occasion.  Before we go any further though, in order to understand what is about to happen here, you really ought to read the post from yesterday.  It’s not long.  Maybe 500 words?  It will take you all of like 5 minutes.  And it’s sort of amusing.

This sentence is the link to the post from yesterday.

Okay, so, in response to the post from yesterday I got the best comment I have gotten so far in over two years of blogging.  It was from my friend Elizabeth.  I read it 3 times, one time to the friend I was out for dinner with last night who’s name is also coincidentally Elizabeth although she goes by Liz, or Lizzie, depending on who you ask.  I laughed each time.  So, without further ado, here is the comment:

“I have the least comforting responses to this EVER! But first I’ll just say that your dry patch sounds just like the one I have on my arm at the moment, and mine is definitely just a result of the dry, wintery weather. I think some serious moisturizing will fix you right up. (expert opinion, obvs)

“That said! You just reminded me of so many things! Or two, really. When I was 16, I woke up one morning with a strange rash-like thing going on all over my face. Throughout the day, it crept down my neck, covering me in red, scaly spots. Within a few days, it had covered my entire body. I went to three different doctors trying to figure out what it was. Finally, a grouchy old dermatologist correctly informed me that what I had was psoriasis, and that I could easily be covered in it for the rest of my life. By this point, I had it from scalp to toe, smack in the middle of my high school years, three months after I met my first boyfriend (who was on vacation at the time but would soon come back to spotted lizard girlfriend). Dr. Terrible Dermatologist followed up the possible life-sentence by trying to assuage my sadness—”you should be thankful! If you lived during Jesus’ time you would have been thrown into a leper colony!” I think it was time for that guy to retire.

“I only spent six months covered in what’s called “guttate” psoriasis, thanks to the diligence and excellent treatment of a different, caring doctor. But it’s part of my genetic makeup, so there’s always a little worry that it’ll come back. So far, so good.

“Google image it! It’s one of the only skin diseases I’ve googled whose images are pretty well reflective of reality. What I had looked like most of the pictures that pop up—bright red spots crowded together against a backdrop of pale white skin.

“My psoriasis did start on my face, but it was nothing like you’re describing, which I hope helps you feel better. And since I realize that what I’ve written thus far probably in fact makes you feel worse, I’ll spare you the second thing you reminded me of. :)

“Now you can write a blog post on rules for being a good friend! When your friend tells you she’s worried she has something terrible going on, don’t talk to her about how it reminds you of this one time when you were worried about the same thing and it turned out to be true!! But… um, I think it’s a good story. And I really think you just have a dry patch on your forehead.”

Okay, it’s me again.  Anyway, as an update, I woke up this morning not looking any more like a lizard than I looked when I went to bed last night which is to say not like a lizard at all.  Except for the one spot on my face that has in fact gotten smaller.  So, lotion is the answer.  Also, I did google image guttate psoriasis and it looks terrible.  I was really taken aback by the number of photos focusing on people’s derrieres.  It looked in a few of them like maybe sitting would be out of the question?  I once had a rash on my ass that made it impossible for me to sit on my right buttcheek and I have to tell you it was wildly inconvenient.  That experience is the reason why I don’t get flu shots and also is a story for another day.  In summation, I am glad that I do not have guttate psoriasis and I feel badly that my friend Elizabeth had it especially during high school.  But I am kind of glad that I have this dry patch on my head which I subsequently wrote an anxiety-fueled blog post about only because I received that comment from Elizabeth which made me smile.  My friends are so great.

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Rules for Life

22 Jan

The other day I looked in the mirror and discovered that I have a weird red, scaly, dry patch just above my right eye.  It doesn’t hurt or itch or anything, it just looks a little weird.  Also, two days ago I accidentally scratched it and it was terrible.  I don’t really know what it is but I am pretty much convinced that it is going to take over my entire face, slowly at first and then more aggressively as it builds confidence.  I will go to sleep Rebekah and wake up the next morning in a new form:  LizardRebekah.  I was informed by my friend Beth that if I in fact turn into a lizard my cats will cease to recognize me and will probably eat me because cats eat lizards.  She knows this because she lives in Arizona.

Okay, okay, okay, so maybe I am overreacting.  But seriously, where did this thing come from?  I woke up one day and there it was!  So I did what I always do when something creepy happens, I broke one of my “Rules for Life.” There are, up until this point, only three Rules for Life although a new one can be added at any time.  I have actually been working on a rule concerning the consumption of airplane food (it should never be eaten!) but I haven’t managed to get the wording exactly how I want.  Anyway, the existing Rules are as follows:

1.  No fighting in the car or other places from which you cannot make a speedy escape.
2.  The nose is an out hole.  The only exception is for the use of Neti Pots and Nasonex.
3.  Never diagnose yourself using the internet because you pretty much always get diagnosed with some form of cancer.

Obviously, I broke the third Rule for Life.  I always, always, always break that rule.  It’s like, I simply can’t help myself.  One time* I ate beets and was convinced the next morning that the fact that my shit was a weird color was due to the fact that I was obviously dying from some sort of stomach cancer.  The internet agreed.  I wasn’t, obviously, but I really scared myself.  I was about halfway through dialing my parents’ house to tell them about my life-ending illness when I remembered dinner.  Come to think of it, I should probably make a rule about setting some sort of reminder following the consumption of beets.

Anyway, so I broke the rule and I started looking through WebMd and it doesn’t say anything about a dry skin patch slowly taking over my entire face, maybe even body, and morphing me into a lizard.  It mentions psoriasis which is scary but that doesn’t come on the face. It mostly impacts elbows and knees and hands and stuff.  Also, eczema.  Same thing.  So I have come to the conclusion that either I have a new, fatal skin disease that has never before been diagnosed or else it is just a dry skin patch caused by exposure to the elements.  I will put lotion on it and see what happens.  In the mean time, my cats will be locked in the closet.**

*I am being really generous saying this happened one time.  I think that this panic happens about 50% of the time that I eat beets.  Embarrassing, but true.

** I am totally kidding about that.  I love my cats, even if they do want to eat me.

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Rebekah vs. Rob, (Documented) Battle #2

17 Jan

So you know how sometimes on bad television shows one of the male characters will say something along the lines of “I could have any woman I want?”  And you think to yourself two things: (a) what a stupid line and (b) could you imagine if people actually said that?  Well you know what I found out a few weeks ago?  They do!  And it is just as ridiculous and amusing and untrue as you might assume!

So remember that time I wrote that blog that I never thought I would have had to write about bringing your own booze into the bar?  And how, you know, you probably shouldn’t bring your own booze into the bar?  Well, it just so happens that the star of that post is definitely my least favorite customer ever and might actually also hold the title of person I like least in the world.  Well, of the people I’ve met, that is.  So he gets to star in not one but two blog posts! His name is Rob.  Rob is just like, not nice.  He thinks he loves women but he actually hates us.  He doesn’t respect us, he thinks we are all stupid and, as I learned the other day, he thinks he is irresistible.  Men, am I right?

So my issues with this guy goes back years.  He is one of those guys who just harasses women.  He thinks he is god’s gift and therefore that anyone in possession of breasts and a vagina is lucky if he decides to give them the time of day.  Only the thing is, he is loud, obnoxious, and extremely fond of chanting which is something that I honestly thought went out of style when people outgrew fraternity membership.  Apparently I was wrong, again.  So, whatever, he incorrectly thinks he’s a ladies man.  Okay that wouldn’t be so bad except that whenever he is in my bar I have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he doesn’t make women uncomfortable.  As an aside, I think that the mark of a good bar is one in which women, either alone or in groups, feel safe and comfortable coming in and hanging out.  I love nothing more than to see a few single ladies at the bar, not out to meet anyone, just there to chat with the bartender or read their book or watch sports or whatever.  If you have women flying solo, I think you are doing something right.  At my bar, we do occasionally have women there alone and I really don’t want to lose that because some asshat decides that she is reading her book only to pass the time until he comes and impresses her with his wit, good looks, and intellect.  But that’s what Rob thinks.  Women are just going about their lives preparing for the moment when they meet him.  His excellence.  The sexiest and most awesome-est man alive.  It would be maddening if it weren’t so hilarious.

I could practically write a book about how much I don’t like Rob.  I have been hoping against hope that Rob would just melt away or at least move to the Bronx or something.  It seemed like no matter what he did — call me a cunt, annoy women enough that they mouthed the word “help” to me to get him away from them, ask for buybacks, try to sneak away without paying on the regular — he never seemed to get kicked out.  And then he snuck booze in and I was like “this is finally the moment!”  And he had the nerve to not only pretend he didn’t sneak booze in, but to subsequently go over my head and call my boss and tell her how unreasonable I was for accusing him of sneaking the booze in because he would never, ever do that.  Only he did do it.  I don’t like, go around the bar planting bottles of illicit vodka in the bags and coat pockets of people I don’t like.  I’m just observant. Anyway.  That was a lot of build up for the following story:

So last Thursday I approached the bar on my way to start my night shift and I heard it.  From the street.  The voice.  The chanting and the yelling and the general obnoxiousness.  I walked into the bar, happily greeting the people I enjoy (which, honestly, is like 95% of the people) and then I arrived at him and he was  all “hello, Rebekah” in a tone that made it abundantly clear that he felt like he could do whatever the fuck he wanted and I just stared back.  I then proceeded behind the bar and told my coworkers that, after 8pm when I took over, he was not getting served because he was the ass who brought his own liquor in.  They both essentially responded with the same thing:

It was that guy?!?  I wish I had known because he is such a fucking douchebag.

Eventually he came up to the bar to order a drink from me.   I told him he wasn’t getting served.  A heated conversation followed which I will not recount for you.  He then had the nerve to walk over to my coworker and order a drink from her, in secret, because obviously I would never notice.  Except what he didn’t know is that when I am working I have super sonic hearing!  (Also, she told me.)

Me:  You tried to order a drink from my coworker? What part of you are not getting served do you not understand?
Rob:  I did not.
Me:  You are such a liar!  She just told me you did and also, I heard you.  You know what? Just leave.  You know where the door is.

But I guess he didn’t actually know where the door was because he wouldn’t leave.  He wouldn’t leave because he is a fucking idiot who thinks that the world was made for him.  And then he tried to argue with me about it which is never a good idea.  Not only do I hold a grudge, and not only do I never forget when people are disrespectful shitbags to me and the place I work, but I also HATE when I ask politely for someone to leave and they fight about it.  This is my house, motherfucker.  Get out of my face.  But oh, he spends so much money in the bar and he has been coming for years and how dare I and all the other shit.  I decided to spell it out for him.  I explained to him exactly why I don’t want him in the bar.  Not only did he bring his own booze in, but he lied about it and tried to get me in trouble.  He called me a cunt and a bitch a few years back for standing up for one of the many women he harassed over the years.  He feels entitled to buybacks and whenever we have new bartenders he always tries to take advantage of them.  He chases customers out with this chanting and his general obnoxiousness and, oh yea, he always tries to walk away without paying for his drinks.  He got very caught up on the part about harassing women and that’s when he said it.

I could have any woman in the world I want.

I think that I actually might have spit in his face accidentally when I explosively laughed.  Seriously.  It was SO funny.  I then responded with probably my favorite line that I have ever said ever in my entire life:

There are 13 women in the bar right now and only one of them would fuck you and she is your fiance.  I am still trying to figure out how much you paid her to agree to that arrangement.

Meanwhile, his poor fiance was sitting at the end of the bar by herself waiting for him to stop parading around the bar with this stupid trophy that he had won for winning in fantasy football.  I told him that he should just stop making an ass of himself and leave and maybe he should speak to his fiance who he had not acknowledged the entire time she sat at the end of the bar waiting for his sorry ass.  He then said the following thing:

Rob:  Why don’t you talk to her?  I talk to her every day.
Me:  You’re engaged to her!  Jesus, what is wrong with you?!

He then, and I kid you not, asked my coworker out on a date.  While his fiance was sitting like 4 stools away.  And when my coworker said “I thought you were engaged” he actually had the nerve to say “who told you that?”

It’s like, what?!  These people exist?  And they walk around amongst us as if they are normal?!  Man oh man.  Eventually he left.  But not until he gave me a piece of his itsy-bitsy mind.  It took me from like 8 to about 10:30 to get his sorry ass out the door.  He just wouldn’t leave because he thinks he is entitled to be anywhere he fucking pleases.  Oh and, in the meantime, he tried calling, texting and facetiming my boss from the backyard while she was downstairs in the office to bitch about how I wouldn’t serve him.  Being in a room with this guy and his overly inflated ego should be considered a form of torture.  No joke.

Luckily for you this story has a happy ending.  He again called me a cunt (people love that word) and he is no longer welcome in the bar.  As far as I know, anyway.  This guy has like 9 miserable lives so I’m fairly certain he will weasel his way back in which means more stories for you!  Finally, Rob comes in handy.

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That Time I Looked like Groucho Marx.

15 Jan

When I was in grade school I got this assignment to write an essay about a word.  Just one single word that each of us were able to pick.  I picked the word “hate.”  I picked the word hate because I used it all the time in all sorts of different occasions.  To describe my feelings about steak and asparagus, about this kid in my class who told me I had a mustache (thanks for years of insecurity, asshole), about the three weeks in school when we had to line dance in gym class.  My grandma, Bama to us, always said to me, “Bekahboo, hate is a very strong word.  Just say that you dislike line dancing in gym class very strongly.”  I tried it.  It lacked a certain, how you say, panache.*  So being a stubborn jerk sort of since birth, I decided I would write about hate and prove Bama wrong.

In the process of writing the paper, I realized that Bama was right.  Damnit.  In order to hate someone, like really actually hate them, you have to dehumanize them.  It’s what I always come back to whenever I read about the horrible things people do to other people.  In order to treat someone terribly and feel no remorse, you have to hate them.  You have to think of them as somehow less valuable, less human.  It is an emotion I never want to really, truly feel.  I never want to get to a point in my life where I dislike someone so intensely that I am able to cause them extreme pain, be it physical or emotional.  I don’t ever want my heart to go there.  But I think that for me, coming to an understanding about the word hate has been helpful, especially considering that I got both my undergraduate and graduate degrees in international affairs.  I spent a lot of my time, and still do actually, reading about how people are shitheads.  The only way for me to grapple with some of the truly awful things people are capable of was to put it in the context of that long ago written paper.  It doesn’t make my stomach not turn, or make me not want to throw my computer against the wall, but it offers up a starting point and I guess that is something.

So the whole point of this was not to give you a rundown of my fifth grade assignment (or whenever it was), although to be fair I would love to read that paper now.  (Hey, mom, do you think it is in one of those cardboard boxes of things from my yoot?)  Maybe if I find it I will even type it out on my blog somewhere for all of our amusement.  I will even leave in all spelling errors and grammar issues.  I think it could be fun.  I really hope that somewhere in the paper I talk about the kid who told me I had a mustache.  I am actually still mad at him about that despite the fact that I haven’t seen him since my high school graduation, lo these many years ago.  I hold a grudge.  Learned that from Bama, also.  Kids can be really mean, you know?  The mustache thing is actually a funny story.  So there I was, with a ridiculously thick head full of hair (as I still have today), and no idea that I looked like a young, female Groucho Marx.  And this jerk came up to me and was all

“Rebekah has a mustache, Rebekah has a mustache!”

And so I said,

“Whatever, idiot, only boys have mustaches!”

And I ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and *gasp!* there is was!  I spent the rest of the day walking around the school trying in vain to cover my face from my mouth to my nose.  Obviously, I looked foolish.  I didn’t want to talk to my mom about it because she had red hair and clearly knew nothing from mustaches so I went to the source:  the Frank side of the family.  We all have dark hair and, I would venture to guess, we all have a little ‘stache going on.  Except maybe for my sister.  I feel like my sister does not have a mustache.  Anyway, so I went and I talked to Bama and my Aunt Mindy about it and they told me to bleach it.  Of course, they didn’t realize how explicit they had to be, or how good I have always been at pretending like I know what someone is talking about, because I thought that I had to take Clorox to my face and that sounded like a terrible idea. I wasn’t a stupid kid.  There was no way in hell I was putting that shit anywhere near my mouth.  So instead I suffered through another few years of looking like Groucho until at the pharmacy I discovered Sally Hansen bleach.  So that’s what they meant. I bought some and for the next few years instead of having a dark mustache, I had one that was blondeish-orangeish that really showed up in the sun.  So, that was pretty fun.

Anyway, I wax it myself now.  Sometimes.  At this point in my life I don’t really give a shit about it.  It’s hair.  It isn’t going to like, jump off my face and gouge someone’s eye out or anything (although that would be an amazing super-hero power).  And actually, I don’t think it’s even all that bad.  There is this old lady on my street with a SERIOUS mustache and I gotta tell ya, I think she is sort of amazing for just not giving a shit.  I like to imagine that if I was as great as her when I was in grade school I’d look at that kid and be all,

“Yea, well you don’t have a mustache.  Prepubescent wuss.”

And then I would secretly have a complex but at least he would have one also.  Until he went through puberty and started growing facial hair and then found me in the hallway and rubbed his creepy little boy mustache in my face.  Not literally, of course.  I guess by that point I would have already discovered the bleach, AKA facial hair highlighter.  And I’m sure he would have found something else to pick on me about.  I feel like he used to pick on me a lot. Not often, but he would just kind of materialize out of nowhere and say something mean that would stick with me and then he would disappear again. Like the time it was hot in school and I was wearing a long-sleeved grey shirt and I had some sweat in my armpits and he came over and was like “you have sweaty arm pits!”   And I was like “so?” because that was all I could think of and then he laughed in my face and then for years I was afraid of wearing long-sleeved shirts.  Whatever, my body is very efficient at cooling itself.  Fuck you.

Well, this blog post went in a surprising direction.  I’m not actually sure how to tie this whole thing together because not only do I not hate the guy who used to poke fun at me growing up, I don’t really even dislike him very strongly.  I’m just a little mad at him.  He was just an asshole kid who, odds are, grew up to be a very nice adult.  I wonder if the internet knows.  Rabbit hole, here I come.

*Did you know that in Canada they use the word panache to describe antlers?  Or as a synonym for antlers?  Or something?  I love writing.  Always learn such interesting and largely useless things about words.  Oftentimes that you have been using them wrong.  Kind of like my use of panache.

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The Day I was Visited at Work by an MRA

9 Jan

The interaction described in this blog was actually worse than I have made out here but I just don’t have the energy to be sufficiently outraged right now.  (Also at a certain point I simply quit listening.)  So this watered-down version will have to do.

Right now I have a half marathon to train for which has been difficult considering that the weather has made Tuesday, my long run day, the day that it wants to express itself through snow and rain and polar vortexes.  I also have an article to write for an online magazine thing that I have known about for months and yet only just started because I love to procrastinate.  It is due on Saturday.  And I have to work tonight until 4am and I am going to visit my aunts in the Poconos for the weekend.  Obviously, all of this means that this is the perfect time for me to write a blog.

As it turns out, the weather doesn’t only like to arrive on my long run days, it also likes to rear its ugly head during my shifts.  I was working during the recent snow storm AND the night the polar vortex…vortexed.  My bar has high ceilings and not well reinforced windows and doors, so it gets a bit nippy in there when it’s cold out and there isn’t enough body heat to warm the room (AKA when I have barely any customers).  So, my bosses, being Nice People, texted me on Monday afternoon to tell me that if it was super slow and also insanely cold I could close early.  It was both of those things and so I did but not before I had a very annoying conversation with a customer who before I could care less about but now I actually think is a dipshit.

Okay, that’s not exactly accurate.  I started thinking he was a dipshit about a month ago when my boss told me that he had pulled her aside and said that he was very upset because he drinks at the bar all the time and never gets a buyback.

……… <—- Those dots refer to what happened in my brain after she told me that.

In case you forgot about how fucked it is to ask for a buyback, I refer you to my first tip on how to properly drink in a bar.  Anyway, he went on about how he owns a business and yadda yadda yadda he is a good customer and he doesn’t really care but he just felt like he should say something.  Well, here’s the thing about that.  Dude doesn’t ever really talk to us, he’s a little snippy, he generally only has three drinks and when I buy someone a drink I generally do their fourth, and actually I HAVE given him buybacks.  At least 1/2 dozen times.  Just out of courtesy because he comes in often.  Obviously he just never noticed despite the fact that when I give buybacks I always say “I got that one for you.”  So, whatever.  He is never getting another buyback because obviously he doesn’t appreciate it.  So, resulting from that conversation I thought he was sort of a dipshit.  But then he came in on Monday feeling chatty and now I can never look at him the same.

This past Monday was the Auburn vs FSU football game for some championship or another.  Honestly, I don’t really know from football.  It involved a lot of someone passing the ball and then observers thinking one team was going to win then all of a sudden someone got the ball and ran for a really long time and TOUCHDOWN!  Anyway, after the game ended and all my other customers cleared out except for this one guy he asked me what I thought about the game.  I told him I didn’t really think much about it at all except that I had a hard time getting behind an FSU win considering Jameis Winston was the star quarterback and that watching him get interviewed on TV after the win, when he was never interviewed after he was accused of raping a classmate, made me kind of sick.  I know, I know, I shouldn’t have said anything.  I should have just kept my mouth shut and just said I could care less about college football.  I should have because I know all too well that there are people sneaking around among us who immediately assume that every single rape accusation against a beloved sports figure or a respected businessman/politician is clearly bullshit, or that the woman’s sexual history made a rape impossible.  Obviously the first thing that he brought up, the first thing that all fucking people bring up, is that false rape allegation against the Duke lacrosse team back in 2006.  Seriously, as if it wasn’t hard enough for women already, Crystal Gail Mangum had to go and give people a well-publicized example of how sinister women are.  When he brought that story up I was pretty sure I was in for it.  I told him that false rape accusations are incredibly rare and although I feel badly that those three lacrosse players got caught up in that whole thing and had their names smeared the result has not been for me to assume that every subsequent rape accusation I hear about is bullshit.  He then asked me if I was a feminist.  He said the word feminist as if he had just accidentally eaten his own feces.  I said that I was.  He then went into a whole long diatribe about how he thinks feminism is bullshit because he hates that women think they are equal to men and blah blah blah.  He was SO mad about the word “equal.”  So I said in my best ‘I am trying not to poke you in the eye with this drink straw’ voice,

“Listen, do I understand that men and women have different physical qualities?  Yes.  Does that mean that I don’t think that men and women should be treated equally under the law?  Should have access to the same opportunities?  Should be equally respected within society?  Should be held to the same standards of humanity?  No.  Me having a vagina and you having a penis does not mean that I should somehow be considered lesser by the law or society or anything.”

That didn’t really do the trick.  He kept spitting the word “equal” at me and making “what about the men” type comments.  I started reorganizing the napkin caddy.  Sometimes, people are so bullheaded that is just isn’t worth it.  Sometimes, you would just rather close the bar and tell your friend the new cheesy joke your dad texted you that very morning.

What does the baby computer call its father?
Data.

Happy Thursday, everyone.  Now it’s back to writing or running or procrastinating.  Here’s to hoping I don’t get anymore visits from buyback-requesting men’s rights activists.

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