Some People are Super Weird About Their Dogs

4 Feb

I would like to preface this post by saying that I like dogs just as much as the next gal.  I had this really cute little guy named Buckwheat when I was growing up and I loved him.  Well, I loved him until he got a tumor in his head that was pressing on the personality part of his brain and he subsequently went from loveable and stupid to menacing and growly basically over night.  I guess I still loved him, but I loved him more at arms length than up close.  Anyway, I like dogs.  Dogs are nice.  I have some dogs that I like better than other dogs.  My friend Liz has a really nice dog.  Also, Monica’s dog.  Those are good dogs.  You know what?  I don’t even know why I am talking about dogs because this is actually more a post about dog owners than it is about dogs.  And really only about certain dog owners.  Okay.

So today I was walking to the train to go to my friend Dee’s house to do some school work.  I decided to pop into a cafe and grab a cup of coffee.  When I got about a block away from the cafe this father-daughter duo made a left off of a side street onto 4th Avenue.  The girl was little, probably like 3 years old, and she had a monster cough.  Also, she was talking about how she was cold.  I caught up with them and as I passed them I noticed that the dad was holding something under his jacket.  I figured this something was another child.  Upon closer inspection I came to realize that what he had nestled inside of his coat was a small dog.  That’s weird, right?  I mean, this man had a choice.  He has a cold and cough-y little daughter, and he has a small dog.  He certainly can’t fit both of them in his jacket.  So he thought to himself,

“I am worried about my small dog’s precious little feet and so I am going to allow my daughter to face the elements while I protect this animal that is essentially WEARING A FUR COAT from the wind.”

That seems like someone who maybe should check his priorities to me.  Also, if I were that little girl I would totally hate that dog because it is obvious that her dad loves the dog more than her.  I hope he is putting away money for her future therapy.

And then this other thing I have been seeing a lot of recently.  Strollers for dogs.  That’s right.  Strollers for dogs.  I was walking up 6th Avenue on my way to the library when I saw this woman with this pretty wide blue stroller thing that was taking up way too much of the sidewalk.  Something about the stroller seemed weird to me and then I realized it was because it was less of a traditional stroller and more of a mesh cage on wheels with all these pink squishy pillows inside of it and a dog looking around.  So there are a few things I have to say about this.  Who the hell buys a stroller for their dog?  Also, how did this woman walk down the street, taking herself and her life seriously, while pushing her dog in a stroller like a weirdo?  And finally, I am pretty sure that the point of strollers is so that when you have small children who either can’t walk yet or can’t walk quickly, you can make your life easier by putting them in the stroller and pushing them around while you go about your day.  The point here being that without the stroller, you would either have to carry your child or else walk super slow at kind of an odd angle because you are trying to hold your kid’s hand and your kid is small.  Seems like back pain in the making to me.  But strollers to me don’t look like things that I would particularly enjoy pushing around.  They are kind of big, they sometimes don’t maneuver well, they have to be carried up and down stairs, other people find them annoying especially when they are those obnoxious double-wide things that take up all of the space in the world.  Strollers are not great, but they make a pretty inconvenient thing – doing stuff with a person with short legs and a shorter attention span – easier.  Dogs, though, can walk.  And, actually, they can walk quite quickly.  They basically can walk like, right out of the womb.  They are born, their mom gets the goo off, and then they walk around.  There’s no stopping them!  So why would you make something that is pretty easy – walking around the city with a furry animal that also walks – more difficult by putting said animal in a stroller and then pushing the stroller?  The dog can walk!  The dog probably likes walking!  Why are you pushing it in a stroller?!  Unnecessary.

And then this one other thing that I don’t have a tirade about just a lot of confusion.  So, there is this lady who I see walking her dogs and one of her dogs has this contraption on it that sort of looks like what I imagine a pack mule would wear.  It is bright orange (for easy seeing?) and it has these little pockets on the sides where I assume one can put things.  Only the lady also has a bag with, I would imagine, things in it.  So what is this contraption?  And what is inside of it?  One day I am going to ask her.

So yea.  People are weird about their dogs.   Also, they spend a lot of money on buying their dogs things that the dogs could really care less about.  Basically, the dog wants to chew a bone, eat some snacks, poo, run around, piss on a tree, and smell your crotch or the butt of another dog.  That’s it.  It’s an easy life.  So just let the dog be a dog and stop being weird and acting like the thing can’t walk around on its own.  Also, don’t pull a Leona Helmsley and leave a $12 million trust fund for your dog.

The end.

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Sometimes I Feel Like the Joke is on Me

29 Jan

To my squeamish readers:  I am about to write about my period.  So if you are too immature to handle it, stop reading now.  But probably don’t tell me that because next time I see or speak to you I will mock you.  That is a promise.

Sometimes I think my period is a cosmic joke.  Or, I guess, sometimes I hope it’s a cosmic joke because then I can assume that someone, somewhere is finding it funny because I most certainly am not.  Ever.  (When I figure out who is laughing at my pain there will be hell to pay!)

Mostly the whole thing just sucks.

My period has always been heavy and long.  Right when I think it couldn’t possibly get heavier or longer, it does.  It plays tricks on me.  For days before it actually starts, it pretends like it is starting.  A little blood here, a little blood there and then suddenly BAM!  There it is.  There it is and there it stays for the next 6-7 days of torture.  And then maybe it doesn’t completely go away for another day or so, just to twist the knife a little.  My period, in short, is a jerk.

So today, day 4, my period was like

“yea, I think basically I have finished depleting you of 50% of your blood so I’m gonna slow my roll a little.”

In response I decided to follow the directions in my box of tampons which instructs me, in roughly these words, to just use the smallest absorbancy tampon that is appropriate for my flow.  Okay.  I assessed and I downgraded.  And what happens?  My period gets heavier.  It’s as if it knows.  It’s all,

“Psych! You think I would let you get away without ruining any of your underwear?  Without staining any of your jeans?  Well, wait till you get a load of this!”

ZOOM!

Inevitably, this happened when I was out running errands.  There I was, in the pet store, looking for cat food when all of a sudden I thought to myself,

“Wait, is that…?  Is it…? Oh you have got to be kidding me!”

Quick!  Pay for the food!  Stop making that weird face!  Don’t walk like you have a pole shoved up your ass!  Just walk quickly and calmly back to the house.  It can smell your fear and it will fuck with you.

Luckily I made it with limited muss and fuss but with an extreme amount of resentment directed at my period.  It’s as if it’s a highly competitive athlete that wants to outdo its last performance.  Like my period and I are on different teams and it takes my handling of it as motivation to do better next time.  Go big or go home, it thinks.

Recently, it’s decided that the heavy bleeding is not quite enough so it’s added cramps.  Bad ones.  I mean, not so bad that I can’t get out of bed in the morning, but bad enough that when I am standing up, I can feel my lower abdomen throbbing and the only way to deal with it is to bend at the hip at about a 60 degree angle.  I know that’s the best way to deal with it because my cramp day always, 100% of the time, comes when I am working, and I work on my feet so I get a good amount of practice.  I only work 3 days a week and I generally only have one day of cramps but that day always, always, always falls on one of my three days behind the bar.  So there I am, conspicuously leaning on the bar and grimacing.  I’m sure I make a very welcoming impression on customers.  Sometimes I want to look at people and be like

“I don’t usually stand like this!  Or make this face!  It’s not my fault!  I am dying of blood loss!”

But that would be weird and would probably scare a lot of people away.  So I just take more Advil.

One thing I can say about my period, although don’t tell it I said this because then it will somehow change its stripes, is that it doesn’t really effect my mood all that much.  I don’t become any more bitchy or snarky or quick-tempered than I usually am.  I also don’t become terribly emotional.  I suffer alone and in silence.

At least one time during the week of uterin-purging I think to myself,

“If there was a god, he* wouldn’t let this suffering continue.”

But then I realize that no, he probably would, because he wouldn’t get it.  He’d be thinking that he had to deal with having a random erection during heath class or the time his voice changed in the middle of his 7th grade presentation of Lord of the Flies.  He’d be thinking that anyone can deal with a little bit of blood every once in a while.  He’d be thinking that we ladies get to experience the miracle of childbirth.  Well, god, if you’re really there, I would like to refer you to the UberFact I read the other day that said

“Giving birth is the second most painful thing a human can experience — the first is being burned alive.”

Miracle of childbirth my ass.  So god, if you’re there and you’re laughing, if you find this funny, I will hunt you down and kick you in the nuts.  We’ll see who’s laughing then.

*I use the pronoun “he” because if god were a woman, this shit never would have happened in the first place.  She would have been like

“Bleeding for days on end?  Cramps?  Mood swings?  Water retention?  Oh, hell no.”

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The Invisible War: it’s so much scarier than you think

24 Jan

*This post has been edited to reflect some very useful feedback.

Just as a warning:  I don’t know too much about military parlance so if I called something by the wrong name, I apologize, this sort of thing is slightly outside my area of expertise.  Also, I am not speaking critically about those who choose a career in the military or those who serve for a shorter period of time.  I am simply criticizing the lack of accountability within the military structure when it comes to issues of rape and sexual assault.  I thought women had it bad in this respect in the civilian world but man oh man was I wrong.  Read on if you feel so inclined.

I can think of at least a dozen times over the past few years when I’ve said, in conversation with someone about equal treatment for women, that if there is a draft women should be drafted along side men.  Would I want to be drafted?  Hell no.  Violence scares me.  Guns scare me.  Basic training scares me.  The way I know I would react to authorities yelling at me scares me.  All of that aside I always thought, honestly believed, that women fought for a really long time (in fact, we are still fighting) for equal treatment and that means we have to take the good with the bad.  Along with a desire for equal pay for equal work, we should be required to defend our country if need be.  We should be drafted.  So you would think that when I got a New York Times alert on my phone this afternoon that said “Pentagon Lifts Ban on Women Serving in Combat Roles” I would be happy.  Well, not happy, but relieved.  Well…placated.  Yea, I think placated.  But I wasn’t.  I was angry.

This past Tuesday my friend Dee and I went to the Film Society of Lincoln Center to see “The Invisible War.”  The film was temporarily re-released in anticipation of the Oscars for which “The Invisible War” was nominated in the documentary category.  I had been really interested to see it which makes sense since, I recently discovered, I pretty much only read about sexual assault and urban farming. (Only a slight exaggeration.  I also read whatever happens to be in the New Yorker.)  Anyway, “The Invisible War” is an investigative documentary about the instances, and handling (or lack thereof), of rape and sexual assault in the US military.  Now I knew going into it that it wasn’t handled well (when is it, for crying out loud) but I was not prepared for what I saw.  Not even close.  Just to give you an idea, the movie was 1 hour and 37 minutes long and I probably cried for about 1 hour and 27 minutes of that.  It was, to put it lightly, horrifying.  Honestly, the movie was incredibly done but I just could not wait for it to be over.  I just sat there and watched the women and men they interviewed go back over the most painful experiences of their lives and I can tell you that watching them speak, I realized that I don’t think I actually know what pain is.  What injustice is.  I have never experienced pain or injustice even close to what the victims in this film did and do every day.  How they get out of bed in the morning after what they went through, after what they continue to go through, is an incredible feat.  And the thing is, that the fight they are fighting seems almost hopeless.

According to “The Invisible War,” since women were allowed to serve in the military, there have been at least 500,000 rapes and sexual assaults.  500,000.  And in the overwhelming majority of those cases, there has been no significant investigation, no conviction.  These men, these monsters, continue to serve in the military and in at least one case, receive an honor for service while their rape charge was being argued within the military justice system.  How?  How is that possible?  How is it possible that an act so vile is just ignored over and over again?  That the victim is dishonorably discharged, or discharged for medical reasons stemming from her attack, and the predator is allowed to continue to serve, continue to prey.  And then that predator is released into the civilian population and you’d better believe he continues to prey there.  These are the people that are supposed to protect.  How can we send them into other countries to fight, to represent the United States, when they are drugging and raping their fellow soldiers, when they are hitting a fellow soldier so hard across the face that she has to stay on a soft diet for years, when they are calling a fellow soldier “the walking mattress” because of the amount of times she has been raped.  Who are we that we let this continue to happen within an organization that should make us proud? Whose members we trust to behave in a respectful, or at the very least humane, manner?

So when I read that article this afternoon, I didn’t feel as though another level of equality had been reached, I felt sickened and afraid.  All I could think about when I read that headline was that the more units women can serve in in this current military system, the more women will be raped, their lives destroyed.  Rape in the military, according to the military, is something that happens.  It is something that needs to be prevented by forcing women to have buddies when walking through their own barracks at night so they don’t get attacked.  It is prevention aimed at women.  It is the women’s responsibility to make sure they don’t put themselves in a dangerous situation.  It’s not about the men being told that rape is wrong.  What are women supposed to do when a man, their superior, breaks into their room and rapes them on their own bed?  When they are told that if they speak out they will be killed?  When rape is considered “an occupational hazard” of joining the armed forces?  It makes me sick.

So now I have to change my tune.  You know what?  I do still think that, ideally, women should be drafted alongside men if a draft is required.  I think women should be welcome in every single unit in the armed forces.  But a lot of things have to change before that.  Rape in the military needs to be taken seriously by the military, by the government, by the country.  Rape cases need to be tried outside of the military so there is accountability and transparency.  Rapists need to be held accountable for their actions because if they continue to get away with it, what reason do they have to ever stop?  And rape victims need to be treated as such, as victims.  Whether they be male or female, they need justice to be served.  They need proper medical, emotional and psychological support and treatment.  They need to know it was not their fault.  So until women are treated as equal…no, fuck that.  Until women are treated as human beings by the military as a whole, I am not in support of women in combat roles.  I am not in support of women in any role at all.  And that’s not because I think women are incapable, quite the opposite.  Women are incredibly capable of doing just about anything men can do.  It’s because I think that the patriarchal system within which our military sits quite nicely is not fit to offer women what they need:  protection and respect.  If we put our life on the line for this country, then the least you can do is promise us that we will not be raped by those with whom we serve.  Or, if not that because some evil seeps into every organization, at least promise us that if we are raped, justice will be done.  Promise us we will get the support and protection we deserve.  Until then, you don’t deserve our loyalty.  You don’t deserve our bodies on the front lines.  You don’t deserve women.

(You all should see “The Invisible War.”  Bring tissues.  And maybe a punching bag.)

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Tip #4 on Being a Good Bar Customer

21 Jan

If you haven’t already and want to, or if you have already and really love them and want to again, you can read Tip #1, Tip #2 and Tip#3 here.  Also, trigger warning, this is a bitter post.  Clearly, 4 days and 4 bar shifts later I am still pissed about this one.

Okay so here’s the thing about bartending.  For the most part, unless you work in a corporate spot or a fancy hotel or something, you don’t actually get paid.  For example, I work 3 days a week, for about 9 hours per shift if you count the time setting up before and cleaning up after.  That means that, for those among us who are math challenged, I work 54 hours every two weeks.  (And in case you were wondering yes, I did pull up my computer calculator to make sure my multiplication was right.  Sad, isn’t it?)  And every two weeks I receive a paycheck for roughly $94.94, give or take.  That means that I make, after taxes, about $1.78 an hour.  I have a pretty cheap living situation and a relatively frugal approach to life, but even I cannot make living on $189.88 a month, or $2278.56 a year, work.  Hence, TIPS.

So, TIPS.  Why do I put it in capital letters?  Because it is actually an acronym (oh, don’t we love those GPIA friends?) which stands for To Insure Proper Service.  It’s sort of like an incentive structure.  The idea is that when you come into a bar, the bartender is not going to burp in your face or spit in your drink because if they do so they will not receive any money on top of the meager hourly wage.  It’s a way for the customer to show his or her appreciation for the level of attention and service as well as the overall quality of the beverage and experience.  This all being said there are some people who don’t leave a gratuity and not for any reason other than the fact that they are assholes.  Let me tell you a story.

So there is this little blonde pipsqueak that comes into the bar sometimes.  (Let it be known that normally I wouldn’t feel the need to mention much about her appearance or stature except that I just think she is such an ass that I cannot help myself.)  She is one of those women who, 20 years from now, will have a mouth pucker as if she has been sucking on a lemon since she came out of the womb.  She has been nothing but  unpleasant every single time she comes into the bar and not just to me, but to other customers and to one of the owners.  One time, for example, she made a huge stink about how I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (actually, it was almond butter and fig preserves but no need to split hairs) behind the bar.  Not in front of her face but off to the side.  She made this face as if I was sitting there with a cat turd sandwich and spitting bits of shit all over her.  Rather than just quietly get up and move to a table or say something like “I’m sorry, not to be rude but I just don’t love the smell of peanut butter so I’m going to sit over there at that table” she gave me a ridiculous stink eye and said, very loudly and dripping with disdain, “UGH!  I just cannot STAND the smell of peanut butter.  I can’t even SIT here.  Gross!”  And shot me a nasty look over her shoulder as she retreated to the corner.  Honestly, if I knew it was that easy to get rid of her I would have brought a PB&J far earlier.

So, yea, she’s a bitch.  Not only is she a bitch but she is also a non-tipper.  I’m not talking like, she orders three drinks and leaves a buck, which is rude and also cheap, but she literally leaves nothing except for the lingering stink of her bad attitude.  This past Thursday she came in and stood right in front of the bar chatting – or should I say bitching loudly – to her friend (does she actually have those?  Incredible.) about something I could really care less about.  I saw she was in the middle of something, I know she is a bitch, so I figured I would walk away for 30-45 seconds, maybe a minute, let her finish up her conversation so I am not imposing but also not make her wait long enough that she gets all huffy about the bad service which, honestly, is the only level of service she deserves.  I came back to where she was standing and said, in as sweet a voice I could muster (I got confirmation that I was nothing but nice.  Maybe I have a career in acting in my future?),

“Hey ladies, can I get you anything?”

She looked at me, looked back at her friend, rolled her eyes and spat,

“Ugh.  I guess I’ll have a Jack and Coke.”

Okay, so first of all, it’s not like I was out of line interrupting her.  She was standing at the bar.  If what she was talking about was so important, why didn’t she just stand a little further away from the bar, signalling to me that she was planning on ordering a drink but wasn’t ready just at that moment.  Also, why the attitude?  Whatever.  I made her drink, brought it back over and said,

“That’ll be seven dollars, please.”

She reached into her wallet, took out exactly seven dollars, a 5 dollar bill and two singles, dropped them on the bar and walked away.  No thank you. No smile.  No tip.   Fine, whatever.  I walked over to my boss and friend (same person!  Ain’t I lucky?), and was like

“Bitch didn’t even tip.  What is her deal??”

To which my boss responded,

“Oh, her?  Please, she never tips.”

The night continues.  Little pipsqueak decides she needs another drink and orders two things from my boss because this time she was ready THE SECOND SHE WALKED UP TO THE BAR AND GOD FORBID SHE HAD TO WAIT MORE THAN 5 SECONDS WHILE I MADE A DRINK FOR SOMEONE ELSE which, together, added up to $11.  We have a $12 minimum on credit cards (I know, it’s illegal, blah blah blah shut up I’ve heard it before) but usually when people get close to the minimum like that we let it slide because we are nice and accommodating and when you do nice things for people they remember and come back and that’s good for you and the bar.  Double win.  So, the girl left the tab open.  About an hour later she decided she couldn’t possibly stay a second longer and had to close her tab right then.  Upon seeing that I was, again, doing my job and making drinks for other people because (a) that’s how I make my money and (b) it was a Thursday night and sort of busy, she did a huge eye roll and said, not muttered,

“Ugh, seriously?”

(I got confirmation of said utterance from an observing customer who was a neutral party.)  My boss noticed the pipsqueak, notice her stankface, and swept in to run her card for her.  She went, in my opinion, above and beyond the call of duty and ran the pipsqueak’s card for the $11 total, rather than adding the one buck to reach the minimum.  Upon relating to the girl that she had in essence done her a favor the girl looked at her, did not smile, and then said,

“Oh, well in that case I’ll tip you.”

Okay, I’m sorry what?!  Seriously bitch, what is your damage?  Who says something like that?  Not tipping is bad enough, but lording your tip money over someone is just so incredibly rude and unwarranted.  I mean, if I were one of her “friends” I would be so massively embarassed to go anywhere with her that involved being served by someone.  I mean, I serve but I am by no means a servant and I am also a human being and a relatively smart one at that so maybe you should check yourself.  Also, you had better believe that I am planning on telling each and every one of my co-workers about this just so that there is never a buyback given, not ever, not once.  I am vindictive and I hold grudges.  Get ready for it, pipsqueak.

So here’s the thing.  Tipping is obviously better than not tipping, especially when the service you get is good.  But not tipping does not necessarily make you an asshole, it just makes you uneducated to the appropriate ways to behave when you are in a social environment involving a bartender, a server or any other manner of person helping you between your current state, without food or drink, and the state you aspire to be in, drinking and/or eating something delicious.  There is never an excuse for being an asshole when you are treated like a human being.  Ever.  So, if you don’t tip and are nice, I will forgive you although I won’t give you things for free.  If you don’t tip and are an asshole, or if you don’t tip and then make a huge fucking statement about how you are tipping on the rare occasion that you do so in order to make it known that you are an entitled, cheap fuck, then you should never leave your house and you certainly shouldn’t come into my bar.

And so, to the pipsqueak, I would like to let you know that the other day on my way to work I saw you and your boyfriend (who is also an asshole, for those who are wondering) I was about halfway to tripping you so you fell right on your face and crushed your hand under your comically large law book but I decided to be the bigger person.  So, you’re welcome.

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Roe v Wade is 40!

17 Jan

I spend a lot of time on this blog writing about how, sometimes, being a woman really sucks.  I wrote about it here, when I talked about street harassment.  And again here, when I discussed this recent tragedy in Delhi.  And then here and here and here, when I went on about how much certain politicians and real estate moguls are complete asshats.  And, for one last example, here in a discussion of a particularly off-putting experience I had while bartending one Friday night.  Honestly, those are only a choice few, feel free to go adventuring through the rest of my blog for a few more fun examples.  Being female in this world is like constant fodder for me and this blog.  In fact, my first ever post on this blog was inspired by the fact that I am in possession of breasts and a vagina.  Without those things, who knows whether this blog ever would have come into existence!  Along those lines, I would like more than anything to weigh in on this whole Manti Te’o disaster and how disgraceful it is, as was pointed out by Melinda Henneburger here and here, that Notre Dame and the entire country got so riled up over the death of a fake person while, 2 years ago, the death of a real girl, Lizzy Seeberg, went almost completely unnoticed.  The same university machine that has used its resources and soap box to paint Manti Te’o as a victim – which maybe he is (either that or he is unstable and still deserves support) – claimed that Lizzy Seeberg falsely accused a different football player of sexual assault, a player who never sat out a day of practice following her accusal and IN FACT was not interviewed until 5 days after her death which was 10 days after the assault allegedly* occurred.  But I’m not going to write about that today.  Today is different.  Today I am going to use this opportunity, the 4oth anniversary of Roe v Wade, to talk about why I think being a woman, and specifically a woman in America, is awesome.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have now been sitting here staring at my computer for about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to proceed.

Okay.  Here goes.

I love the fact that when I was in school, every sport had to either have a team specifically for men and one for women, or, if there was no women’s team available, women had to be allowed to play with the men, or vice versa.  Granted, there were no female football players or male field hockey players, but the option was there.  Also, our football team sucked and so our sports heroes, as much as we had any really, were the members of the women’s varsity soccer team.  They kicked ass.

I love the fact that I can vote, can drive a car, can live on my own, can walk around with my head held high, making eye contact willy-nilly (but not with people who look like maybe they are crazy and want to (a) attack me or (b) get me to sign some sheet supporting environmental rights and just give them my credit card number right there on 5th Avenue!  Yea right.  Whaddayou think I am, stupid?).

I love the fact that when I was little and swore off skirts and dresses my mom, and society at large, was totally cool with me wearing sweatshirts with “Mr. Egghead” on the front or bright yellow overalls.

I love the fact that, at least theoretically, I can hold any job that a man can hold and that, maybe eventually, I will be paid equally for equal work.  (Well, I guess that one falls a little flat, doesn’t it?)

I love the fact that in my classes from grade school on through graduate school, my opinions were respected and appreciated as much as my male classmates and that my insight, having been gained from my experiences as a woman, were never, at least not to my knowledge, dismissed as feminist ranting.

I love that I live in a country that allows someone like Hillary Rodham Clinton to be where she is today.  (So glad that health thing is okay now!)

I love that I live in a place where I am able to express my opinions while at my job, with my friends, or on this blog without feeling threatened or unsafe.

I love that, at least theoretically and for now, if I, or any woman I know, find myself pregnant at a time when, for whatever reason, I feel I cannot or do not want to carry that baby to terms, then I have options.

I’m sure I am missing some things here.  There are plenty of other reasons that it is great to be a woman and, forgetting some things means that I am taking a few things for granted which is both good and bad.  It’s always good to be aware of the ways in which we have it good, but sometimes its nice to have the luxury to assume a few things, to have that battle be unmistakably won.  I do hope though that, when it comes to historic wins like Title IX and women’s suffrage and Roe v Wade, that we never forget how far we’ve come and how hard we fought.  We’ve got a long way to go, people, but let’s not forget where we came from.  Happy anniversary, Roe v Wade.  Today I would like to renew my vow to fight for your continuance.

*Man, I hate that word and everything it represents.  Something about the word “allegedly” makes me feel like by saying it that I am not believing the victim, which I do, because the overwhelming majority of the time rape and sexual assault victims do not report rape or sexual assault unless it actually happened.  So, “allegedly” is out.  Never again to be used on this blog.  That’s a promise.

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Champage Wishes and Peanut Butter Dreams

14 Jan

I’ll admit it.  I have a peanut butter problem.  I’ve had it my entire life.  When I was little I started off eating apples and peanut butter.  I would put a huge mound of peanut butter on my plate, and then use the apple slices as a conduit.  I would dip my apple in, taking tiny bites of the flesh adorned with piles of the delicious butter.  Eventually, I just took to licking the peanut butter off, and then reluctantly eating the apple so as not to give myself away.  I then progressed to the tablespoon technique.  I would walk into the kitchen after a tough afternoon of playing outside and, using a spoon that was roughly the size of my mouth, would eat peanut butter like ice cream, savoring every bite.  It wasn’t refreshing.  Instead it left me with what my family always called “baby mouth,” the overwhelming desire to drink a glass of milk to wash the stubborn food down without leaving sticky remnants on my tongue and in my throat.  (“Baby mouth” was also a common diagnosis following the consumption of an especially rich cookie or brownie.)  Unfortunately for me I never enjoyed milk so the non-dairy alternatives my mom kept around, which didn’t exactly do the trick, often had to be a sub-par stand in.  Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches hold the jelly were my lunch of choice.  Luckily for me I was active — I did gymnastics and was a fan of playing escape games, imagining my swings as horses, aiding me in my flight from an evil school teacher — so the peanut butter never really had a negative impact.

And then I went to college.  I specifically remember one afternoon during my sophomore year, after going for a short run and in the middle of studying for midterms, when I stress ate what had to be 1/3 a jar of Skippy.  I didn’t realize what I was doing until halfway through my Spanish flashcards when I looked down and noticed the giant canyon in my peanut butter.  Whoops.  I tried to rectify the situation by dancing furiously to an entire Eminem album which then left me, post peanut butter binge fest, with a pretty epic stomach ache.  I took a break from the sticky snack for awhile.

Then, during my junior year abroad, I made it a sort of game to try and locate peanut butter in every exotic location I found myself.  I had always thought peanut butter was an international treat but, as it turned out, people regarded the American’s love of peanut butter with much the the same combination of curiosity and disgust that I associate with the consumption of Vegemite.  Also, being an import, a small tub of Skippy or Jiff could easily run you $8 in small town Dahanu, India or city like Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, a price tag that seems off-putting, especially when set in the context of an academic program that preached the benefits of locally produced food and decreased globalization.

My peanut butter habit, although abandoned for a time following my international adventures, came back with a vengeance a few years ago.  I could easily go through a jar in less than the 14 days it should take a person to consume its entirety if based on the advertised serving size.  A tablespoon is really very small, as it turns out.  Or at least, it’s small when it comes to peanut butter.  So, given my slowing metabolism, I decided about a year ago to try and not keep peanut butter in the house most of the time.  Sometimes I cave, “needing it for a recipe,” and then it doesn’t last long, but for the most part I can steer clear.  For the most part, I don’t really miss it.  Except recently.

This past week I have had not one, but two dreams featuring peanut butter.  Two dreams, two nights in a row.  In the first dream I walked into the kitchen, opened the cabinet where my two roommates keep their food, and discovered a jar of Peter Pan.  Yum!  I grabbed a spoon and took a bite, just a little one, hoping my roommate wouldn’t discover the missing butter.  But then I got carried away.  I ate and ate and ate and all of a sudden the jar was half empty!  In a panic, and instead of doing the logical thing of placing that jar in my cabinet and buying a replacement for my roommate, I took the jar into my room and hid it in the back of my underwear drawer.  And then I woke up, insanely thirsty.

In the second dream, I was at a Very Important Meeting with some Very Important People.  The meeting took place in a large office with a huge, rectangular conference table in the middle.  The table was full of people with computers, reviewing boring Power Point presentations (because that is what I imagine happens at meetings, apparently).  I was the only one not looking at a computer.  Instead, I sat at my seat, peanut butter and spoon in hand, snacking away until one of my co-workers said, with  snort, “I’m allergic to peanut butter!  Get it away from me!”  At which point I took my spoon, my peanut butter and myself and moved to the corner, where I quietly ate for the remainder of the meeting.

The end.

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For Papa, Three Years Later

11 Jan

This is actually something that I wrote in January of 2010 and that I read three years ago tomorrow, on what was that year a Tuesday.  It is the eulogy for my grandpa, who all us grandchildren lovingly called Papa, who had passed away a few days earlier, on the 9th of January, if memory serves.  It’s meant to be funny, because that’s how the Franks do it.  Mostly it’s only funny to those who have spent time with us and around us.  So, here it is.  (It’s pretty much in its original form, so forgive me.)  I toyed with the idea of adding an addendum at the end, but maybe that’s a story for another day.  Enjoy.

“I was really hoping I would get to give this little speech before my dad because I don’t know that I can follow another crowd pleaser like his famous Nanny-food eulogy but here goes.

“To me, Papa was perfect.  He always seemed so tall, and never more than at our Passover Seder every year when he would sit at the head of the table, surveying the family.  I don’t know who around here has attended a Frank family Passover, but there is basically nothing like it.  Papa would sit there with his Hagada, copyright 1952, marked with countless brisket and sweet potato pie stains, and lead the Seder.  With a somber expression, he would read his part while the rest of us, in true Frank fashion, would erupt in little jingles about karpas, morror, and kasha varnishkas.  Papa would wait until we ran out of steam, which we eventually would, and he would pick right back up where he left off.  Well, until the next time someone noticed karpas and the whole thing started all over again.  He never got angry, or at least not visibly so.  He just sat there with a twinkle in his eye.  I knew how important Judaism was to him and I never understood why he would let us carry on like that on one of the most important days of the year.  I realized this past year, our last Passover together, that it was less about Judaism and more about family.  The Seder was important to him, so we all came together and did it, and enjoyed it, and made it our own.  More than that, though, is the fact that we were important to him.  So rather than joining in all our hijinks, he just sat, watched, and took it all in.

“I kept all that in mind last Wednesday when I rushed home from Brooklyn to see Papa after he came home from the hospital.  The second I walked in the room, expecting to find Papa physically but not mentally, I caught his eyes and they immediately lit up.  He told me how wonderful I looked, I told him how wonderful he looked.  He rolled his eyes and said something I dare not repeat in synagogue.  I sat down and he started asking me about the paper I just sent in — he agreed that Monsanto should be put out of business — about the race I was about to run — he was convinced I was going to win — and about the summer programs I am applying to — he thought I should not build dry-latrines in Haiti (too dangerous).  He then went on to tell me that he found some of Lucy’s poems on his computer and that she’s really good.  That Milo can really play ball and he’s going to make it (I agreed on both counts).  Then he decided he wanted a bowl of Rice Krispies.  The nurse had told me he couldn’t get out of bed, that he wasn’t strong enough.  But all of you knew Papa, and he looked at me and said “Come on, Bekah, let’s get some cereal.”  And even though intellectually I knew he couldn’t stand and walk on his own, in one look he had me convinced.  I was sure he was going to get up, put on his slippers and get himself a bowl of Rice Krispies.  And that was Papa, determined and strong and never defeated.”

Thanks for the company, Ira Glass

8 Jan

An ex-boyfriend of mine (I say that as if they number in the dozens) used to hate the sound of Ira Glass’ voice.  I imagine he still does.  The radio in his car was always tuned to NPR and whenever Ira Glass and This American Life would come on, my ex would let out a quiet groan and quickly shut the radio off.  I always imagined it was because, on top of being a bartender, he was a voice over actor and so he was especially critical of the voices of others.  He was allowed, I suppose, having an exceedingly nice voice himself.  As a result of his quiet disdain, I never really listened to Ira Glass, I always just took this dislike of his voice as a given.  Until I didn’t.  Ironically, Ira Glass does not have a voice for radio.  His voice is odd, not really low and not really high.  His words seem to come from farther back in his mouth than most and it almost sounds as if the very back of his tongue is touching the roof of his mouth when he utters certain sounds — such as the “gla” noise present in his own last name — making it sound as if, for lack of a better description, he is swallowing them.  It makes him identifiable, if nothing else.  Over time I have grown to really like it.

This morning I set out on a long run.  Sixteen and a half miles is a long way to go and, whenever I set out for one of these long ones, I always think back to my 16-year-old self who used to dread the timed two mile run we had to do in order to get on the field hockey team.  The required 8-minute per mile pace required, a seemingly insurmountable goal at the time, is now not so scary.  The 16.5 miles, however, takes about as much mental cheer leading as you might imagine.  I mapped out my route.  A lap around Sunset Park, around Greenwood Cemetery to Fort Hamilton Parkway and then onward for 3 loops of Prospect Park, plus a little extra, ending up at the gym to force myself to stretch.  Normally I run without audio accompaniment, letting my mind wander to all sort of fun and interesting places.  But today I had this feeling that mental amusements simply weren’t going to cut it.  Cue Ira and This American Life.

I headed south on 5th Avenue, listening to the story of an NPR staff member who, despite his allergy of crab and lobster, eats one or the other about 3 times a year.  The poisoning himself, he says “isn’t so bad.”  I imagined along with the narrator what he must look like with his cheeks puffed out and his eyes mere slits due to all the swelling.  I even acted it out, much to the wonder of those I ran by.  I then listened to the story of Cardinals pitcher Steve Blass who was cursed with his namesake, Steve Blass disease, leaving him unable to pitch a successful game.  It got me thinking about myself as an athlete and how, when I start focusing on my breathing, it becomes heavier, more labored.  Best to not think about it, This American Life advised.  But of course by that time I had already started.  I made it to the park while listening to a fictional story put on by “The Truth,” with the descriptor “movies for your ears.”  What a perfect companion going into my 5th and 6th miles.

The next episode starred Mike Birbiglia with his story of a hit and run accident in which he was hit, and, although the other person ran, he got stuck with the other man’s $12,000 repair bill due to police ineptitude.  This story, although a very frustrating experience I am certain, was so incredibly funny that I had to mask my laughter with coughing fits as to not come across as a crazy person to those around me.  It made breathing slightly difficult, and people gave me the side eye anyway, but the next few miles flew by as I waited to say what hilarious injustice would befall Mike next.  I sailed through an online musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, by Joss Whedon starring the loveable “triple threat” Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible.  And then came a reading by Dan Savage about his relationship with Catholicism and the loss of his mother.  Unfortunately for me I decided to take my Gu at exactly the moment when Savage nearly broke down while recounting the horrible moment in Tucson, Arizona when he found out his mother would die that day of pulmonary fibrosis.  Gu coated my throat and I made a sort of wheezing sound whenever I tried to breath, which was often since I was something like 11 miles into my run at that point.  I thought I was probably going to either suffocate or get Gu in my lungs which would have been ironic given the subject matter at that particular moment.  I didn’t do either of those things.  Water seemed to clear the problem right up but that was the third time I managed to draw attention to myself while running.

Nearing the end of my run I was joined by Dave Sedaris as he recounted the many pets his family had when he was a kid and how, after he and his 5 siblings had grown and left, his parents replaced them with a Great Dane named Melinda.  He discussed other pets he had throughout his life, including his female cat, Neil, who was ill and needed to be put down.  When his vet asked him to think about euthanasia, he immediately imagined the “youth in Asia.”  In his words,

I hadn’t heard that word in a while and pictured scores of happy Japanese children spilling from the front door of their elementary school. “Are you thinking about it?” (the vet) asked.

“Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

And again, I tried to muffle my laughter through heavy coughing.  At 14 miles, give or take, this was no easy feat.  I decided then and there that when the inevitable happens, and I have to put one of my beloved cats down, I too will imagine the “youth in Asia” so as to not have another complete breakdown in the vet’s office like the one I had circa 2004 when my cat Sassafras was ill.  I then moved on to thinking about the parents of funny people.  In Dan Savage and Dave Sedaris’ tales, their mothers were both incredibly funny.  Do all funny people have funny parents?  Or is it simply in the story-telling?  Or maybe a combination of the two?  This little thought adventure made me miss a little of the following story, about Steve Malarkey (real name!) and his creation, Video Catnip, a film for cats which I now want to buy.  I made it to the gym while in the midst of a fictional story about an armadillo.  I didn’t make it through the whole thing because, wouldn’t you know it, my iPod Nano ran out of juice right as I sat down to stretch.

So, thank you, Ira Glass.  That was fun.

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A Reflection Post-Delhi

3 Jan

A little over a week ago when I was at work and before any customers came in, I was listening to the news while I set up the bar.  CNN was covering the protests that had swept through India after the brutal gang rape of a female student in Delhi, a city that is known for having high instances of sexual attacks.  The station had set up an interview with someone they considered important and knowledgeable — a man in his mid-to-late 40s — in order to get some local input on the attack itself as well as the protests that had erupted in its aftermath.  He said the normal things.  You know, how horrible the attack was, how he hoped the young woman would pull through, how surprised he was by the size of the protests when so many similar attacks (although I would imagine the majority of them far less brutal) had elicited nothing to that degree.  And then he said something (which I will paraphrase), by way of explanation of the rape itself, that has been clanging in my head for the past 8 days:

The reason these attacks have been happening is because of the percentage of males to females in the overall population.  These men don’t have women to settle down with.  There aren’t enough of them.  So they are frustrated and this is what happens.

And then there was clattering and screeching noises inside my head and I had to sit down.

Okay, so, it is true.  There are more men than women in Delhi.  According to the Delhi Census of 2011, the city itself has an overall population of 16,753,235.  Of that 16.7 million people, 8,976,410 are men and 7,776,825 are women.  So that you don’t have to do the math, that means that, in 2011 at least, there were 1,199,585 more men than women living in Delhi.  Sure, that’s a lot of people.  And sure, I imagine it is very frustrating for men who want to get married and have sex…or have sex and get married…or just have sex.  Being frustrated, as legitimate as it may be, is no excuse to get together with your friends, pretend to drive a shuttle bus, and pick up a girl off the street who is simply trying to get home and literally rape her to death.  No amount of frustration can ever justify that.  Ever.

You know what that is?  That sounds to me like you are trying to take the weight of responsibility off of these mens’ shoulders and blame it on sheer numbers.  They simply couldn’t help themselves.  Their desires to stick their penis in something was simply too great.  They were powerless to resist.  You know what I think?  I think that what happened to that woman, what those men did to her, was generations in the making and not just in India but everywhere.  All over the world.  (This analysis does not take the onus of responsibility off the individuals who perpetrated this attack, but simply is an attempt to put it into a greater context of inequality and violence.)  We are all guilty.  Sure, female infanticide is a part of it.  But the fact that there are less females than males is not what makes female infanticide a crucial part of this story.  The mindset that allows the killing, the neglect, the abandonment of female children is what makes this important.  The mindset that many people have that females are worth less than males is what allows people to justify killing their own babies and is part of the society in which these men are raised.  It is what allows them to see women as less human than they are.  As simply a hole in which to stick their penises.

But it goes beyond India.  And it goes beyond infanticide.  That is just one small part of it.  We, unfortunately, live in a world where, as I have said before, the female body is a battle ground.  Where the word of a female does not count for as much as the word of a male.  I read today in the newspaper that the Indian government, in response to this attack, has fast tracked the investigation and the trial of these men in order to show that this is not acceptable behavior.  But what about all the other rapes that were never investigated in India?  What about all the unopened rape kits that sit on shelves in cities and town across the United States, their statutes of limitations running out?  It’s a lot of work, it takes a lot of resources, to go through all those kits and we simply can’t keep up with the rate of sexual assaults.  But shouldn’t that be the biggest sign that something is wrong?  That we are dealing not with a few isolated incidents but instead with an epidemic?  Women are raped every single day.  Every single one.  Every day a man, or a group of men, decide to force open the legs of a women and violate her.  Insert himself inside of her.  And every day a man, or a group of men, all over the world gets away with it and the woman is left to pick up the pieces.  Often it is she is who vilified.  At what point are people in the mainstream, not people in a corner of the internet, but people with power and sway going to admit that we have a worldwide problem with the way we think about women.

We need to stop making excuses.  We need to stop trying to blame specific policies or cultural norms or religious laws.  We need to realize that we have a serious worldwide, cross-cultural, cross-societal, cross-religious deficit in the way we view women.  We can change laws.  We can have protests.  We can even hang a few people.*  But until we look inwards and understand that this view of women is engrained in us, all of us, nothing is actually going to change.  We will have another horrific gang rape in Delhi, or a small town in Texas.  We will have another woman assaulted by a powerful man, be it the French leader of an international organization or the president of the United States, and then dragged through the media, her reputation completely destroyed while, for the most part, the man continues in his pursuit of power and sex relatively unscathed.

Honestly, I just don’t think it should be that hard.  Part of being a human being, in my estimation, is to keep your eyes and ears open and constantly take things in, learn and adjust your behavior.  Maybe you were raised somewhere where everyone told you the Holocaust never happened and that Jews were born with horns.  But then you read Primo Levi’s “Survival in Auschwitz” and you realize what you were told simply isn’t true and you set off to learn and understand and adjust yourself to your new understanding of history and the world.   Women and men are physically different, sure, but in terms of our worth in the world we are equal.  It’s simple, just start there.  Without women, there would be no men and without men, no women.  We need each other for the species to survive.  So it’s not just that we need to respond to specific instances of infanticide, of rape, of abuse, of victim blaming. We need to acknowledge, and respond to, the environment that allows these things to continue happening.  We all, barring perhaps the sociopathic, think that murder is wrong, evil.  So why not rape?  Why not date rape?  Why not violence against women overall?  Let’s start there.  Raping a woman should mean the end of a political career.  It should be a sign that something is severely wrong with the perpetrator.  Rape is far too commonplace because people get away with it.  Because, for so many, the woman played a crucial role in her own assault simply by existing.  Because, in some places and to some people, a woman is tarnished by her rape, is considered dirty, undesirable.  The woman feels embarrassed, ashamed.  But it is us, all of us, that should feel ashamed that this keeps happening, again and again, and we don’t really, seriously, try changing the scope of the conversation.  So let’s try.

*For the record I am never in favor of capital punishment.  Let them rot in jail, I say.  And Indian prison, or so I have read, is not a fun place to live out your days.

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Tip #3 on Being a Good Bar Customer

31 Dec

Click to read Tip #1 and Tip #2 for all your bar-going needs.

So, Tip #3.  Never flag down the bartender unless you are choking on the free wings provided by your favorite local on Monday nights.  Here’s the thing about good bartenders:  we see you.  When we are bartending, it’s like we have extra special powers.  So in my normal life, I consider myself to be a pretty observant person.  I generally notice things.  I don’t tend to walk into trees or get tripped by errant dogs or kids on scooters.  But, there has been the rare occasion when, walking down an avenue, I have bumped directly into someone who strays into my path off a side street.  Or, I am directly across the street from someone I know and I just don’t see them there.  My area of awareness basically extends directly in front of me, mostly on the ground, in an effort to avoid stepping in bubble gum and dog shit.  When I am behind the bar, however, it’s a whole other ball of wax.  I am like, Super Periphery Girl!  I just, see things.  Mostly, I see you.  You and your empty glass.  There is no need to wave your arm around like a crazy person, snap your fingers, or say “excuse me, ma’am?”  Because you know what?  I have already seen your empty glass, registered it, and am likely on my way to rectify the problem.

In case I was not clear at the offset of this blog post, I am going to provide you with a few examples, just so you get the gist, of when (read: always) it is inappropriate to flag me down.

1.  If you see me walking towards you down the extraordinarily long length of my current bar.  Here’s an example from the other day.  There I was, at work.  It was really slow.  There was a couple, with their friend, sitting at the far end of the bar where they always sit.  I did a walk by and noticed all the glasses had a sufficient amount of beer, about 1/3 full, and I know the drinking habits of these people (because I remember things) and none of them are end-of-drink chuggers.  About 5 minutes later I consciously looked over again and noticed one of the beers was dangerously low. I started down the bar towards them, making eye contact with the male half of the couple.  There is no one, not a soul, sitting in the middle of the bar.  Only these three at the end, and a group of regulars near the back.  There was no reason whatsoever for me to be walking down the bar if it wasn’t to address the status of their drinks. And yet, while making eye contact, the dude waves at me and points frantically at his friend’s glass which still had beer in it.  And not just like, the spit at the bottom.  Actual beer.  Beer she could drink.  Why?  Why would he wave?  I really don’t know.  Inappropriate.  Always.  But especially right then.

2.  When you walk into a busy bar and there are lots of people all clambering for drinks.  Here’s another thing about a lot of bartenders:  we are judicious.  When I am working a busy bar, I tend to notice, and note, the order by which people enter and belly up.  I try to address people in the order in which they arrived, keeping in mind location and the speediest way for me to get their drink from a bottle or keg into their glass and in front of them.  There’s nothing worse than having a newcomer walk up to the bar and start waving their hands around.  I see you.  I will greet you, let you know it will be a minute, and then put you on the list.  You won’t get forgotten.  Patience is a virtue.  I know some bartenders don’t do this.  They get caught up and respond to whoever is closest to them.  If this is the case and you feel as though you are being ignored, don’t wave.  Simply place a 20 on the bar.  I guarantee it will get their attention and you will be served.

3.  When you don’t know what you want.  Don’t flag a bartender down, already annoying, and then, while holding one hand out in front of you to keep her attention, turn around to your friends and ask for their order.  If you are going to be so rude as to wave at us, at least have your order set.  Because guess what?  If you don’t, I will walk away and help other people and then take my sweet ass time getting back to you.  We hold grudges, us bartenders.

4.  When you want your bill but you’re not actually ready to pay.  Back to this past Saturday and that super awesome and fun couple (sarcasm – they are not actually awesome or fun at all).  Again, half-full drinks.  All of a sudden I see the female half of the couple leaning forward making those little check-signing hand motions in the air.  Only it was more a full-body thing than simply a flicker of the hand.  I breathed deeply and headed in their direction.  I gave them their tab and then I stood there, waiting, because I figured with such a panicked hand motion, they must surely be in a rush.  Catching a movie, perhaps?  I stood there and stood there.  They made no move for their wallet.  I walked away.  Fifteen minutes went by.  I returned to find the woman standing, looking up at the board clearly calculating the bill to make sure I haven’t overcharged them.  I hadn’t.  I had bought them a drink back.  (Assholes.)  Twenty minutes later they finally hand me some cash.  So, really, was it necessary to flag?  I had done a walk by their area every 5-6 minutes, and a visual check every 3ish, so if they planned on sitting there for that long, couldn’t they have just waited for me to come down and say to them “you guys doing okay?”  But no.  They flagged me.

So, yea, just don’t flag me.  Don’t clap at me or snap at me.  Don’t yell “barkeep” or “sweetie.”  I see you.  Just as well as you see me.  But the thing is, there are a lot more of you than there are me and so sometimes you’ll just have to wait. And, if for some reason I don’t see you, there are plenty of ways for you to get my attention without pissing me off or giving me the impression that you don’t think I can do my job.  I’ve been doing this for awhile.  And there is a good chance that the reason I have not given you your drink is that you flagged me and I therefore think you are an asshole.

In other news, here are some things I heard recently while at work that I wish were never said.  Or at least I wish I never heard.  Because on top of seeing you, I also can hear you.  So maybe keep your voice down?  Maybe be a little less disgusting/racist/bigoted/ignorant/all those other bad things while out in public or, at least, while in front of me?  Except for the last one.  That was funny.

1.  “This morning my wife gave me a blowjob in the shower.  Best way to start the day.  Best blowjob.  Man.  Who needs breakfast?”

2.  Said by, who else, a super old white dude:  “If I were black, I would be the blackest Republican out there because of Lincoln.  If it weren’t for him I would still be a slave.”

3.  Said by a younger white dude upon learning that I had once gone to a Barrington Levy show at BB King’s:  “What were you doing at a dance hall show?  I would never bring my girlfriend to a dance hall show.  Ever.  I bet there was security all over that thing…And anyway, how did you see over all the ‘fros?”

4.  Said by the same idiot:  “So have you noticed that they (lesbians) stay single as long (as gay men)?”

5.  “After I turned into a turtle he didn’t really want to talk to me anymore.”

And that’s all.  Have a very happy new year, everyone.  And remember:  be nice and tip your bartender.

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