I don't care if y'all don't read it...
I'm gonna keep on writin it...here's the second part, loving wrapped in teflon:
Shortly after Lily showed up, we all piled into Liz’s car and went out to get something to eat. Liz drove her Dad’s Dodge Intrepid, one of the most oddly shaped and just plain homely cars to be designed in the last 25. It didn’t look so much like a car as a rejected storyboard sketch for the hovercraft that Luke Skywalker uses in the first Star Wars movie. This car should have been built with two giant cans of Nitrous Oxide attached to the back in lieu of wheels. On the road the damn thing just looked awkward and anachronistic. It was in this monument to automotive ingenuity that I was driven by Liz, a girl so spastic in nature that she shouldn’t have been let within 100 feet of a car, much less been put in charge of the welfare of three passengers for a 15 minute drive. After praying to God, Adonai, Allah, Buddha, and Vishnu just to keep all of my bases covered, we finally arrived at Max & Erma’s.
In case you are unfamiliar with this establishment, Max & Erma’s is a chain of family-style restaurants in the Midwest known primarily for their gigantic plates of cheese fries, massive burgers (the most famed being the “garbage burger”, a monstrosity that contains every topping and condiment known to man including, but not limited to, ketchup, mustard, mayo, onion, lettuce, tomato, up to 10 different cheeses, bacon, ham, Canadian bacon, turkey, pineapple rings, beer-battered cod, poached eggs, Swedish meatballs, and fresh prawns), and their marvelously cheap sundae bar. Max & Erma’s is a step above Denny’s on the Sit-down-restaurant food chain, dwelling in the same category as Applebee’s and T.G.I. Friday’s.
As I walked into the restaurant I was once again greeted by the repulsive faces of Max & Erma, the supposed “founders” of the first diners in the chain. Their ugly mugs are plastered all over the restaurant along with local sports memorabilia in a futile attempt to make the place seem like a part of the community, as if a couple of Cincinnati Reds jerseys and a signed Bengals helmet is going to make the place seem unique. Not only that, I don’t think that Max & Erma even existed. I’ll bet you twenty bucks that some entrepreneurial, Gordon Gecko wannabe just went to a flea market and found some photos of a stereotypically “American”-looking couple and used them as the face of his new business venture. Even if Max & Erma are real, they look really phony. Sorry for the Holden Caulfield moment, but it’s the goddamn truth.
After we walked in, the waitress seated us at the back of the restaurant and took our drink orders. That’s when all the trouble began in earnest. Being the only man there and attempting to maintain some semblance of common courtesy, I ordered my drink last: “I’ll just have a cup of coffee.” Unbeknownst to me, the idea of ordering a cup of coffee at 3 ‘o clock in the afternoon was uproariously funny. Liz and Lily had an extremely hard time restraining their laughter while the waitress finished writing down our drinks, and when she finally did leave it just came pouring out. Don’t ask me why they were laughing because I haven’t the damnedest notion, but whatever caused it was rather self-perpetuating. From that point forward, everything I said or did seemed perfect fodder for mockery. I soon became conscious of every gesture and statement I made, trying not to do anything that would attract undue negative attention, but it was no use. Whenever a man consciously tries to avoid making an ass of himself in public, he can’t help but fail in his attempt and this day proved to be no exception. It was as if the Murphy’s Law of casual dining had been enacted: everything that could go wrong for me in a Max & Erma’s did go wrong.
I only worsened my situation when the time came to order our entrees. Those who know me well are aware that I have some rather strict and peculiar eating habits. If one were being kind they would describe my culinary decisions as being “health conscious”. If that same person decided to act like a prick they’d call my diet ridiculously absurd. Unfortunately for me, I chose to dine that afternoon with two women whose attitudes resided at the very pinnacle of prick-dom. As it was 3 ‘o clock and I had already had lunch at around noon, I wasn’t that hungry. Therefore, in what I thought was a logical decision, I decided to simply order a baked potato to tide me over until dinnertime. Once again, as with the coffee, I had unwittingly committed a major dining faux-pas. Apparently, one doesn’t order just a baked potato while in mixed company. And if you happened to commit such an egregious error, you should board up the windows, head down to the basement, and prepare to reap a whirlwind, the likes of which Liz and Lily were more than willing to supply.
Did you know that ordering just a baked potato at a restaurant means you’re anorexic? I do now after a 5 minute barrage of anorexia jokes that afternoon. Or that it is considered proper dining etiquette to dump the unwanted remnants of your cheese fries into your neighbor’s food if he happens to be eating another spud-based dish? Wonderful lessons like these continued all through the meal, and while each one on its own is simply a harmless prank, when lumped together they fomented in me a very sizeable amount of angst and aggression. To make matters worse, all these events were taking place in front of Claire. I had no delusions about doing anything with Claire, but it was very important to me that I maintain some semblance of dignity in front of her. All I wanted was to avoid being the court jester for a day and come off as…I don’t know…cool, as cheesy as that sounds. Liz and Lily made even seeming normal a distinct impossibility with their incessant poking and prodding at my ego. I tried telling them calmly to stop messing with me, but this only fanned the flames of their desire to fuck with me even further.
A couple minutes later we got our checks and left the restaurant with no plans as to what we were doing next. After opening the front door, we were greeted by a torrential downpour and quickly dashed back to Liz’s Intrepid. Once inside the car we began thinking of places to go and things to do, but this train of thought was quickly sidetracked when Liz found something else about me to make fun of. After this point, I don’t really remember much; it kind off all blurred into one continuous insult that washed over me like the rain water running down my face. By now, all of my focus was on Claire, who was looking back at me from the passenger’s seat with a half-open smile that radiated pity. When she turned around, I retreated back into myself. It was at this moment that I began to feel my body swelling with hate; the type of pure, unadulterated, visceral hatred that causes the hair on your arms to stand on end and makes the blood boil over in every vein, artery, and capillary of your body. Looking around that car, I saw that all my so-called friends did was scapegoat me at every opportunity, and that the kindest gesture I could hope to get was one of restrained sympathy. Liz and Lily’s ignorance was so great that I don’t think they even knew what they were doing was in any way hurtful or, in the most irony filled adjective I can find, unfriendly. But it wouldn’t have done any good to try and explain it to them, especially not at that moment.
So, I tried to shut down all the external signs of emotion that my body might give off. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I didn’t even change my facial expression. If I maintained an attitude of complete indifference to their barbs, then Liz and Lily wouldn’t get the reaction they desired. When an insult fails to get a rise out of a person it loses all of its bite, which is what happened after I transformed myself into a deaf-mute. Soon, Liz and Lily realized something wasn’t right with me and told me to cheer up. They weren’t bad people; they just had a horribly warped concept of friendship. However, at this point their attempts to make amends were pointless. I had already been shoved over the edge and if you follow the metaphor to its logical conclusion, I had taken a very hard fall; one that a simple “we’re sorry” can’t mend, no matter how heartfelt the plea is.
Enjoy this one cause you ain't gettin the next part this soon next time cause I rest on the sabbath...and the day before for good measure. That means no writin! Formal-like at least.
Shortly after Lily showed up, we all piled into Liz’s car and went out to get something to eat. Liz drove her Dad’s Dodge Intrepid, one of the most oddly shaped and just plain homely cars to be designed in the last 25. It didn’t look so much like a car as a rejected storyboard sketch for the hovercraft that Luke Skywalker uses in the first Star Wars movie. This car should have been built with two giant cans of Nitrous Oxide attached to the back in lieu of wheels. On the road the damn thing just looked awkward and anachronistic. It was in this monument to automotive ingenuity that I was driven by Liz, a girl so spastic in nature that she shouldn’t have been let within 100 feet of a car, much less been put in charge of the welfare of three passengers for a 15 minute drive. After praying to God, Adonai, Allah, Buddha, and Vishnu just to keep all of my bases covered, we finally arrived at Max & Erma’s.
In case you are unfamiliar with this establishment, Max & Erma’s is a chain of family-style restaurants in the Midwest known primarily for their gigantic plates of cheese fries, massive burgers (the most famed being the “garbage burger”, a monstrosity that contains every topping and condiment known to man including, but not limited to, ketchup, mustard, mayo, onion, lettuce, tomato, up to 10 different cheeses, bacon, ham, Canadian bacon, turkey, pineapple rings, beer-battered cod, poached eggs, Swedish meatballs, and fresh prawns), and their marvelously cheap sundae bar. Max & Erma’s is a step above Denny’s on the Sit-down-restaurant food chain, dwelling in the same category as Applebee’s and T.G.I. Friday’s.
As I walked into the restaurant I was once again greeted by the repulsive faces of Max & Erma, the supposed “founders” of the first diners in the chain. Their ugly mugs are plastered all over the restaurant along with local sports memorabilia in a futile attempt to make the place seem like a part of the community, as if a couple of Cincinnati Reds jerseys and a signed Bengals helmet is going to make the place seem unique. Not only that, I don’t think that Max & Erma even existed. I’ll bet you twenty bucks that some entrepreneurial, Gordon Gecko wannabe just went to a flea market and found some photos of a stereotypically “American”-looking couple and used them as the face of his new business venture. Even if Max & Erma are real, they look really phony. Sorry for the Holden Caulfield moment, but it’s the goddamn truth.
After we walked in, the waitress seated us at the back of the restaurant and took our drink orders. That’s when all the trouble began in earnest. Being the only man there and attempting to maintain some semblance of common courtesy, I ordered my drink last: “I’ll just have a cup of coffee.” Unbeknownst to me, the idea of ordering a cup of coffee at 3 ‘o clock in the afternoon was uproariously funny. Liz and Lily had an extremely hard time restraining their laughter while the waitress finished writing down our drinks, and when she finally did leave it just came pouring out. Don’t ask me why they were laughing because I haven’t the damnedest notion, but whatever caused it was rather self-perpetuating. From that point forward, everything I said or did seemed perfect fodder for mockery. I soon became conscious of every gesture and statement I made, trying not to do anything that would attract undue negative attention, but it was no use. Whenever a man consciously tries to avoid making an ass of himself in public, he can’t help but fail in his attempt and this day proved to be no exception. It was as if the Murphy’s Law of casual dining had been enacted: everything that could go wrong for me in a Max & Erma’s did go wrong.
I only worsened my situation when the time came to order our entrees. Those who know me well are aware that I have some rather strict and peculiar eating habits. If one were being kind they would describe my culinary decisions as being “health conscious”. If that same person decided to act like a prick they’d call my diet ridiculously absurd. Unfortunately for me, I chose to dine that afternoon with two women whose attitudes resided at the very pinnacle of prick-dom. As it was 3 ‘o clock and I had already had lunch at around noon, I wasn’t that hungry. Therefore, in what I thought was a logical decision, I decided to simply order a baked potato to tide me over until dinnertime. Once again, as with the coffee, I had unwittingly committed a major dining faux-pas. Apparently, one doesn’t order just a baked potato while in mixed company. And if you happened to commit such an egregious error, you should board up the windows, head down to the basement, and prepare to reap a whirlwind, the likes of which Liz and Lily were more than willing to supply.
Did you know that ordering just a baked potato at a restaurant means you’re anorexic? I do now after a 5 minute barrage of anorexia jokes that afternoon. Or that it is considered proper dining etiquette to dump the unwanted remnants of your cheese fries into your neighbor’s food if he happens to be eating another spud-based dish? Wonderful lessons like these continued all through the meal, and while each one on its own is simply a harmless prank, when lumped together they fomented in me a very sizeable amount of angst and aggression. To make matters worse, all these events were taking place in front of Claire. I had no delusions about doing anything with Claire, but it was very important to me that I maintain some semblance of dignity in front of her. All I wanted was to avoid being the court jester for a day and come off as…I don’t know…cool, as cheesy as that sounds. Liz and Lily made even seeming normal a distinct impossibility with their incessant poking and prodding at my ego. I tried telling them calmly to stop messing with me, but this only fanned the flames of their desire to fuck with me even further.
A couple minutes later we got our checks and left the restaurant with no plans as to what we were doing next. After opening the front door, we were greeted by a torrential downpour and quickly dashed back to Liz’s Intrepid. Once inside the car we began thinking of places to go and things to do, but this train of thought was quickly sidetracked when Liz found something else about me to make fun of. After this point, I don’t really remember much; it kind off all blurred into one continuous insult that washed over me like the rain water running down my face. By now, all of my focus was on Claire, who was looking back at me from the passenger’s seat with a half-open smile that radiated pity. When she turned around, I retreated back into myself. It was at this moment that I began to feel my body swelling with hate; the type of pure, unadulterated, visceral hatred that causes the hair on your arms to stand on end and makes the blood boil over in every vein, artery, and capillary of your body. Looking around that car, I saw that all my so-called friends did was scapegoat me at every opportunity, and that the kindest gesture I could hope to get was one of restrained sympathy. Liz and Lily’s ignorance was so great that I don’t think they even knew what they were doing was in any way hurtful or, in the most irony filled adjective I can find, unfriendly. But it wouldn’t have done any good to try and explain it to them, especially not at that moment.
So, I tried to shut down all the external signs of emotion that my body might give off. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I didn’t even change my facial expression. If I maintained an attitude of complete indifference to their barbs, then Liz and Lily wouldn’t get the reaction they desired. When an insult fails to get a rise out of a person it loses all of its bite, which is what happened after I transformed myself into a deaf-mute. Soon, Liz and Lily realized something wasn’t right with me and told me to cheer up. They weren’t bad people; they just had a horribly warped concept of friendship. However, at this point their attempts to make amends were pointless. I had already been shoved over the edge and if you follow the metaphor to its logical conclusion, I had taken a very hard fall; one that a simple “we’re sorry” can’t mend, no matter how heartfelt the plea is.
Enjoy this one cause you ain't gettin the next part this soon next time cause I rest on the sabbath...and the day before for good measure. That means no writin! Formal-like at least.