Stupid and Contagious Page 9

  “Whatever,” she says. This means she read it. Again!

  “You’ve got to stop opening my mail,” I say seriously. “Seriously. You can’t just open anyone’s mail all willy-nilly like that.”

  “Willy-nilly?”

  “Just . . . don’t.”

  “It’s in my mailbox,” she says.

  “Look at the outside of the letter before you open it.”

  “That takes extra time,” she says, greatly pained. “Time that I don’t have.”

  “Yes, I know you have a very busy schedule, stealing things.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My ten bucks, that poor woman’s freakin’ toilet paper . . . what’s next? Stealing Legos from children?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says dismissively. “And you weren’t interested in hearing about what happened because it’s none of your business, remember? So here’s your stupid mail, and you can feel free to go fuck yourself.” With that, she hands me my mail.

  “Thank you,” I say. “For the mail. Not the freedom to go fuck myself. But thanks for that too, I guess.” She doesn’t say anything. We’re on our floor. She gets out. I get out. “Don’t you want to crack wise about the content of my mail now, or something?”

  “There was nothing good today.” And she opens her door and goes into her apartment. Doesn’t even say good-bye. Not that I expected her to, but I don’t know. Maybe she’s having a bad day, too. Why am I now feeling guilty? I don’t need this shit. I’m not going to think about her. Fuck her.

  Of course there has to be more to the story. She’s not really a maniac. I know that. Or at least I think I know that. I just assed off because I’m pissed Sarah is making my life, and reputation, a living hell. Now I feel bad.

  Maybe I should go and apologize. Or maybe not apologize, but at least find out what the hell is up with that woman. And then there’s a knock at my door. She saved me the trouble. Good.

  I open it, and holy shit. It’s not Heaven standing before me, but Sarah. Satanic Sarah and her devil-may-care diarrhea of the mouth.

  “Hi, Brady,” she says. “Can I come in?” No. No, you can’t come in, vile woman. I crack the door a little more and motion her in. I’m such a pussy.

  “What can I do for you, Sarah?”

  “I was in the neighborhood and I found your E.T. lunch box and thermos under my sink. I thought you’d want it.”

  “I thought I lost that!”

  “Oh yeah. No,” she says. “It was never lost. I just didn’t want you starting a collection of kitschy lunch boxes all over the apartment. You and your stupid eBay habit. So I hid it under the sink where I knew you’d never find it. God forbid you’d actually hunt down a cleaning product.”

  How did I stay with this woman for two years? Well, in her defense, she turned into megabitch only when I broke things off. Prior to that she was just your garden-variety bitch. Bitchy during PMS, which is part of the rules, I get that. And bitchy every third or fourth day.

  “Nice to see you,” I lie. “And thanks for the lunch box back.” Feel free to leave now.

  “Nice place.”

  “Yeah, I like it.”

  She peers around the place. “There’s only one bathroom.”

  “I’m only one person.” Unlike you, you multiple-personality psychopath. Nice ass, though.

  “Look, Brady. We both know we’re going to get back together. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove with this moving-out thing, but enough is enough.”

  “Sarah . . . we are not getting back together.”

  “You are a loser,” she says matter-of-factly. “And if you think you can do better, you’re sorely mistaken. And wasting time. And risking me being with someone else when you finally realize this and come crawling back.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Fuck you, Brady.”

  Just then the door is pushed open by Heaven, who sashays in and over to my refrigerator. Both Sarah and I are watching her. I don’t know what the hell she’s doing but she’s doing it, and that’s all that matters.

  Heaven takes my orange juice out of the refrigerator, pops the cap, and takes a huge swig directly out of the jug. Then she puts it back, turns around, and smiles this killer smile that I didn’t even know she owned.

  “Hi, I’m Heaven. OJ?” she asks Sarah (who’s about to have a nervous breakdown).

  Heaven is my new favorite person.

  “Who is this?” Sarah asks me.

  “She just told you her name,” I say. “Heaven is my neighbor. Heaven, this is Sarah. An old friend.”

  “Friend?” Sarah hisses. “I’m his ex. His very recent ex. And you should know that he has a wee bit of trouble getting it up.”

  “Really?” Heaven says. “I never noticed.”

  I think I love Heaven.

  Sarah’s head looks like it’s going to explode. I swear to God, she’s beet red. And maybe I’ve just watched too many cartoons in my day, but I think I actually see steam coming out of her ears.

  “Well, you wasted no time, eh?” Sarah says.

  “I gotta go,” Heaven says, planting one on my lips before making her exit. “See ya later. And hey . . . nice meeting you, Sarah.” And she’s gone.

  Sarah’s eyes turn to little slits. “I’m leaving, too.”

  “Thanks for the lunch box,” I say cordially.

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  And she leaves, too. I go to my refrigerator to pour myself some orange juice, but the carton is empty. She knew it was empty. She not only put back an empty carton, but she knew full well that it was empty when she offered it. She also knew Sarah wouldn’t take it. It was just for effect. I owe her, big.

  Heaven

  He owes me so big. Like . . . huge.

  Brady

  Did she just kiss me?

  Heaven

  I hope he doesn’t think that I like him like him. Christ, I don’t even like him.

  I think I’m going to be fired. If not, then I am definitely one table closer to being fired. The tables at Temple are numbered. Table 23 gets the hex today. Doug, our bartender, wishes “ass cancer” on rude customers and customers that show up when we have no more customers and are about to close. Then we have to stay open for—at least—an extra hour plus, just for these jackasses—and they always come. So when I tell Doug about Table 23 he walks over and gives them the “ass cancer hex.” I don’t know what it entails because I’ve never seen him do it. But just knowing that he did makes me feel better already.

  These two women had a hard-on for me from the minute they sat down, and they’re making my night a living hell. First they yell at me for how long they’ve been sitting there. They claim they’ve been there for fifteen minutes, which is impossible, but since the customer’s always right I just nod, apologize, and offer to take their order. But they continue to berate me for not coming over sooner. I can’t help zoning out and focusing instead on the small bumps all over this woman’s face. It’s unbelievable. She is like a giant pale gherkin. Finally I say, “Look, I’m here now. So, would you like to order your dinner because I’d really like to take your order.” Fake smile. Fake smile. Plastered-on smile.

  And it works. They give me their order. One woman orders a chopped salad with no dressing to start, and they will share one order of lemongrass chicken. I ring in their order and bring the lady’s salad to her.

  “I want a side of blue cheese,” the mouthpiece says.

  “All right,” I say. “I’ll go get it for you.” I go and get a side of blue cheese dressing and bring it back to her.

  But she gets angry. She huffs and rolls her eyes, and has this look on her face like she smells something really bad.

  “This isn’t what I wanted. I was here before and they brought me dry crumbled blue cheese. I don’t want just plain old blue cheese dressing.” I guess I had my mind-reader turned off. Shame on me.

  “O
kay then. I’ll go get you the dry blue cheese.” I go back to the kitchen, get her a side of dry blue cheese, and bring it to her.

  “I need the oil and vinegar that comes on the salad.”

  “Okay,” I say, and I go get her a side of our vinaigrette.

  I return with the vinaigrette, place it on the table, turn to walk away, and I’m stopped short. This lady has grabbed onto my shirt. “This is not what I asked for!” she yells. “I asked for oil and vinegar. I wanted separate containers of oil and vinegar. Not this. This is mixed. I don’t eat oil!”

  “So what you wanted was vinegar.”

  “Yes.”

  “My apologies,” I say with all of the warmth and affection of Joan Crawford. “When you said you wanted the vinaigrette I understood that to mean you wanted the dressing that normally comes with this salad. Which is what you asked for. Next time you just want vinegar, perhaps you can just ask for vinegar. I’ll go get you the vinegar.”

  “We also need plates. We’re sharing this salad. Can’t you see that? We need plates to share,” she says as I go right around the corner and grab the vinegar for her. When I hand it to her, she looks like she’s going to explode.

  “Where are the plates?” she blasts out like a trumpet.

  “Ma’am” (and when I say Ma’am, I mean you stupid whore), “the vinegar was closer, and it seemed to be your most immediate concern. I was just going to go and fetch you some plates as soon as you were satisfied with your vinegar.”

  “And you didn’t bring us a serving spoon to serve the salad.”

  “No, I didn’t. Salads don’t come with serving spoons.”

  “Well,” she says, “if you were a good waitress you would have brought one.”

  “Well, I’m not. So this is what you got.”

  “I’d like to see the manager.” Shit. Saw that coming. But I can take only so much. I tell Jean Paul that the customer has a complaint. He takes his sweet time going over to their table, which does my heart good.

  I hear her complaining about me, spitting nails, and when he obsequiously asks if there’s anything else he can do, she says, “Well, you can have that girl bring me a cup of decaf.” This is one of the times I’m happy about our Magic Coffee.

  We have something I like to call “Magic Coffee” at our restaurant. Here’s what it is: plain old run-of-the-mill coffee. And it’s not good. Management knows it’s not good, and they like it that way. Why? Because if it was good, people would stay and enjoy a second or third cup. Coffee doesn’t cost anything, and they want to turn tables and make money on new customers. So they make sure it’s bad, so people have their one cup and get out.

  But the reason it’s called Magic Coffee is because we have no decaf in the restaurant. None. Never have, never will. If someone wants decaf, we imagine it’s decaf and suddenly, POOF, it’s decaf. At least as far as they are concerned. This is immoral, you might think. And yes, it is. But they don’t care. When I first started working here I was shocked. And concerned. I happen to be one of those people who cannot have regular coffee after a certain hour. It will keep me up all night. If I were the person being duped into drinking fully caffeinated coffee, I’d be livid. But worse, what if it’s some old person with a heart condition. I mean, it’s dangerous. Yet they don’t care.

  Personally, I don’t serve it. That’s how my conscience deals with it. As a server, I take the food and drink orders and deliver the food and drinks. That’s it. After they’ve eaten dinner, the busboy takes the coffee and dessert order, delivers it, and lies. They’ll often ask, “Which one is the decaf?” And the busser will say, “This one,” and go so far as to point one out so they’re reassured. It’s all very sneaky. But I’m not involved in that part. I’m not the one lying. So I deal with it.

  Meanwhile, all of this time running back and forth has caused me to ignore a couple at another table. The two of them also ordered salads with blue cheese dressing. He’s nearly finished, but her plate is barely touched. A full glob of blue cheese is sitting right on top. I go over.

  “I don’t like this dressing,” she says. “I’m done.”

  “All right,” I say. “Let me get that out of your way.” I reach down and pick up her plate, but as soon as I lift it, it slips from my hand, which has oil on it from stupid Table 23. I try to catch it, but my effort only makes matters worse, and I end up essentially hurling the salad right onto her. All over her blouse. All over her skirt. A renegade piece of lettuce in her hair. Blue cheese everywhere. What is it with fucking blue cheese?

  I’m just as shocked as she is. We’re both stunned and silent for a minute. Then:

  “I guess you really hate that dressing now, huh?” I say. I mean, what do you fucking say? This is a nightmare. This is seriously a nightmare. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I woke up right now and called Sydney to tell her about it. But I don’t wake up. Because I’m awake. And this hell is just another night at my workplace.

  Amazingly, I don’t get fired. Not yet, at least. The couple’s meal is comped, and they’ll send us the dry-cleaning bill. And that woman . . . probably put the “ass cancer hex” on me!

  Back at Table 23, Pickle-face has devoured her “decaf.” Knowing that she’ll be up all night with the jitters because of it, I actually feel good about our Magic Coffee. So much so, I even personally deliver a refill after I’ve closed out her check. Yeah, I know it’s wrong. I’ll live with it.

  On my way home, I’m listening to The Clash on my iPod and I see a dog tied to a street sign. He’s scruffy and adorable, and he looks cold. I need to get home and take a bath, but I don’t want to just leave this mutt tied up there alone. I look at his collar and there are no ID tags. I can’t have a dog. A dog is a lot of responsibility. I can barely take care of myself. And God help me if I get near any blue cheese dressing. I pet him and start on my way home again.

  I don’t even get two blocks away before I turn around and go back to check on him. I just want to make sure he’s okay. Was he even a he? I walk into the Ray’s Pizza—one of about a thousand Ray’s Pizzas in New York that claim to be the “Original Ray’s.”

  So I ask the guy behind the counter if that dog has been tied up to the pole long.

  “Depends,” he says. “Is four hours long?”

  “Jesus Christ,” I say. “The poor thing’s got to be freezing.”

  “I see it all the time. People don’t want their dog anymore, and they leave it at a dog run or tie it to a pole.”

  “People are assholes,” I say. He nods and sort of chuckles.

  “Yeah, and they hope a sucker like you will take pity on the thing and give it a home.”

  “Ugh!” I groan and walk outside to check on him. When I get there he starts wagging his tail like he knows me. You don’t know me, stupid dog! Don’t wag your tail at me. And then he smiles. I swear to God, the fucking dog smiles at me. I will not take this dog home. I am not going to become a dog owner. There is a sucker that will take pity on this dog, but that sucker is not me. I need a long bath. I need to wash this day off me, and I do not need a dog.

  I have a dog in my apartment. He’s clumsy and adorable, and I’m calling him Strummer, after the recently departed Joe Strummer. Plus, he seems to like The Clash, too.

  I sit at my desk and check my e-mail and my CNN home page announces that the “Condom in Soup Lawsuit Is Settled.” You better believe I click on that link. Turns out this California-based seafood chain, McCormick and Shmick, settled a lawsuit with a woman who found a condom in her clam chowder. The woman also claimed she was treated rudely by the waiter, whom she’d asked to take her soup back to be reheated. When she began to eat the soup she encountered a chewy, rubbery object, which she first thought was calamari or shrimp. She spat the offending object into her napkin and, lo and behold, discovered it was a rolled-up condom.

  Now, I know this is truly disgusting. It is. But knowing what I know, waiting tables and dealing with asshole customers, I find this story gives me pause. I have to wo
nder what the woman really did to her waiter. How badly did she treat him? And it also begs the question, “Was this waiter actually practicing safe soup sex?” Perhaps the waiter thought he was doing a service by wearing a condom when he stuck his dick in her soup. How many times does a dick end up in a bowl of clam chowder without a condom? Personally, if anyone is fucking my soup, I’d prefer they do wear a condom, but that’s just me. And I don’t like clam chowder anyway.

  Classic crisis-management opportunity in my mind. There’s got to be a way to turn that bad PR into something good. Well . . . it’s actually a bit of a challenge . . . their sticky situation. They could always see the humor in it and make fun of themselves. They could put right on the menu, “Our chowder is condom free.” Or do a month-long Seamen Celebration: free clam chowder with any entrée. But I’ll tell you this—if they were paying me, I’d have chowder sales back up and rock solid in no time.

  I call Sydney and tell her to come over. I tell her I have someone here that she needs to meet. She whines that it’s too cold, but she comes anyway.

  It takes her an hour to get here, even though she lives only three blocks away. She got all dolled up thinking it was a guy that I wanted to introduce her to. And it is. But this particular little guy has four legs.

  “What did you do?” she asks.

  “He was homeless. Some idiot just left him tied to a pole.”

  “Oh, Heaven.”

  “I know. But I couldn’t leave him there. Anyway, he’s here now and he’s mine. And you’re an aunt. So say hello to Strummer.”

  “Strummer?” she says, not getting it.

  “Strummer.”

  “Like strumming a guitar?”

  “Yes, but it’s actually after Joe Strummer.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” she says.

  “Blaspheme!”

  “Is this one of your hip musical references?”

  “Hardly. But it’s okay. Anyone who enjoys the Blue Crush soundtrack as much as you is exempt from knowing who Joe Strummer was.”