Tuesday, August 30, 2005

The Cut List

My girlfriend has a good friend who's husband is a retired minor league baseball player. The guy is a little older than me, he just never got called to the majors so now he's trying to pursue a second career in heating and cooling (or something). Basically, if you ever wanted to know what happened to Jack from John Cougar Mellancamp's "Jack and Diane," you just need to look at him.

When I went to their wedding, it was filled with all his triple-A baseball buddies. I expected the usher to ask me, "Are you with the has-beens or the never-weres."

Monday, August 29, 2005

The Dollar Dance

I recently attened a wedding that featured a dollar dance. For those of you who don't know what a dollar dance is, let me explain: At weddings between more "rustic" individuals, at some point during the reception, the bride will dance with the wedding guests...for a small fee (usually a dollar). The first time I witnessed this phenomenon, at a wedding a few years ago, I was appalled. The next day, Russ and I and some other friends were sitting around, making fun of the tradition, when our good buddy Brett from Blafayette spoke up.

Brett: Hey, it's just some people's tradition. If I was getting married, my grandparents would probably come up and hand us a thousand bucks during the dollar dance.

Me: Brett, I can't think of a less classy way to give someone a thousand dollars...except for sticking it in a G-string.

(Note: To his credit, Brett has come around on the matter, and recently blasted a couple who had a dollar dance at their wedding.)

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Tasteless Post. (but too funny not to post)

It just occurred to me that some freshman girl is moving into a dorm room this week that she has all to herself now that Natalee Holloway won't be attending college this year.

Sophomore Fratboy: Is it cool if I stay the night? Where's your roommate?

Freshman girl: I don't know. Somewhere off the Aruban coastline?

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

My Dream Woman

Today I had the first meeting for a class, which is being taught by a local judge. First off, she walked in and I was surprised because she was very attractive. And she isn't just attractive by judge standards...She is attractive for a 40 year old woman by any standard.

Then, as she was explaining the syllabus, she told us never to read dissents, because they are boring and pointless. I never read dissents! I too find them boring and pointless!

Then, she said she wanted to give a brief history of the subject before letting us go. She started talking about the English Feudal systems and early Common Law. People started furiously scribbling notes, when she stopped, and told everyone to stop taking notes because she isn't going to test on this. I hate it when people take notes on shit that is so obviously not going to be on the exam! It's one of my biggest pet peeves!

And if that wasn't enough, when she finished, she let us go an hour early (the class meets once a week for two hours). I love when professors let us out early! It makes my day! Oh man, I am smitten...

Off to a Bad Start

One of my classes allows two unexcused absences per semester. I have already used both of mine and the first week isn't even over yet.

Mike consoled me by saying, "You're smart. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow."

The Kroger's Chronicles #3: The Nametag

One day, all the managers were excited because the store was getting a visit from the CEO of the corporation, Joseph Pichler. I was working back in the video department when he came. One of the managers, Brad, was giving him a tour of the store, when he stopped at the video department to introduce me. "Mike, this is Joe Pichler, the new CEO of the company".

My response: "Hiya, Joe."

Joe gave me a quizzical look, and said, "Nice to meet you Mike." Brad gave me an absolute death look.

Now, at this point, I want to explain that I did not address the CEO of a major corporation by his first name to be disrespectful. It was just a reflex, because: a) everyone in the store was on a first name basis, and b) he was wearing a nametag that said "Joe". Subconsciously, I saw this nametag and assumed he was one of those "cool" CEOs who wanted to called by his first name.

An hour later, after my new friend Joe left, Brad angrily called me to his office. "Mike, what is the matter with you? How could you call him by his first name?" A vein was popping out of his forehead.

"Well", I replied, "His nametag said 'Joe'. I figured thats what he wanted to be called."

"Oh yeah", Brad said. "So if his nametag said 'Idiot', would you call him an idiot?"

"Why would the new CEO of Kroger's be wearing a nametag that said 'Idiot'?, I asked.

Brad gave me the look of a 30-something grocery manager who was just outsmarted by a 16 year old. I went back to work.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

The Kroger's Chronicles #2: The Polo Rebellion

If you go into a Kroger's today, you'll see all the employees wearing a store-issued uniform. However, when I worked there in 1996, that was not the case. Male employees had to wear a shirt and tie, while female employees simply had to "dress nice".

I hate wearing ties, and I always have. For the first few months I resented having to wear a tie to work in a grocery store, especially seeing what some of the female employees passed off as "dressed nice". One day, I was running late for work. I didn't have time to ask my mom to iron my shirt, or to ask my stepdad to tie my tie. So, in a bold act of defiance, I put on a polo shirt and headed to work.

I nervously walked past the customer service desk towards the time clock, expecting one of the many assistant managers to accost me about my dress code violation. But to my surprise, no one seemed to notice, or care. I worked my entire shift and nobody said a word to me about it.

So the next day, I again wore a polo shirt instead of a tie, and again, no one said anything about it to me, except for one of my co-workers, Chris. He asked why I wasn't wearing a tie, and I told him that I hated ties and decided to wear this instead. He seemed to agree with that logic, and the next day, he came in wearing a polo shirt too.

And so it began. First, the other three male employees of the video department stopped wearing ties and began wearing polos. Then some of the baggers followed our lead and stopped wearing ties. Next, the stock boys threw away their ties. And finally, a few of the male cashiers began wearing polos to work. This all happened over the course of about six weeks, but it was very noticeable. The only male employees in the store who still wore ties were the ones over 30 or the suck ups trying to get promoted to assistant manager. Almost all of the younger male employees stopped wearing ties and began wearing polo shirts to work.

Store management, to their discredit, did not say anything to anybody while this was going on. I, and the other employees, took their silence as acquiescence to the change in dress code. However, about two months after I first wore a polo shirt to work, one of the managers finally said something to me. "You know, you are out of dress code. You have to wear a tie", she said. I played dumb and replied, "Oh, really?", and went on wearing polos to work. I knew that they couldn't fire me, because of the union, and I also knew that they hated having employees quit, because it was difficult to restaff and retrain. I decided to use this knowledge to my advantage if they ever confronted me again. Eventually, they did start cracking down, confronting the dress code offenders and reminding them of the acceptable dress code. I escaped this scrutiny until one day, one of the managers, a dorky guy named Tony, came up to me while I was back in the video department.

"Mike", he said, "You aren't wearing a tie." I looked at him for a few seconds, surprised by how passive he was, and said, "I know", and went back to doing what I was doing.

"Mike, you have to wear a tie to work here", he said. "Tony, I haven't worn a tie in two months", I replied.

"Well, we are cracking down on you guys now. So you need to go home and put on a tie right now". Tony was a classic Beta male, and I was amused by his attempt at toughness, since he sounded a bit like Kip from Napoleon Dynamite.

"Okay, Tony, but if I go home, I'm not coming back", I told him.

"But aren't you closing tonight", Tony asked.

"Exactly", I replied.

I called Tony's bluff. Tony glared at me for a second and walked away, and for some reason, nobody ever asked me about my polo shirts again.

Postscript: A few months after my employment at Kroger's ended (an upcoming story), the store began issuing standard uniforms for all employees. The uniform: Polo shirts. Coincidence? I like to think it wasn't.

Monday, August 15, 2005

"Whoever you are - I have always depended on the kindness of strangers"

Whether you're out at the bar in the tony section of town or reading the newspaper's "lifestyles" section, you'll observe an interesting phenomena: Women in their late 20s and 30s sipping martinis with one hand and cradling Coach purses with another.

I'm not sure if they've adopted every cliche from "Sex and the City" or they're just truly enraptured by a life of aesthetics which, ironically, they hope to be rescued from by a husband-to-be-named-later. There's something vaguely pathetic about grown-up women who are, essentially, pretending to be grown ups.

There's also something familiar about it, and I couldn't put my finger on it until just the other day. I realized what these women who are trading on their limited looks and sophistication really are: The cosmopolitan modern equivalent of the faded southern belle.

Instead of glorifying these ladies with overrated HBO sitcoms, we need a modernized version of A Streetcar Named Desire to bring them down a few pegs.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Thought for the Day

Are bandanas the poor man's ascot?

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The Kroger's Chronicles #1: Organized Labor, A Lumbering Dinosaur

Towards the end of my sophomore year of high school, when I was 16, I got a job in the video department of the local Kroger's. (For those of you who don't know, Kroger's is a large supermarket chain. I think it's called Ralph's out west. But I digress. It isn't a massive building, like a Meijer's or SuperWal-Mart, but each store is usually pretty big. Okay, now I digress.) I worked at Kroger's for about six months. As I look back at that job and the stuff that I did there, I am at times amused, embarassed, and shocked by the audacity that I displayed as a 16 year old. So without further ado, here is my first installation of The Kroger's Chronicles.

In order to get a job at Kroger's, you had to join the union. I guess this is a good deal for the full-time workers in the deli and bakery and such, but for the mass of adolescents who worked there part-time, it didn't make much sense. But you didn't have a choice, so I filled out all the paperwork and officially became a member of the union.

I never thought that being a union member would benefit me in any way, since I was working part-time and didn't get any benefits or anything, and I was only making a quarter above minimum wage. In fact, union dues were taken out of my first paycheck, leaving me with a take home of $17.24 after two weeks of work. That is, until one day during my third week of work, when I learned the true benefits of being in a union.

It was a busy Saturday afternoon, at least out in the store. Back in the video department, it was a slow day and the three of us who were on the clock were lazily sitting around, watching Billy Madison on the television and taking care of the occasional customer who came in. I was about to go on my break (the union strikes again...I have to take a break from watching movies), when the store's assistant manager, Lisa, came up to me. "Mike, can you do me a favor?", she asked. I was hesitent, but said that I would. "After your break, can you come up and bag groceries for a while? A few of the baggers didn't come in and we are short."

My heart sank. Bagging groceries is by far the shittiest job in a grocery store. When I applied to Kroger's, I told them I would do anything but bag; that's how I landed the plum job in the video department. But this manager caught me off guard and I had no time to think of an excuse or somehow weasel out of it. I went up to the breakroom and sulked.

Towards the end of my break, one of the guys from the butcher shop, Dan, came in. I had talked to Dan a few times before and he seemed like a good guy. I whined to him about having to go bag, and he told me not to do it. "What do I tell Lisa?", I asked. "Nothing. It's in your union contract. Bagger's sign a different kind of contract. Read it if you don't believe me." I really wanted to believe him, but this was the sort of thing that I had to see for myself. I remember throwing my union contract on the floor of my car after my first day of work, and it was still there when I went out to look for it. I took the contract to Dan and asked him where it said that. He turned right to it and, lo and behold, Dan was right.

Apparently, I was under a "Non-Foods Contract". This meant that all I was allowed to do was work in the video department, one-hour photo, cosmetics, and stock non-food items such as bathroom items. In fact, it explicitly said I was not allowed to handle food. I asked Dan what I should do. "Go back to video", he said. "If Lisa comes back and has a problem, tell her to talk to the foreman."

I happily went back to the video department and resumed watching movies. About 45 minutes later, an angry Lisa came back and told me to get up front and start bagging. "Actually, I read my contract while on break, and found out that I'm not allowed to bag...Sorry, nothing I can do about it." Lisa looked at me in a disbelieving rage for a few seconds, when, emboldened by my new found sense of job security via the union, I added the kicker. "If you got a problem, take it up with the foreman." Lisa looked absolutely furious. I was doing my best not to laugh. She stared me down for what seemed like 30 seconds, turned, and left without saying a word.

That would be the first of many, many incidents that peppered my employment record at Kroger's.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

The Perfect Fight

In the movie "Dazed and Confused" one character, Mike, describes his theory of the perfect fight.

Mike: "Look man I've got it all planed out. Most fights at places like this never get past a punch or two before they're broken up you know. There's almost this natural instinct not to upset the herd. All I've got to do is get in one good punch, play the offense and wait."

The Mike character follows through on his plan after his nemesis drops the classic line, "I only came here to do two things, kick some ass and drink some beer." [glances over his shoulder] "Looks like we're almost outta beer."

The plan is an utter failure as the other kid beats Mike to a pulp after Mike's pre-emptive strike. No one comes to rescue him.

Upon seeing this movie, I was no stranger to this scenario as a friend of mine, Ron, had planned to do the very same scheme in high school. It ended up working out for him, in a way.

Ron called out this kid, politely known as "Giant Jason," when he was walking somewhere in the middle of the quad. Giant Jason was way bigger but he wasn't a real hot head so he just kind of stood there and took Ron's abuse, while a crowd (including your's truly) developed around the two.

Giant Jason finally decided that he'd had enough of this abuse and that he would just punch Ron and let the natural order of high school's casual violence take over. Giant Jason began to take off his backpack so he could fight properly, but the backpack's zipper was kind of undone so all of his books suddenly fell out the backpack. Ron looked at him with disdain and said, "What are you going to do? Study me to death?" The growing crowd of kids all burst into laughter at Ron's cleverness and Giant Jason's oafishness. Giant Jason rushed towards Ron only to be apprehended by two security guards who had run into the crowd of teenage voyeurs. Ron stood there smiling, untrammeled by our high school's security guards. He had delivered the perfect quip (that spread around school like wildfire) without suffering any repercussions.

If I'm not mistaken Ron and I cut class the next day. Just in case Giant Jason was still angry.