Caustic Cupcake's Creepy Cupboard

B4rtending school is a huge waste of time and money. Maybe they'll hook you up with some job leads, but know this: a good job doesn't have to go looking for employees; they have a waiting list of them. And even if they did, they would never hire them right out of the b4rtender mill. When you come out of b4rtending school, you will be unprepared in a variety of ways, the least of which will be your drink mixing skills.

There is nothing in b4rtending school that teaches you how to turn down dates while still keeping them as tipping customers or break up fights without taking sides. It won't teach you how not to care and how to act like everything's normal when people don't tip, when people get pissed off and curse you out, when you fuck up, when your drawer comes up short, when your drawer comes up over, when you run out of whatever's on special and everyone wants it right this very second. Nowhere in your b4rtender's manual will it tell you to unbutton your shirt and wear a push-up bra, to smile at everyone, and to take everyone's phone number when they offer it and wait until they leave to throw it out. The most important thing is that it won't tell you what it is that you don't know.

I kept all of that in mind when I went to work at the Cool Punk Rock B4r the other night, pretending that I actually knew what I was doing. I think it was pretty obvious that I didn't, but I remembered that rather than having a list of people waiting to work there, the Cool Punk Rock B4r has a long list of people who don't. That gives me, like the stupid kid fresh out of b4rtending school, a good chance of success.

One of the things that I resent about going to b4rtending school a few years ago was that it didn't teach me how to open a bottle of beer. I was worried, up until I actually opened one, that there was some trick to it and that it wasn't as easy as it looked, and I'd be standing there with the opener in both hands and the bottle clamped firmly between my knees as I attemped to bash the cap off on the side of the beer cooler. But no, it really is as easy as it looks. And I really don't drink anything that doesn't come with a tab or a screw-cap.

The things b4rtending school taught me were the following:

• how to count when pouring
• to take the drink away before telling someone they're cut off
• what kinds of alcohol there are
• what the bottles look like
• how to make a Rusty Nail, which is the only recipe I remember
• how to slice limes

And that's it right there. I think that's everything. Everything else I learned from cockt4il w4itressing, which is, as far as I can tell, the closest female equivalent to b4rbacking (and let me tell you how many Google hits this site is about to get for condomless sex), except with more customer interaction and less heavy lifting. And I've only had to slice limes once since then, I've never heard of someone actually ordering a Rusty Nail, and they're usually done the drink and ordering another one when I tell them that they're not getting it. Like I'd cut someone off mid-sip.

With all my inexperience laid bare for you to see and understand, let it be said that I think I did just fine on my first night. Everyone who ordered a drink got it, the drawer came out dead even, I made decent money, and I didn't run out of anything critical. My biggest mistake was that I kept serving people after, unbeknownst to me, the b4r had closed. In my defense, two factors were at work:

1. There was no clock, and I had totally lost track of time. Time flies when you're having fun.
2. Even if there had been a clock I would have still kept serving, oblivious, because in my home state the b4rs close an hour later than they do across the river. Who knew? One up for the home team!

As for the place being wild, I'm not unnerved yet. Sure, it's wild, but I won't be impressed until the customers really scare me. I try, constantly, persistently, to keep my cool when I'm at work, and I think I do an okay job of it. I've been vomitted at. I've been pushed and groped, and have pushed back and punched a couple people in the face. I've run through the spectrum of money loss from being short-changed to losing a twenty to being absolutely ripped off by customers to being robbed of hundreds of dollars by co-workers. I've seen people dragged out in handcuffs, people smashed over the head with broken bottles, and people out cold on the floor still asleep even after falling off their stool. I've worked in b4rs where the power went out, where the cops showed up to shut us down, where people sitting at the end of the bar drinking Sprite all night were only there to sell drugs. I'll go home and cry or complain or kick something or blog about it, but when I'm there, business is business and there's no crying, complaining, kicking, or blogging in business. This could be a lot of tough-girl posturing, but until the crowd at the Cool Punk Rock B4r actually climbs over the bar to get me, I think I'll be fine.

That night there was a thunderstorm outside and I was watching the lightning flashing over the buildings across the street, and it felt like a good omen.

Labels: Cool Punk Rock B4r, Intoxicology

The funny thing about fruit flies is that you rarely have just one or two of them. They come in clouds. Sure, you might have a Warning Fly. But then you go to poke at the trash or soda can where it came from, and KABOOM! a little cloud of them mushrooms out and you go "FUCK" and for the rest of the week you're bumping into them all over the house, wondering why you didn't have the good sense to tie up the fucking trash bag and throw it out back at the first sign of the Warning Fly.

And so often it's not your fault, is it? It's always after the fact that you find the apple that rolled out of the grocery bag and under the stove, or the cup of juice that someone left on an out-of-the-way bookshelf. And then you throw it at them.

The current fruitflyplosion here in the Caustic Cupboard is probably my fault, though, because I'm the only one who lives here; it looks like the culprit was depleted key lime ore leftover from the refinement process that resulted in my breakfast the other day.

I really resent that since then, throughout the whole time I've been away working to provide them with lime-y sustenance, the fly cloud has been kicking it in my apartment free of charge, the fucking freeloaders, and having way more fun than I ever do. It would be okay if they lived short, miserable little lives, but they don't. Fruit flies live short, intense, debauchery-filled lives. Apparently, the little guys have been throwing a wild house party in my trash can, getting drunk off of lime juice, rocking out, and performing oral sex on each other all the live-long day. NO, REALLY: Wikipedia tells me that as part of the mating ritual, the male sings a courtship song (dude, I've dated guitar players, plural: I know all about that bullshit) then gets down low and LICKS THE FEMALE'S GENITALIA. In other words, even the humble fruit fly knows that you gotta lick it before you stick it.

For the little fruit fly, copulation lasts for- you know what, let's just call it what is is- fucking lasts for approximately thirty minutes, which seems about right, doesn't it? Except when you consider that they've only been alive for eight to twelve hours, and they've already spend something like five or ten percent of their life knocking boots (or whatever it is that fruit flies wear... sneakers or something).

Until I start having that much fun around the Cupboard, they need to take the party elsewhere.
* * * * *
On a somewhat related note, I took had this blog rated by following a link from the very sweet Jo's site. The adorable Mormon mother-of-six's site earned, unbelieveably, an R rating, so I was not suprised to land this:

Labels: Flat Life, Product Endorsements

They said they'd call me the next day, and no call came. Okay. That happens a lot, and I didn't need the job anyway.

But just when I had forgotten about it and was getting excited about spending the day with my nephew at his grandparents' house, I got a text message at three in the motherfucking morning that the Cool Punk Rock Bar needs me to come in at 2 in the afternoon to work all night.

I almost told them to f- off. Then my younger sister told me to quit being a flake and go in.

"The Strippery fires everyone; you need a backup," she said, and she might have called me a dork, a douchebag, a jerkoff, or any combination of the above. Usually it's just "dork."

I am going in because I can dress however I want, and the lecture I got last night at the Strippery still smarts. That I am never again to wear knee-high boots because the owner doesn't like them. That I have to start dressing "more fancy"- good heavens, that was as fancy as it gets!- and should invest in some more heels. It's really getting under my skin that my job is so dependent on the way I look, but it doesn't seem to bother anyone else so perhaps I should dress up and forget about it.

To that end, I have purchased a couple short black prom dresses. No, really. I wish I were joking about that. I did yesterday. They were on sale.

What the fuck ever.

Labels: Cool Punk Rock B4r, Intoxicology, The Titty Bar

Today is the day. Rasputina's new album is out.

If I were you, I would go download "In Old Yellowcake" and then come back and thank me, because it's four minutes and five seconds of orgasm. I've been waiting for weeks to get "Retinue Of Moons / The Infidel In Me", which also rocks.

That is all. Now don't return to this site until you have it.

Labels: Product Endorsements

I was awake suddenly, my eyes open, terrified and clutching the sheets. I laid there in the quiet grey morning for a few seconds, a little confused, looking around the room, and then remembered what woke me up: screeching tires and a crash.

I hopped out of bed and went to the window, drew the bamboo blinds and threw open the screen to stick my head out. One car was pulled over by the curb just past my apartment, its back end a little smashed in, but it looked to be driveable. The driver was just getting out, unharmed (as far as I could tell) and armed with a cell phone. Because the other car? Was gone.

I pulled the squeaking screen down and went back to bed, kind of disappointed. That's the first time that's happened. You'd think I'd have heard it more, living over a state highway, but mostly what I hear is an impatient honking of horns when the light changes at the corner, loud radios, and the rumble of tractor trailers during the night. When I first moved up here it kept me up, but now they put me to sleep.

When the weather is nice, I like to stick my head out the window and look up and down at all the cars and the stores lining the road.

The highway is my front yard.

Labels: Flat Life

It's been a busy and fun few days.

THURSDAY:

• I went out to lunch with my mother, during which I:
  • threatened to crash the car if the current conversation didn't stop, several times
  • forced her to go entire minutes sans tobacco whilst we were driving in said car, which in our cigarette-scarfing family is tantamount to genocide
  • ran into a former coworker from the Nightclub and agreed to get her a job at the Strippery
  • (hint: I was lying)
  • got into a spoon duel with Mom over the chocolate torte we were splitting
• Then we went to The Dying Mall With Only Five Stores Left That Haven't Gone Under, where much clothing was purchased at considerable discount for all and several (former) employees could be seen hanging from girders.
• Little did I know when I put the thing on that I'd be wearing one of those awesome skirts that I bought FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS.
• That evening, in the lacy black skirt, I waited two or three hours to interview with the owner of the cool punk rock bar, who only has one e4r. "Don't laugh at the e4r," everyone warned me. "He doesn't like that." OH GOD. On the fly, I can handle deformity with tact, but the grave warning coupled with my nervousness really set me up to make a fool of myself (which I thankfully did not, even though they were right and HE ONLY HAS ONE E4R and I had to try very hard indeed to not point that out to him, even though I'm sure he's noticed by now).
  
  The mono-e4red owner doesn't show up much, I found out as I was waiting.
  "So he's kind of like the Wizard of Oz?" I asked.
  "No, he's more like... the Nothing," said the manager. "He just rolls in ominously and ruins everything in his path and then leaves again."
  
  But I think the interview went well. The owner rolled up outside the decrepit bar in a white limo and interviewed me outside.
  
  "Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked partway through the interview.
  "No," I replied.
  "Because your boyfriend can't hang out here."
  "Nah, I don't have a boyfriend," I said.
  "Fine, your girlfriend can't hang out here either," he corrected.
  "I don't have a girlfriend!" I said.
  "Whoever."


• Instead of going straight home, I stopped by the Un-Boyfriend's bar to see him. It's a dark little tavern with about 75,000 different kinds of beer from around the world (it seems that way, anyway) and I don't want to drink any of them, which is, perhaps, the greatest irony of our relationship (second greatest: we were only supposed to hang out for one night). I shouldn't do that, on account of him not being my boyfriend and all, but I wanted to see him and thought he might be surprised (I mean, in a good way, not in a "going to get a restraining order against this frightening bitch" sort of way). He introduced me to everyone, who ominously mentioned hearing so much about me (should I worry?), then fed me and walked me back to my car (and I don't think it was in the way that you put out a plate of food for a stray animal just so it will get off your back step, although the technique has been known to work as well for me, too).


• Then, rather than go back to my own damned state, I went to the Un-Boyfriend's place and fell asleep on his futon. Perhaps I was waiting to be fed again.

FRIDAY:

• We woke up. By "we woke up" I mean that I woke up and climbed all over the Un-Boyfriend while he tried to hide under the covers and pretend that morning hadn't arrived.
• Coffee, showering, and hanky-panky, although not in that order. During one of those activities, I speculated that perhaps if I did a very good job, he would take me to see polar bears.
• We went to the zoo. Even though my older sister and Mr. Mollusk (the Un-Boyfriend) live within walking distance of a major E4st Co4st animal repository, we haven't been there once since she moved there, then he moved there, then I washed up on his doorstep. I blame the fact that, being employeed in the bar industry, we usually sleep through most of the zoo's hours of operation. (When I was working during the day, I had a separate- and probably more valid- excuse.) At the zoo, we:
  • fell in love with baby prairie dogs. Good heavens, but they are cute, what with their little tails sticking up and the way they sniff around in the dirt, then stand at attention like the big prairie dogs, then sniff around in the dirt, then stand at attention again.
  • ate corn dog nuggets. Okay, so that was mostly on my part. While we were eating, a peacock ran by. They just let those things run wild!
  • saw a mother peacock leading her babies PAST A BEAR. "I can't watch!" I told the Un-Boyfriend. "This can't end well!" But they seem to have some sort of understanding. And baby peacocks are pointy in the back like big peacocks.
  • saw a puma pacing back in forth in front of the glass, which was stopping him from eating children, which he clearly wanted to do.
  • witnessed a polar bear sitting around doing nothing. Very unimpressive.
  • marvelled at how the giant turtles all sleep in a group (except one in a corner by itself, which we likened to the Un-Boyfriend).
  And all that time I had a big orange flower in my hair that Mr. Mollusk had stolen from in front of someone's house picked for me. And I was still wearing the skirt.


• Later we went to see a motorcycle that the Un-Boyfriend was interested in. He took it for a test drive and came back looking like a little kid on Christmas morning, so after he gets plates for it, it will be his to take home.
• We rocked out the Taco Bell and it was revealed that we would both rather get Taco Bell than go out to eat in a real dining establishment, which we've been doing all along when we could have just had some fucking chalupas and called it a night. We are simple people.
• At some point during the day, the landlord called to talk about the lawn, and I told him that I'm going to stay for at least one more semester and THEN leave, and I promised to mow the godforsaken lawn.
• Lastly, since we were kind of out that way anyway, the Un-Boyfriend showed me the house he grew up in, which is in a nice little neighborhood that is, horrifyingly, a couple blocks from an abandoned quarry-turned-landfill, a power station, AND a construction depot of some sort. His offspring will probably have gills. (Or maybe they'll be able to fly. That could actually be a selling point, except if their eggshell quality were compromised.)
• I was going to go home after that (and finally take off the fucking skirt), but the Un-Boyfriend convinced me to come in (admittedly, I take very little convincing). Then I was going to leave after that, but he curled up with me on the futon and I fell asleep. He said I could stay there for the night and went out to meet a friend for drinks. Before he left he tucked me in and, as he was saying goodbye, said "I love you" out of the blue. I was so surprised- and happy- I thought my heart would explode. To go to the zoo, get Taco Bell for dinner, AND be told that I'm loved was almost too much for one day. Almost.
• When he came back, he brought me a new Wawa-brand diet cola. I am of the firm opinion that they should have called it Wawola, seeing as how they already have an energy drink called "Mach W".

SATURDAY:

• We woke up. By "we woke up" I mean that I woke up and, in sneaking around putting on my skirt and shoes, inadvertantly woke up the sleeping Mr. Mollusk, who had seemingly developed tonsilitis overnight. He'd been a sick all week, but suddenly woke up worse. I'd go off on a rant about doctors being closed on the weekend and the near impossibility of receiving treatment at an urban emergency room, but I think everyone in America has, at some point, gotten sick on a weekend and consequently suffered (hail Sweden!).
• On my way back to my car (fingers crossed in the hope that it would still be there, with all of its windows intact), I stopped at my older sister's place. I could hear my nephew saying my name as I walked up the stairs and when I walked in, the baby was in his high chair, yogurt in his hair, grinning, and I think that I will remember that image for the rest of my life.
• I went home and got a text message from le Mollusk that he was sipping a hot toddy and starting to feel better.
• I finally took off the fucking skirt.
• I mowed the godforsaken lawn because the alcoholic downstairs has been asking the landlord if he can do it instead of me, and I'll be damned if he's going to load up at the bar across the street and then plow through my flowers. Do you ever blow your nose after mowing the lawn on a dry day and notice that your snot comes out black? I'm always amused by that. But like I said, I'm a simple person.
• I went to work and took the cover charge at the door instead of waitressing (which turns out to be a good way to catch up on gossip and scandal), after which one of the managers took about ten years off my life by counting my drawer wrong and declaring that I was short hundreds of dollars. This happens every time he counts something, and he always winds up counting everything ten times before it gets straightened out. One of the bouncers came in and laughed at me over the manager's back while this was happening. Other notable events at work included:
  • Two guys who kept leaving to go out to their car were discovered to be doing lines of coke- which we could have guessed- WITH THE CAR DOOR WIDE OPEN. I've seen people quietly sent outside to leave drugs in the car, but you have to at least make an effort to pretend nothing is happening or, sorry dudes, you won't be allowed back in the club.
  • Two strippers got in a fight on the stairway up to the dressing room. Why no necks were broken I can't say, except that maybe they didn't have their heels on. At least one of them was escorted out.
  • A porn star was making a special guest appearance that included pouring hot wax on herself.
  • I got bit by a mosquito, inside, again, and will now start wearing DEET to work.

That brings us up to today. I baked a key lime pie for breakfast (I told you I was running low on food), since I just happened to have an emergency can of sweetened condensed milk around the house (I strongly recommend having one or several).

Labels: Better Living Through Uprooting, Cool Punk Rock B4r, Family, Flat Life, Lovelife, Mr. Mollusk, The Titty Bar

There's a lot to update, but I thought that if nothing else, I should blog about this: last night, my un-boyfriend was tucking me into his futon before he went out to meet a friend and he said he loved me.

That is all.

Labels: Lovelife, Mr. Mollusk

After those long horrible weeks of waiting for a call back, now that I have a job I'm in high demand.

Last night I was hanging out at my parents' house when I got a call on my cell from the awesome bar where my younger sister hangs out. They have an opening for a bartender on one of my nights off and wanted to know if I could come in and interview.

Fuck yeah I can come in! So today after lunch with my mom, I'm going to go shopping for some more black clothing. I'm running out of black things to wear at the Strippery and that doesn't mean I'm going to start wearing what the other girls do*. Besides, new clothes always make me feel way more confident than old clothes on a job interview, even though the interviewer has never seen any of them before.

This morning, twelve hours later, I got a call from another bar I had applied to, asking if I was interested in picking up some waitressing shifts. No, I said, but they could keep my application on file and call back if they needed anything in the future, just in case. Although I'm sure that the next time I need a job, the bar will burn down with my application in it so they'll no longer have my number, even if they really wanted to call. And then the very instant I find a job somewhere else, they'll miraculously find a scrap of application with my number on it as they sift through the ashes and they'll call to ask if I can come work at their new location and I'll think, where was the phone call when I needed it?


* Nothing.

Labels: Intoxicology

I should go grocery shopping. I've been eating at Wawa every day. By the way, isn't it incredible how frozen White Castle cheeseburgers are JUST LIKE the real ones?! And isn't it awesome that Wawa carries them? Of course they would. You can always count on Wawa.

Where I live, you can drive in any direction and come to a Wawa within fifteen minutes. No, really, I'm not trying to be funny. You really can, which is great, because it's my favorite store. My state has more Wawas than any other. (Can you detect the slight undertone of gloating? Hahahaha WE WIN!) I grew up being able to throw a rock at a Wawa from wherever I was standing at any given point in time, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that there are no Wawas outside of the Del4w4re V4lley!

The rest of the country doesn't know what they're missing. If they did, they'd have moved here by now. Let that be a bit of advice to the Free State Project, which is running a little low on members and obviously hasn't taken into account New Hampshire's underdeveloped convenience store infrastructure as a possible reason. My state: the most Wawas per square mile. New Hampshire: no Wawas per square mile. My state: the most densely populated state in the country. New Hampshire: full of bears. Why am I the only person who sees the connection?

There isn't a Sonic anywhere in my state, nor is there a Tim Hortons, a Waffle House, or something called a Sheetz. But we have enough Wawas that if you were shot out of a cannon anywhere in the state you'd stand at least a 25% chance of landing on Wawa-owned property. Between trips to the grocery store, I eat there every day, even though their chairman of the board's name is Dick Wood and his name was, up until recently, printed on the coffee cups. Who in marketing let him do that? Were they asleep? High? Dead?

I imagine that Dick's a very self-confident man. He'd have to be. Because if my name were, oh, I don't know, Snatch Wetly or something, I would so not go throwing that around. I might never go out in public, let alone print it on the millions of cups of coffee I sold every year. That is, if I sold millions of cups of coffee every year, as Dick Wood does. I have sold a lot of coffee in my day at the ol' b4kery, but I guess Dick Wood does have something I don't. Hypothetically speaking, I wouldn't expect customers to be reassured by Snatch Wetly's guarantee that there is a little bit of herself in every drop, but I could be wrong about the way customers think. Maybe I am the only person who felt that a coffee cup signed by someone named Dick Wood would cast question upon the creamer.

And if anyone made fun of him, I suppose Dick could throw a cup of hot coffee at them and then get off scot free because of all the fabulous lawyers he could afford thanks to his fabulous coffee sales*.

* Note to Dick: please don't throw hot coffee at me. Or hire a firefighting helicopter to drop ten thousand gallons of hot coffee on my building, which I'm sure you could do. I actually admire you, your product, and your business model. You truly are a Dick of steel**.

** Note to everyone else: I'm sorry, but it had to be done.

Labels: Product Endorsements

...I have money again.

Mind you, it's not enough to buy prime rib when I go grocery shopping, pay off the Rollmobile, buy a little farm for myself, or send my tiny adorable nephew to Yale. But my first week went well enough so that I don't wind up obsessing over it have to think about it every waking second of my life that often- not because of what I made, but because I know that more is coming.

Last night, I did nothing, and I STILL made more than the average night at the old nightclub. Back then, I could be proud to say that I worked there- why yes, that hip radio station did mention it because they hang out there, and yes, the fountains and statues are lovely, and indeed, it was very hard to get a job there the first time, and no, you can't come in wearing sneakers or a baseball cap- but that didn't pay the motherfucking bills.

Hi. I work at a titty bar, and my gas tank is full.

As an added bonus, I heard the best story ever last night. I regret that I wasn't there to witness it happen.

The customers go through a metal detector, and one girl kept setting it off even after she'd emptied all her pockets and stripped off all visible metal. The bouncer asked if she had anything else that could be setting it off, and she replied, "Oh, I've got my dick on." That stopped him dead in his tracks.
"What?" he asked.
"I've got my dick on," she repeated, as if that sort of thing came up all the time, and they should have thought to ask.
"Is it bigger than mine?" he asked.
"Probably," she replied.
"Then I can't let you in," he said.

They wound up patting her down and letting her in. With her dick on.

I'm off to work. Have a lovely evening.

Labels: The Titty Bar

I asked the bouncer if he was supposed to make sure nothing really happened in the lap dance room. There are no bouncers in the champagne room.

He shrugged. "This club condones a lot," he said. "They let so much happen, what am I supposed to do? I don't care."

So we know that it could happen in this club, but not in all clubs. I have been in the champagne room of another club where a girl I used to know was a dancer, and it was just a big room where everyone could see what you were doing AND it was staffed with people to make sure nothing happened. But champagne rooms didn't get their reputation out of thin air, and in the Strippery where I could work, it could definitely happen without anyone noticing. But it depends on the girl. We saw a girl start to go back to the champagne room with a guy, and then they hesitated.

"Oh, she's explaining to him how much it is..." said the hostess prophetically, as we all watched with interest. "And here's where he says 'HOW MUCH?' and in a minute they'll come back out when he changes his mind." Sure enough, they turned away from the champagne room and headed back for a cheaper lap dance, with the dancer giving the guy the finger behind his back.

After they finished, the hostess asked her about it.
"He didn't want to pay?"
"No, I didn't want to go back there with him," she said. "He asked how much it was and said 'We can have sex, right?' No we can't have sex. Fuck youuu."

So there's at least one girl there who doesn't do it. It's up to the girl what she wants to do with her half hour or hour. It seems to me that it would be in her best interest to drag it out for as long as she can so he'll keep buying more time. It's almost two hundred bucks for a half hour.

What happens isn't talked about, but there seems to be an understanding that private things happen back there, and perhaps that's why it isn't talked about: it's private. When a couple left with another hour of time remaining, the hostess was aghast.
"They paid for it," she said in disbelief. "It was four hundred dollars; why are they leaving?"
"I don't know. It's their money," said the bouncer.
"Maybe he came already," she laughed, and dropped it.

Her advice to me, for when I'm back there dropping off drinks and getting everyone to sign their credit card slips, was to act like everything is normal and nothing is happening. I can do that. It's their money.

Labels: The Titty Bar

"I can't keep track of these girls," said the dancer to the champagne hostess, pulling on her top after a lap dance. "There've been about ninety of them in the past month."

That's why I'm training for champagne hostess. Because everyone keeps getting fired. How can you get fired at a job where you do nothing?

"What can I do to not get fired?" I asked the hostess point blank.
"Don't mess up," she said, shrugging. "Just do everything right."
"So I can't do anything wrong, ever?"
"Nope," she said. "There's no way I can sugar that up. I'm sorry."
"See, the owner's paranoid," said the bouncer. "He fired everyone like that." He snapped his fingers. "The trick is to not make this your bread and butter. Have another job. You can't rely on this. You have to have a day job, or work in some other bar. This is only my spending money." The hostess agreed; she only works one night a week.

I am going to try my damnedest to not let that get to me, while reminding myself to always do a good job because I am immediately replaceable.

Labels: The Titty Bar

"See? You don't do anything. And it's good money," the champagne hostess told me last night after dropping off a bottle of champagne, pouring two glasses, and getting a fifty dollar tip. And that's what makes me nervous about the job. I keep expecting someone to say, "But you're not doing anything. Why are we paying you?" and take the money back.

I trained for about three and half hours, and now I'm scheduled to be the whore timer champagne hostess on Sunday and Monday- which are, admittedly, slow nights. Tonight I'm going to waitress, and I'll drop in on the hostess to watch her for a while, and tomorrow night I'll be the door girl.

"Do you want to do the door for me tomorrow?" a rather burly manager, who also doubles as the rather burly head of security, asked. "You don't do anything. A hundred bucks for six hours, plus tips. Saturday night, you should make about fifty bucks in tips."
"And what do I do? Just collect the cover charge?"
"That's it," he said. "A hundred and fifty bucks for six hours." And we get tipped for what, exactly? Sitting there? Smiling? Yes, it makes me so, so, so nervous. Part of it is that I feel like a fraud, taking money without doing any work. The other part is that I keeping thinking to myself DO NOT GET FIRED FROM THIS JOB. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES CAN YOU F- UP. REMINDER TO SELF: BE VIGILANTLY PERFECT AT ALL TIMES.

It's kind of stressful, thinking all that all the time. But not as stressful as being at the last giant nightclub I worked at. I'll consider that part of the job. I am getting paid for a little work and a lot of mental stress.

Klynn nailed it in the comments: it is going to be hard to watch the front and the back at the same time. I anticipate trouble there. "You'll get into your own routine," the champagne hostess assured me last night.

I hope so.

Labels: The Titty Bar

"You're working for whores!" my older sister repeated gleefully. "Whores! This is the most exciting thing that could happen!"
"I'm not working for whores," I said. "I'm working for the club. I'm just timing the whores. And they're not even whores."

Would you like to know just what happens in the Champagne Room? You can either go visit one, go work in one, or wait for the Titty Bar (or the Strippery, as my sister called it the other night, or the Ho-K Corral, as she called to tell me this morning) to train me to work there and then read the blog as I tell you all about it. I'm going in tonight to train for a new position, because they're firing someone else. A high turnover is a bad sign for a club, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll like me and that the money will be even better. Which it is.

The Champagne Room here is divided into smaller, semi-private rooms with couches and candles. I don't think a lot of champagne actually gets sold. It would be more accurate to call it the Back Room.

My new job, for two nights as week, will be to do the following with tact and diplomacy:

• Keep track of how long men spend alone with the strippers of their choice in the Back Room.
• Interrupt them to take their credit cards, drivers' liscences, and drink orders.
• Charge them more money than I make in a day for a half hour, or more money than I make in a week for an hour.
• Bring back their drinks, get them to sign the receipts, and then disappear.
• Watch them do whatever it is they do on the monitor.
• Kick them out promptly when their time is up.

Yes, this could be very interesting. This could be ridiculously profitable. It could also be very stressful and high-pressure. It could be ungodly hard because they also expect me to waitress for the general population of the bar when I'm not keeping track of the Back Room. I could get fired like everyone else and be job-hunting again in a week.

No matter what happens, I'm sure it'll be a good story.

Labels: Intoxicology, The Titty Bar

This is, verbatim, a voicemail I got on my phone today.

AUNT JUNKET: Okay, leave your message. Say "hi Cupcake!"
NEPHEW: Hi Cupcake!
AJ: Say "it's JQ!"
N: JQ!
AJ: Say "call us back!"
N: JQ HOLD THE PHONE-
AJ: Well you have to tell her it's you... say "it's JQ" and "call me back."
N: (breathing)
AJ: Tell Aunt Cupcake call you back! You have to leave the message!
N: Mej.
AJ: Message, yeah.
N: (silence)
AJ: All right, I think that's big enough of a message, okay? Say bye bye.
N: Bye bye.
(click)

Labels: Family

I've never seen so many breasts in one place. It's true that there's an abundance of breasts wherever I go, but I'm used to mine. Here at The Titty Bar, on my first night as a cockt4il w4itress, there were topless women walking around all over the place, with glamourous shoes and makeup, making more money than God. It was kind of distracting. I'd be handing someone a drink, and then- GOOD GOD, are those things being supported by some sort of miniature, invisible scaffolding?! How does she walk upright?! I mean, that'll be five dollars, sir. Or I'd be walking to the kitchen to pick up a food order, and IS THAT WOMAN GRIPPING THE POLE BY HER BREASTS ALONE?! Oh, right... food order. Keep walking.

But I love it there, and I'm anxiously awaiting a phone call on Tuesday from the suit-and-tie wearing manager. He'll let me know if he needs me to work again. My fingers, toes, and internal organs are crossed. "I really like it here," I told him. "I really do. Really."

I was so relieved after working that night, not so much because I was back to work but because I finally felt justified in leaving the Nightclub. I'd started to doubt my decision hardcore, thinking maybe it hadn't been so bad after all, and maybe I was just lazy and shouldn't have minded the hard work. That really fucked with my self-esteem. Work ethic means a lot to me. It forms the cornerstone of my self-respect.

But it turns out that the Nightclub really was that bad. Cupcake 1, Nightclub 0.

The money was great, the clientele polite and respectful, and the work minimal. Everyone is so laid-back and the managers seem to let the staff do their jobs alone and in peace. It seems like you'd have to try really hard to get fired.

The best part about working there, just for one night, was seeing a couple very seductive, confident women on stage who were not a size 0. Or a 5. Or even a 10. They were not afraid to get up on stage in nothing but heels and a thong in front of a room full of people. In a sudden flash I saw that anyone who thinks they're sexy can be sexy, and those women went home with the money to prove it.

That alone was worth spending the night there.

Labels: The Titty Bar

It's like a pretty little island in the middle of a grey and run-down industrial section of the city. Outside are palm trees and Corvettes. And inside, they just fired a waitress.

I stopped in today with my black Dickies, black knee-high boots, and black wife beater to fill out an application. The bartenders wear t-shirts, the waitresses wear t-shirts, and everyone else who isn't a customer or a manager wears a g-string. The manager seemed encouraging, and told me he'd call back to let me know when I could come in for training.

I didn't want to be too enthusiastic about this development, so after scarfing down some salmon at Ikea and checking out some wall art (but buying none, since remember, I didn't technically get the job yet) I stopped in another bar to apply. I was on my way to a third strip club bar, stuck in rush-hour traffic, when the manager called.

He wanted to know if I could come back and train tonight at seven.

It's only a few shifts a week, he says, but I am confident that that can change because I am confident that I am a terrific fucking waitress who keeps her mouth shut and sells, sells, sells.

Cross your fingers and toes for me and hope they put me on the schedule. Weeee!

My text message inbox only holds 40 messages, and it's always full. Here are some of the ones that I can't bring myself to delete even as space in the inbox gets tight.

From: Older Sister
Apr XX, 2005, 7:10 am
In labor!... I think. Driving to hospital now, will keep you posted.

(three years after graduating high school...)
From: Older Sister
Aug 29, 2005, 9:27 am
You are going to college today! Yay! Let me know how it goes- mom and dad and I are so proud of you.

(didn't call home for a few days...)
From: Mom Cell
Mar 5, 2006, 1:56 am
Where are you? Where's my baby? I'M COMIN' TO GET YOU! HOLD ON BABY! MOMMA'S COMIN' TO GIT YOU!

(cut my fingers installing air conditioner at my place, and had been keeping Mom posted over at the parents' house via text message)
From: Mom Cell
Jun 3, 2006, 10:48 am
Is it running? I don't feel any cooler!

From: Older Sister
Sept 24, 2006, 11:11 pm
Hee... why are you texting me, dork?! Yawn and put your arm around him or something!
(the first night I hung out with Mr. Mollusk, my erstwhile boyfriend)

From: Mr. Mollusk
Sept 26, 2006, 12:34 pm
Yay! I confess to being smitten...
(the kind of text message that stops one's heart)

From: Mr. Mollusk
Oct 12, 2006m 6:33 am
You, m'dear, are adorable and delectable around the clock

From: Mr. Mollusk
Apr 2, 2007, 5:14 am
Reluctant? Our relationship began like no other, at a time when I wasn't looking for one. All I'd want, when I didn't want anything. It's confusing.
(also the kind of text message that stops one's heart)

From: Tall Handsome B4rtender
Apr 18, 2007, 4:40 pm
Hey snugler!
(back when he seemed to like me and I'd curled up with him on a couch at work, which eventually led... nowhere)

(after I suggested that we join the Ukra!ninan Orthodox Church to find marriageable men...)
From: Older Sister
Apr 22, 2007, 12:30 am
I'd sooner hapak with a cucumber and tell the stoic monobrow crowd to go back to Krygzykzkstan.

(While we were getting tattooed, we texted our respective men to tell them. Older Sister's wrote back a flirty "Do I get to look for it?" and I got...)
From: Mr. Mollusk
Apr 30, 2007, 3:24 pm
Did you get a dolphin on your ass?
(to which the guy tattooing us wisely recommended I respond with "no, I'm getting your name")

(after I expressed concerns that her date might have killed her and dumped the body in an abandoned lot)
From: Older Sister
XXX XX, 2007, 10:58 pm
THIS IS WHY WE DATE!!! (DATE AWESOME, STOP. VERY HAPPY, STOP.)


Good times.

Labels: Exes to Grind, Family, Lovelife, Mr. Mollusk

Hands down, my favorite author is James Herriot*.

I would marry him if he weren't already married and, incidentally, dead. Now that I think about it, when I meet guys, what I am looking for is Jim. In personality and demeanor, I want a man to be, simply, James Herriot. Note to prospective husbands: study up on All Creatures Great and Small. Study it long and hard. Then go to veterinary school, find us a charming cottage in the countryside (preferably in the 1940's, if you can pull that one off), and by all means bring me home a baby goat.

All joking aside, when I read his stories, I feel like I'm having a conversation with myself. He just gets it. Or, you know, got it.

My mom got me a four-book set of his short story collections- All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful, and The Lord God Made Them All- either for a birthday or for Christmas one year and it was one of the best presents ever. Really. Because I read those books over and over again. Herriot represents everything I love in a man, and his books represent everything I love to read- except unlike Herriot, the books are available on Amazon. And they even provide, at least in print, baby goats.

I was just flipping through The Lord God Made Them All and found a passage that reminded me of a conversation my father and I have had many times. We talk about Russ!an music and agree that you don't have to speak Russ!an to get it- suffering is universal, and you can hear it in the music, understand it and embrace it as your own (while we're talking about authors and understanding and suffering, go read "Any Human To Another" and then come back). My dad feels, sadly, that not many people bother listening and feeling music if they don't have a connection to the language.

James Herriot comes to the rescue with this, proving once again that he is (was) my soul mate:

"One still summer evening I was returning from a call when I heard the sound of singing. It was a rich, swelling chorus of many voices, and it seemed to come from nowhere. I stopped the car and wound down the window. The fells rose around me, their summits glinting in the last sunshine, but the only living creatures were the cattle and sheep grazing on the walled slopes.

Then I saw Knowle Manor perched on a plateau high above, and I remembered that hundreds of Russ!an prisoners were billeted there.
These men were singing the songs of their homeland, but the sound drifting from the windows of the big house was not that of a casual party. There was a vast, drilled choir up there, deep voices blending in thrilling harmonies that hung and lingered on the soft air.

I sat entranced for a long time, till the light faded and the chill of nightfall made me close my window and drive away.

Years later I read that these Russ!ans went home to death or captivity, and whenever I thought of their fate, I remembered that summer evening and the beautiful music they made in the peace of the Yorkshire hills."

Good job, Jim.

* To my incredible horror, I just discovered via Wikipedia that "James Herriot" was a pen name and that his real name was Alf Wight. Given my fondness for the man, this startling revelation trumps finding out that Santa Claus isn't real in terms of devastation. To repeat, I AM DEVASTATED. Now I have to go back through all my high school notebooks in which I had practiced my signature as "Cupacke Herriot" and resume practicing "Cupcake Wight." What the fuck?!

Labels: For The Love Of 'Laika, Product Endorsements

"I don't want to live here any more," I told the landlord on the phone the other day.
"We'd hate to see you go," he said, "but I wouldn't blame you."
"Well, I'm going," I said. And with that I gave my sixty days' notice.

See, that cr4ckhead neighbor who got evicted came back and punched someone in the face, pulled a knife on someone else, flattened someone else's tires, and scratched up someone else's car. He knows where we live and he thinks it's our fault we got evicted. It's like my ex-boyfriend who, to this day, thinks it's my fault he got dumped and doesn't see any fault of his own that could have contributed to the eventual dumping.

I am far from being friends with the other tenants, of course. There's always the matter of the alcoholic downstairs trying to sneak his tomato and pepper plants into the middle of my garden like one of those big ugly birds that leaves its big ugly eggs in the nest of a glaringly incompatable species. Fucking parasite. I imagine that much like the big ugly chicks that kick their host's cute little chicks out of the nest to make sure that all the worms are brought to them, them, and only them, Alcholic's plants would form tendrils to reach out and strangle my flowers.

Now I just have to find a place to live and, you know, be able to pay for it. To that end, I am still trying to find a job. The rejection of going on interview after interview is really fucking with my head. And because it's likely I'll move over here to be with my sister and nephew, I've been burning up what seems like tankers full of gas driving over to the city to interview. I'm going to have to start charging for appearances. What's that? I didn't get hired? You owe me ten bucks.

So that's the excuse I've been giving on job interviews for leaving my last job (because you know they always ask, eyes narrowed, suspicious)- I'm moving to the city. That doesn't work when I'm interviewing on my side of the river. Then I just say it wasn't my kind of crowd, which is true, but not entirely.

The real reason, I think, is that I quit taking the SSRI that had been so wisely prescribed to me, and suddenly remembered that I hate everything. This bar? I hate it. Working? I hate it. Getting out of bed? I hate it. So I quit.

So yesterday at the doctor's office, as she was writing out a presription for an earache, I brought it up.

"There's something else," I said.

Labels: Better Living Through Uprooting, Flat Life

It's been a couple weeks since I stopped by the Little Ol' Bakery where I used to work. Today I'm covering for the boss. I'm absolutely thrilled to be GETTING THE FUCK UP OFF MY ASS. Even though I'm tired.

Besides, he owes me some money from a few weeks ago. That's always good.

In continuing news, I am still watching what I eat, and have still not dropped an ounce, as far as I can tell (note to self: possibility of tumor that coincidentally grows at the same rate I lose weight?). It is true that I was up in the middle of the night eating tortilla chips and ice cream, but in my defense... um... I was hungry.

Yesterday I hung out with my family, and then went home and didn't sleep all night. One of the good reasons I quit my last job was that it forced me to stay up all night one day a week when I went to the bakery Monday morning. And now I do that anyway except it feel a lot less... what's the word I'm looking for? ...profitable.

Now I'm going to rock out an entire pot of coffee. I might just add the cream and sugar... I mean, creamer and Splenda... straight to the pot. The downside: the cupholders in the car are too small.

If I believed in a higher power, which I most certainly do not, I might be inclined to believe that I have been given a gift spider.

The other day I was about to get in the tub when I noticed the Thirstiest Little Spider sitting in there. Again. With a twinge of sadness, I scooped him up on a book, carried him to the kitchen door, and let him go on the porch. By "let him go" I meant "flung him far and possibly wide." I was fond of the little guy, but there was no telling what kind of watery death he'd meet if he stayed in the bathroom. Obviously he was an idiot.

Afterwards in the shower, I was feeling a little lonely and started to regret flinging Thirsty, until about five seconds later when I saw an identical spider crawl into a crack in the ceiling.

At first I worried that maybe I'd thrown its spouse out the kitchen door and it would be lonely, but it's been keeping busy, so its grief can't be that profound. While I'm in the tub, it'll crawl across the ceiling for a little bit, then abruptly drop down its invisible thread an inch or so, swing back and forth as if at a tiny playground, then climb back up and keep walking.

This afternoon after Underwear-and-Pizza Hour, I found Swingy in the tub, and I affectionately flicked him or her onto the bathroom floor with the steak knife I keep on hand for unclogging drains. Swingy scurried away in the direction of Spider Mountain.

I have lost most of my sense of time because I have no schedule. I think I have to fabricate one to keep myself sane.

There is no morning, and there is no night. Either the sun is out or it isn't, but either way, it's just time. It's kind of fucking with my sleep habits. I think I was happier when I slept eight hours a night at the same time. You'd think it would be fun to do whatever you want whenever you want but in my case it isn't. I have so little self-discipline and I don't trust myself to keep me on track.

I thought I'd find a job right away. Leaving the nightclub before I had one was, and I'd like to rub this in once and for all, one of THE STUPIDEST AND MOST SELF-DESTRUCTIVE THINGS I'VE DONE.

Because now it's 4:30 in the afternoon and I'm having pizza for breakfast in my underwear, having done nothing but screw around on the computer. It sounds cool, but I'm not having fun.

Labels: Insanity

Thursday, continued from "A Busy Morning"

I put the baby bird in a little saucepot with a t-shirt and tried to find a shelter. The nearest one wasn't so near, wouldn't take him (now I was thinking of it as a him), and recommended a less near one. I went outside to look for the nest and found four of them under the eaves of the second story. And secretly I was glad because I wanted to keep it as a pet. I called my younger sister to ask how to take care of it, and she told me right then that it was going to die... but if I wanted to try, I could get baby bird formula, heat it to 105 degrees, and use an eyedropper every hour.

I got the formula from the pet store and the eyedropper from the drugstore but Mr. Feathers, as I was now thinking of him, didn't want to eat. Why would he? But taking him to the shelter wouldn't be a guarrantee that he'd live, either, I thought, and would just empty my gas tank and make me late for the interview. Because I'm selfish. The internet told me to open his mouth for him. He didn't seem to like that, but he did eat a little food.

When I got out to the car to go to the city, one of the neighbors stopped to tell me all about the Cr4ckhead and the police being called and so on and so forth. I can't get out of my house without being stopped in the driveway.

It was the shortest interview I've been on yet. The night before when the manager had called me, it sounded so promising. "Come in at 6:30 for the interview, and I'll probably see you this weekend," he said. But the woman interviewing me just took my name and number and said she had other people to interview and would I please get out of her sight immediately she'd get back to me.

A little disappointed, I headed back up the street towards the PFR* Bar where my younger sister hangs out, and where some guys she knows were hanging around out front. So I stopped to talk and wound up filling out an application.

I was in the bathroom when I heard one my them asking the manager, on my behalf, if I could fill out an application.
"This girl wants to fill out an application," I heard him say.
"Is she a slut?" asked the manager.
"I don't know," the friend said. "Maybe."
"Do I have to be a slut to work here?" I asked when I walked out.

Perhaps the possibility that I could be a slut was the reason they asked if I wanted to go to some other bar for some show tonight. But the sister didn't want to go, and I'm not into hanging out at bars without backup, because I feel pretty stupid when I have nobody to talk to at a bar since I'll just be standing around, not having the excuse of drinking. Furthermore, I would have felt pretty guilty if I spent a whole evening appropriating my sister's pals. So I didn't go, even though my sister has this strange and wonderful talent of only hanging out with stunningly hot people, be they male or female, and I probably could have stood around at the other bar all night staring at her friends like an idiot.

I should have gone straight home to check on the baby bird, but so long as I was in the city I went to see my older sister and little nephew, who was godawful adorable tonight. He fed me chips (again with the unneccessary eating), called cucumbers "tucumbers" and now when you ask him where he lives, he can say "liladelphila," or some other cute equivalent with a lot of Ls. She made us dinner, none of which was consumed by the baby (because like a tiny camel, he can cross deserts without refueling).

And when I finally got home, I found the tiny bird dead where I left him. When I picked him up, mites were all over my hands. I washed them off and threw out the shirt with the bird.

Now I'm going to bed. It was a long day with a lot of emotions. That stuff is work.



* Punk Fucking Rock

My first stop of the day was the Redneck Bikini Bar. A parents' neighbor's son's girlfriend works there, and she said that they were in desperate need of another b4rtender. Just when I was beginning to think that a bar would have to be desperate to hire me!

They were out of applications so I jotted down the essential information on a piece of paper. Name. Phone number. Well-crafted lies Previous job experience. I've filled out so many applications in the past week that I'm really starting to resent them. They're all the same photocopied one with far too many questions than can possibly be relevant, when all anybody really needs is my name and phone number. Do you really want to know where I went to elementary school so I can be a bartender here? I want to ask.

I did not interview in a bikini, but the owner seemed to like me enough. I do own several bikinis, but hesitate to be seen in them anywhere, let alone a bikini-themed establishment where there is certainly a standard. So my plan is to not eat until they put me on the schedule, which I think they will. I played hard to get by letting them know that another bar had called me back for a second interview, and that I didn't think the schedules would conflict, and I would rather work at the Redneck Bikini Bar anyway, but... you know. And I think it had a positive impression. By that I mean I think he got played.

I was right down the street from my grandparents' old house, so I drove by to look at it. I stopped at the graveyard and did some thinking. If I were religious at all, ancestor worship would be a part of it, and I would totally be burning incense and dropping off fruit and flowers and little statues and stuff all the ding-dang time, because after visiting the departed I feel like I've done a good deed and I'm not sure why.

All of my grandparents are conveniently located in one graveyard, and I found myself thinking that it would be super-convenient if we could plant my parents there when the time came because that would certainly keep the graveyard-hopping down to a minimum. And then I couldn't listen to the radio as I drove away because I didn't feel like listening to music.

I stopped at my parents' house to hang out with my mom for a bit. I asked her about the bar, what with it being right down the street from her parents' house.
"Did Grandpa drink there?" I asked.
"No, he wouldn't go in a place where..."
"They weren't wearing bikinis fifty years ago," I said. I mentioned that it would be cool if I could work at his old neighborhood watering hole because I could get back all the fucking money he spent there when he was younger. And when my mom burst into tears, I realized it was one of those moments when I'd stuck my foot in it so hard I'd taken out teeth.

We went to the diner, Mom bought lunch, and I ate until I hated myself because remember, I'm supposed to be starving myself. But that crab cake sandwich was so good and so was the conversation.

Then I cleaned out the car and set off for the inspection station. The Cupcake Truck now gets 10% better gas mileage without all that trash weighing it down. I'm not sure if there's a law that makes excess trash fail you for inspection, but if they opened the door and threw up it, I would certainly see how that could have a negative impact.

But the inspection station now has a digital sign out front to tell you how long you can expect to wait in line, and it said "Expected Wait For Inspection: OHDEARGOD Minutes Long." So I turned around in their driveway and went home, still wearing the knee-high leather boots and all-black outfit I'd gone to interview in earlier. The sun was too hot and I was too irritable. However, my car is still clean and I am still thrilled.

In the driveway, I met the employee who takes my rent every month, who showed me a baby bird. It was smaller than a Twinkie, curled up in the grass where he'd left it after finding it on the sidewalk out front. "I think it fell off the building," he said. I checked the time- I had a couple hours before my second interview at a happening bar on a happening street in Ph!lly.

"You caught me just in time," I said. "I'll take him to the shelter."

So I scooped the tiny thing up and ran upstairs to get out of the hot boots and into some sneakers, find a shelter in the yellow pages, and put it in a box or something. To save you the suspense, it died.

Labels: Family, Intoxicology

Last night I ran into the Cr4ckhead from next door outside of my apartment. (Actually, he's the Cr4ckhead formerly from next door). He was sitting on another tenant's lawn furniture having a beer. Mind you, he no longer lives here.

He offered to buy my bike about a krillion times, getting more intense each time. "I MEAN, I PUT A LOTTA WORK INTO THAT BIKE," he said. "I CLEANED IT ALL UP AND PUT NEW TUBES IN IT AND"
"All it needed was tubes; I could have cleaned it up," I said, which was kind of direct for me but I was tired of being held hostage in my own driveway holding a conversation that I never wanted to have. I think he wants me to pay for the tubes and if I thought it would make him go away, I would. Then again, if I thought that sacrificing a goat with my bare hands on the roof during a thunderstorm wearing nothing but chainmail would make him go away, I would.

Slurring, he told me where his new apartment is (three blocks away, on the same street) and told me to stop by sometime. You already know he's got a little crack problem and is creepy. Did you also know that he's pushing fifty (if not already there), mostly bald, stooped over from a disfiguring accident (when he crashed the Cr4ckmobile... again), has tiny slimy-looking yellow eyeballs and is out of his fucking mind? What the fuck is he thinking, and when is the landlord going to get a restraining order?

I told him that my dad built the bike and it's not for sale. I told him that a few times. He reminded me not to sell it to anyone else when I sell it, but to bring it to him. I know where to find him, and not just because he told me. I know where he lives because my stolen flowerpots are on his porch. But the bike is still not for sale BECAUSE IT'S MINE.

This afternoon one of the neighbors (who's also being evicted this week because THIS IS THE APARTMENT BUILDING OF THE DAMNED) stopped me in the driveway to tell me that the cops had just left. Cr4ckhead came by and punched one of the tenants in the face, blah blah blah, the police were called, and nobody wants to press charges because he knows where we all live.

"If you ever hear anything," said another female tenant, walking up to the window. "Call the police, or just let me know." Because apparently, they did have some sort of relationship going, until he broke into her apartment, AGAIN. (He did that before.) We share a hallway on one side of the building, and according to one source or another, had I not been home he would have gone upstairs into her bedroom, but because I was right across the hall he had to limit his activities to her living room downstairs.

He's the sort of person you expect to get shot in the face one day when he fucks with the wrong person but I can't wait that long.

Labels: Flat Life