Don’t kid yourself, this industry is fucked up. Its antics make good people bad and bad people unbearable for the rest of civilization. Yes, we make more money than the majority of the country – but we’ve paid for that privilege by sacrificing our social skills and tolerance for every day people.
Although many of us refuse to admit it, we’ve become snobs who now view the general public as the other side of the tracks. The job calls for long hours and extensive nights out, so the bulk our time is spent with shallow, self centered, egotistical douche bags… You don’t want to look down on everyday people, but it it happens. Sadly I realized this was happening to me last night after I took my kids to dinner (at the restaurant of their choice) to celebrate the entry of my son’s drawing into the elementary school art show. The kids picked Friendly’s.
Ever been to Friendly’s? If by some small chance your answer is no, then good for you and do you yourself a favor and never go. Now that you’ve grown accustomed to eating in restaurants like Nobu, Jean Georges and those high-end steak houses that wait on us hand and foot, it’s tough to walk into fried food America and have some Guatemalan mother of twelve, who can barely fit her Jim Dandy ass between the tables, wait on you. It’s always the same. Once you sit down the first thing you need to do out of necessity is ask your overweight chocolate sauce stained waitress to go get a rag and wipe all the sticky shit off the table left by the farm animals that were there before you. God forbid you drop something under the table… Don’t you dare stick your arm under there! Consider it gone forever and lost in the sea of crusted mac and cheese, old french fries, dirty needles and god only knows what else is growing.
I have no patience and it’s being spoiled on Wall Street that made me this way. I look across the table and there are my kids smiling ear to ear, doing the happy ice cream dance and scraping the last bits of their sundaes from the bottom of their glasses. …”I love you guys, but somebody bring me the fucking check!”
Even after you’re done clogging your arteries, you can’t get out. It’s like a roach motel. Before you leave, you need to spend ten minutes waiting by the register for some other beefy broad with Rocky Road crusted on her elbow to acknowledge your presence just so you can get $2 worth of quarters for the Claw machine. I’d like to get my hands the criminal who designed that fucking thing. This guy can’t possibly have children and if he does he’s got one twisted sense of humor.
The machine is so obnoxious – it’s the size of a Volkswagon, covered in bright lights, plays circus music and to a child looks like Christmas morning itself. And for just 4 quarters your child gets to operate a robotic arm and experience disappointment after fucking disappointment while the shit prizes fall out of its limp palsy ridden metallic fingers. If you’ve got more than one child, pray the first doesn’t muster up a miracle. Cause if he does you could easily double what you just spent on dinner trying to do it again.
Wait! You’re not done yet. Don’t forget to ask for that balloon before you go… no, not that one… it’s got to be the blue balloon. Now I don’t know if it’s all the french fry grease or what, but 2 out of 3 times that fucking balloon string slips out of my kids hand before we even get to the car. Then I have to listen to him cry for an hour while we watch the god damned thing disappear into outer space.
Relishing the little things,
-Dopey
