Every time I want to make a dime on someone else's ignorance, another genius does it first. Now there are fake H1N1 vaccines which you can order on a fraudulent website. You pay them money to pre-order your anti-swine vaccine and, supposedly, it is shipped to you for your health care provider to inoculate you with. Can you imagine how much money could be made on hysteria? It's a huge market. Next items: HIV vaccine, hand sanitizer that prevents osteoarthritis in your hands, toilet paper that protects you from STD's by forming a biofilm on your butt, and so on.

Hand sanitizer is the thing to invest in. Most mothers buy it in bulk...every scent, every color, and every size. At RT, I see vanilla hand sanitizer, cucumber-melon sanitizer, pink and yellow and green sanitizers... it's like hand sanitizer is haute couture all of a sudden. A young girl squirts some on her hands and all her friends ask her, "What scent is THAT?" Bath and Body Works sells some of the most impressive scents. But in the end, people, it's just another alcohol compound. It stings your cuts and dries out your skin and kills some of your own "good" microbes if used in excess. And let's not forget that the flu is also transmitted in the air... if you breathe, squirt some sanitizer in your mouth. It'll save you from that nasty H1N1.

And to those mothers with sick, snotty, contagious kids... please do not let them out of the house. They feel like shit, look like shit, and do not want to be toted around on errands. I don't wish to get the Hantavirus, either, and I dislike cleaning up the goo your kid spits up, snorts out, and sneezes onto the table. Unless you bathed them in that lovely Pomegranate Lavendar hand sanitizer and have them on a respirator, KEEP EM AT HOME.

The most amusing thing for a time:

A woman was in Books A-Million while I was there. She frequented the "New Age" section as I orbited the bookstore. I dithered, I read titles, overviews, played with stationary, whatever. We checked out at the same time. She had some trouble using her discount card as she'd changed phone numbers. A lot. She tried like six different numbers. Eventually she gave her name, address, that sort of thing. FINALLY (maybe 5 minutes had passed, which while one is waiting seems like eternity) she paid using cash, except she was three pennies short and didn't want to break a dollar. She rifles in her purse for a moment before deciding her change must be in her car.

Me: I have some change. (Pulls out a nickel).
New Age Lady: Oh, thank you so much! I have change in my car and I'm going to bring change back to you!
Me: It's OK. It's a nickel.

(Later, after I've checked out, she runs from her car to catch me in the parking lot, exclaiming how much she appreciates my generosity, and gives me two nickels.)

New Agers are nice.

On to AA:
We had an emergency group conscience meeting at Unnamed AA group, which of course I was unaware of but thought to go to a regular 6:30 meeting. There were probably 50 AAers there and maybe 10 loud ones, and opinions ran rampant. (May I add that alcoholics aren't the most "Let's all agree and hug" group, anyway.) See, the group has been undecided about some things. Example: smoking in the parking lot, which has been outlawed. Example: court cards, and when to sign them, if to sign them, etc. Example: max capacity in the present building, and who told that fire marshall to come in, anyway? Example: inappropriate behavior inside and outside meetings, which the church who lets us use the building disapproves of.

So, after an hour and a half, we had a rough consensus... move, get out from under the church, and start another meeting somewhere else. The church, it seems, wants us gone (or at least down to like twenty people, no halfway house or court card-holding folks, preferably no young people, no smokers, and no one who wants to visit in the parking lot outside the meeting). I mean, it makes sense. Our meeting is the the historic district of town, and the church owns property and homeowners own property and the university owns property. None of those places wants to see cigarette butts on the lawn, or kids "necking" (old-timer word) in the parking lot, or amorphous groups of recorvering alcoholics wandering the streets and talking. But since AA can have no real rules about who can and can't attend meetings, we cannot control the behavior of people outside the meeting hall.

The most awful thing was the abolition of the 11 and 6:30 meetings. Period. Until we can get stuff "reigned in". The final decision of what to do next will be in a week or so, but until then, kids, sink or swim... and find somewhere else to go. Which, to me, is better than setting out 30 seats and the 31st person is turned away... that's shitty. That goes against everything AA stands for. I said my piece, others said theirs, and some people want to split up the group in factions. "Old school AA vs. New School". It's sad, and I hope we can reach a conclusion. I got sober at that group, and I hate to see it dissolve into nothingness or split. But I'd hate even more to be a part of a group that turns people away at the door.

Love and peace!

As you know, I wait tables. It's a blast sometimes, truly it is. I talk to my regulars, I get along with my coworkers. I started reading Ribeye the Raging Server's Blog (funniest shit ever) and started thinking about the ghetto-fabulous crowd. Race isn't the issue here; it's the young, disrespectful kids that have grown up in a materialistic culture that are the issue.

I can make a few generalizations about these people from hell.
1. They will call you some variation of Shorty, “Hey”, or “Baby”
2. They will require gallons of ranch and at least a bushel of lemons to go with their water. And that’s only after they’ve ordered a strawberry lemonade and declared, “This don’t taste right”. And after they’ve bitched about the price or liquor.
3. We offer sampler platters, but everything on the platter will need to be substituted, and the rung-in order will resemble a Bible in length on the expo screen.
4. No matter how accurate you are, you will be wrong.
5. The well done steak will never be “tender” enough. Or it won’t be done enough.
6. The price is always too high to justify a tip, even when the guest knows the cost of the ribs & steak platter. Costs must be cut, and the cost-cutting is on service.
7. No one will sit the fuck down and stay in one spot. Then I will be classified as “racist” because “Wha you think we all look alike? Man that’s racist”.
8. Every sauce must be asked for, and when one request has been filled, one other will be made. No one can ask for ranch all at once, even if I prompt, “Would anyone else like an additional sauce?” Nope, get a sauce, come back, and hear, “Hey, shorty, can I get some mo’ BBQ?”
9. Everyone stays for hours, but when they are ready to leave, they are ready. Now. Yes, every check is separate, everyone wants change, and everyone pays with cash.
10. The table afterwards looks post-apocalytic. There are wing bones, used napkins, lemon peels, cracker crumbs (God at the damn cracker crumbs), wet naps, chewed wads of gum, and rib bones everywhere. And that’s after using the pre-bus system.
11. Someone usually loses a phone, and I am always the culprit for theft. Always. Because everyone knows the tall white waitress is shady. After all, she didn’t ensure that the well-done steak was super tender. AND of course she didn't let her wonderful guests substitute a ribeye for the fried chicken on the sampler. I mean, if I were me, I would think I was mistreating the poor guests by lying to them.
12. Half the party that was said to be 8 but is now 30 is not eating. They do, however, require free water with lemon.

Prom kids blow chunks too. I will write about them another time.

Set this account up so I can rant about mindless things.