I see a lot of crazy and word things downtown. If possible, I try to capture it as a video or a photo, but there are times when I’m not quick enough.
Thankfully, this is not one of those times.
When you wear a hilariously ironic shirt, you have to expect a reaction.
I saw her from across the road. “Does her shirt say what I think it does?” It did.
I took it from across the street, but that wasn’t good enough. I needed a closer look.
I pushed my luck.
That title above, that’s how this one weird guy starts a conversation with me every time I see him. He’s awkward and weird, but this conversation took the cake …
“There sure are a lot of jerks out there … mean guys … what, do they have a girl on every corner? I like a happy bar where you can have a conversation with someone, but there’s a lot of jerks out there ….”
My coworker and I didn’t know what to say. I think we silently agreed with him since he was getting aggravated.
“I still think about going over to Gary Sorenson’s house when I was 16 … but it’s been a long time. I’m 65 now … got to make a move some time. His uncle had a big pit in the backyard … you can’t make people fight to the death.”
T and I shared a look that can only be described as a “where the hell is this going” kind of look.
“You can’t throw a bunch of 16 year olds into a pit and make them fight to the death, you just can’t do it!”
He’s flabbergasted, shrugs, and takes off leaving my coworker and I trying to decipher what the devil it all meant.
Meanwhile at Gary Sorenson’s house …
You may see what you think are alcoholics from time to time, but you have no idea. So mom has a little hooch hidden in the medicine cabinet, and Dad brings a flask with him to the high school football game. Big deal.Uncle Steve getting a bit to frisky with the relations at the family Christmas party has nothing on the bottom of the rung spirit seekers I encounter daily in this town.
Have you ever been offered a pull from a bottle of Listerine by a group of toothless drunks that appear to be sweating said breath freshener out of their pores? I have.
Ever walked around town at 9am while beggars and street urchins drink 4loko out of paper bags leaning up against buildings because they can’t stand up? Come downtown some time.
Vanilla Extract, It’s Not Just For Cooking Anymore
This empty bottle of Vanilla Extract was ditched after being chugged in its entirety. People will drink all manner of delightful products to get drunk.
So when you suburbanites come downtown and see an urban camper passed out on the sidewalk, stairwell, or park bench, don’t worry. Target was just having a sale that day.
At work one day, a coworker of mine saw a piece of paper with writing all over it on the ground, so he grabbed it. It turned out to be a poem.
My Ancient Tribal Stars
My Ancient Tribal Stars
by Anonymous
transcribed by Thor Augenblick
Thousands and thousands into a old infinity is my ancient tribal stars
Old lords from a ancient comprehension of their common descent.
With a high nomination in control of exalts a old masculinity.
Giants and goddesses of deep conceptions high in plural forms and substantive notions.
Old high patriarchs and ancient rulers of a strong circulated heritage.
Dragons of legendary epochs from my old ancient tribal stars.
Old rebels high in the sky my oldest old ancient tribal stars …
Adult Detention Center Form
I guess there’s not a lot to do when you’re in the poke.
This may be one of the craziest stories from my valet days of yore. Names have been changed to protect the guilty …
One of the busiest accounts we had was located in an affluent suburb. It quickly became a place where middle-aged women went to drink, meet wealthy men … and have sex with them. Sometimes in the parking lot. It wasn’t uncommon to find a couple of people getting down and dirty in a parked car, or even out in the grass by the pond behind the restaurant.
Sex was in the air. It was as if Spanish Fly was being pumped into every drink, for every patron, every night. Drunk women would end up pawing at the valets, flashing their breasts, offering to take the valets home for some sexy time, that sort of thing.
This place was horny central.
At the end of one night a valet we knew, let’s call him Tim, had one of these women all over him. She was attractive, drunk, and couldn’t keep her hands off of him. After she couldn’t find a cab, he of course offered her a ride home at the end of the night.
She got into his truck, and they proceeded to drive. This woman immediately had her hands all over him, down his pants, kissing him and stroking him, until he could no longer concentrate any longer. She told him to pull over, so he found the first semi-private place he could. A church parking lot.
He received what he described as “an amazing blowjob” just steps away from the house of God. After he expelled his seed, and she wiped her mouth, he took her home.
Tim pulled into her driveway, and before the woman could even get out of his truck, a huge angry dude came flying out the front door yelling “Who the fuck is that?”
She jumped out of the truck to meet him before he went on the rampage it seemed like he was planning for Tim.
She pleaded for him to settle down. “Who is he, what the fuck were you doing in his car?”
“He’s a valet. He was nice enough to drive me home when I couldn’t find a cab.”
The man’s attitude did a complete 180 degree turn. “Oh my God, thank you so much.” He came over and shook Tim’s hand, offered him money, told him how much he appreciated what Tim had done for his wife.”
Tim was scared shitless. He declined the money, told the huge man not to worry about it. The woman waved him goodbye and smiled, and Tim tried to act cool, but drove out of there as fast as he possibly could.
One of the most bizarre street preachers at it again perched on his soapbox getting ready to lead people to use the bath towel …
Learn more about the bath towel preacher.
Nobody likes to do laundry, but this is taking it a bit far.
These soiled blue jeans were left at the backdoor of the restaurant. Next to them was a bag with a receipt for a new pair of pants. Cast off your shame and lay it aside.
The new year brings a lot of opportunity for reflection and change. It also encourages us to reassess the things in our life that are either not working, or need a little fix.
All of these things were running through my head while I was working New Years Eve. The ball had just dropped, people were kissing and drinking champagne, I was looking deep into the depths of my own soul, but I was jolted out of my introspection when I heard my coworker exclaim “Oh hell no!”
I turned to look while he rushed for the front door and saw a little penis, and it was peeing.
A drunk hipster had walked up and started pissing on the front door of the restaurant. My coworker threw the door open smashing the drunk into the wall mid stream. The guy hunched his shoulders in a defensive position, there was no way he would be stopping mid stream.
My coworker positioned himself behind the urinator, grabbed him by the collar and arm, and flung him away from the doors. The drunk spun like a top, his piss arching and twisting with his body. It got all over himself, the sidewalk, the red carpet leading into the restaurant, but miraculously not on my coworker.
A frozen line of urine, a piss trail if you will, showed how far the drunk got before he finished. It was maybe 15 feet.
When my coworker came in, I could only laugh. 2013 had begun on a high note making me wonder where it will all go from here.
Maya Angelou is pretty amazing speaker. I’ve seen her before, several years ago. My wife gave me I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings when I was on my way to England. It was a good read.
Maya Angelou was next door the other night speaking.
She’s getting old, and needs help getting in and out of her tour bus. She uses a wheelchair now to get around. I saw her get off the bus and go into the stage door of the theater.
Her engagement was brief, maybe an hour tops, and then she was back in the tour bus in front of our valet zone.
A car pulled up behind the tour bus, and an old woman in a wheelchair got out from the driver’s seat. Then she helped an even older woman (at least 80) get out of the passenger seat and into her own wheelchair (that makes two wheelchairs, three if you include Maya Angelou). The older woman just sat on the curb looking lost and confused, while the younger one wheeled herself up to the door of the tour bus, leaned out so far I thought she was going to fall, and pried open the door of the bus.
This is when she began screaming into the open door.
“Ms. Angelou, I need to speak to Ms. Angelou! Let me in the bus! Let me in. I need to speak to her!”
I’d never seen a groupie like this before. Security stood frozen and baffled by the incident. It took a long time for one of the guards to run over and wrench the door handle out of the woman’s hand.
She started hitting him, and tried to wedge herself into the entrance of the bus while he tried to get the door shut.
“Let go of me! Get your hands of me. I need to speak to Ms. Angelou! Please! Ms. Angelou, let me in. I need to speak to you!”
This all happened while I was watching, and continued as I ran by the bus to get to the parking ramp. When I pulled the car out, the guard had been able to shut the door and the bus drove off pretty soon after.
The old woman was sitting back in the car looking just as confused, but the younger one was wheeling around whining out loud about how she needed to see Ms. Angelou. It was important!
With the prominence of keyless cars that require only a “key fob” to be carried inside the car and a start button to be pressed to get the ignition going, a whole new set of problems have arisen at work. Here are three of the most common scenarios.
First:
The customer walks off with the fob in their pocket. The car will still run, but once it’s turned off it can’t be locked or restarted. Most cars beep loudly when the key is not detected, some don’t make any noise, instead just a small key symbol may flash silently on the dashboard. If we notice it fast enough, we may catch the customer inside. When we do, a lot of the interactions go like this:
Me: “Excuse me Mr. or Ms. so and so, can I get your car key from you?”
Customer: “It doesn’t have a key, it’s keyless.”
Me: “Can I get your key fob from you then?”
Customer: “It’s running, you don’t need it.”
Me: “I know it’s running, but once I turn it off I won’t be able to lock it and I won’t be able to start it up again.”
At this point they usually dig around in their pockets, find the key fob and hand it to me.
Second Scenario:
If we don’t catch them in time to get the key fob on the way in, we park the car, and mark the ticket so that we can grab it from them before we run to the parking lot. A lot of those interactions go like this:
Customer hands us the ticket.
Me: “I just need to get your key fob from you so I can start the car.”
Customer: “I don’t have the key, I gave it to you.”
Me: “We didn’t get a key from you. The car wouldn’t start once we turned it off, so it’s not in the car either.”
Customer: (getting testy) “Look I gave you the key, you guys probably lost it.”
Me: (trying to be patient) “Can you check your pockets for me just to make sure you don’t have them before I go look in your car again?”
The customer is usually annoyed, convinced we lost their keys and that we’re the stupid ones. So with reluctance they will run their hands over their pockets. Wouldn’t you know it, nine times out of ten they find their keys and hand them over in embarrassment.
Third Scenario:
This one usually starts well after the customer has left the restaurant and either gotten home or to their hotel. This is always a phone call, and it happened to me last night.
They call the restaurant in a panic telling the hostess or the manager that they used valet and didn’t get their key fob from us when they left. Usually a valet talks to the customer on the phone, and it’s always a delicate balance of trying to explain something in the same way you would to a child.
Customer: “We used valet tonight, and we didn’t get our keys back from you. It’s keyless, I think you forgot to give them to us. We didn’t notice until we got to our hotel.”
Me: “Did you check the cup holder? We usually put the key fobs in the cup holder or hand them directly to you when we return the car.”
Customer: “I looked, we don’t have them. You didn’t give them to us.”
Me: “We had to have the key in the car to start it and bring it up to you. Have you tried to start it? Does the car tell you that the key is not detected?”
Customer: “I guess I’ll check again and call you back, but I know you didn’t give them to us.”
Usually we never hear from them again, because they have the keys.
Last night they called back.
The first call came from a woman, the second one came from her husband. They didn’t find the key, and they had to get somewhere by 6am the next morning. We got their phone number, hotel, and room number.
They said they were at the Westin, and that it was a rental car, so I walked over to the hotel so I could look in their car and make sure. I remembered bringing the car up and putting the key in the cup holder.
When I got to the hotel I called the man. He was foreign. I had a hard time understanding him, and he had a hard time understanding me. I told him I was at the hotel, and I’d like to look in the car and try to find the key. He was surprised I got there so fast, and I told him I walked over to the Westin on 6th St. He told me he was in another Westin 20 miles away.
Great.
I asked him if he tried to start the car, and reminded him that you had to have your foot on the brake and the door shut for the car to start.
This is when he told me that they had just gotten their bags up to their room and he hadn’t checked the car yet, which was what I asked them to do when they had called 30 minutes earlier. He still assured me that the car wouldn’t start, so he knew the keys weren’t there.
I got him to agree to look in the car and call me back. I gave him my cell phone number.
30 minutes later he called back. Guess where the key was?
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