Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Where the weekend goes
Hmm. Let’s see if I can reconstruct this.
Kindness: an ambiguous case study
After rounding on my patient this morning, I had breakfast at a downtown coffee shop. I took a seat at a counter next to a gaunt black gent with a nice wooden cane and a dapper fedora. First thing I noticed, the waitress took my order before his, even though he’d clearly been there before me. When she took his order, I heard him say, “Would I have enough left over for the blueberry muffin?” She told him no, he nodded, and that was that.
It set me to thinking whether I could pay for his breakfast without him knowing. The “without him knowing” part — this wasn’t so much “random act” B.S. but a desire not to embarrass the guy. The cash register was about five feet from me, seven or eight from him. Would he hear me if I explained to the waitress that I wanted to pay my neighbor’s bill, too? I was confident I would finish my breakfast quickly; I always do. Old and bad habit from internship and residency: I bolt down my food.
Before I had much time to consider, the waitress brought over a wrinkled, greasy paper bag and plopped it in front of the man.
“I didn’t want this to go!”
“Take it and leave. You were panhandling our customers so you can’t eat here.”
“This is rude.”
“It’s rude for you to panhandle out front. Our boss says you panhandle here, you can’t eat here. Take it and go.”
He asked to speak to the manager, but the manager wasn’t there. The senior waitress came over.
From the conversation that followed, I learned that one of the customers entering the restaurant had given the waitress at the register some money to cover the guy’s breakfast. So even though his breakfast was bought and paid for, they weren’t allowing him to eat there.
When the waitress told him it was rude of him to panhandle, he said, “It’s never rude to ask for help.” Then he launched into an odd bit about how “all of you are happy to take Obama’s bailouts, but I’m different somehow.” Which I thought was interesting.
After he left, two of the waitresses involved apologized to me. Didn’t help; I still felt like they had handled the situation poorly. What, did they feel like they’d be encouraging him if they let him eat at the counter like a normal human being?
Another woman came in, placed a to go order. They packaged her breakfast in a crisp, non-greasy paper bag. Hmm.
And what about the guy who paid for his breakfast? I understand the logic: “I’m going to pay for his breakfast. I don’t want to give him cash for drugs or alcohol.” On the one hand, the charitable party didn’t have to give the guy money. On the other hand, doesn’t it taint the act if you make the assumption that you have to pay for the guy’s meal, or else he’ll use the money for drugs or booze? Shouldn’t we be treating people with more dignity than that?
I’m not sure what to make of the whole thing. Restaurants do have the right to refuse service, or at least they claim that right. Clearly, the fellow who ponied up the breakfast money put them in a bind. If they refused the money (really the only way to refuse service), they might offend the donor. On the other hand, they wanted him out of there as fast as possible. So they took the money and proceeded to do as little as possible for the older man.
It left me with a bad feeling for the place. I won’t return. This man was well dressed, he didn’t smell, he wasn’t dirty. I would have eaten my breakfast next to him and never suspected he was down on his luck. He wasn’t bothering anyone and it wouldn’t have caused anyone any grief if they had treated him with respect. For that matter, it doesn’t make me think less of an establishment if there are panhandlers outside.
Seems to me there was more than a little vindictiveness in their behavior.
D.
Come it ran dumb axe of cents less kine, Ness
I’ve learned that Bakersfield is famous for three things:
and the creator of this bumper sticker slogan.
Go figure.
I can’t throw a frisbee to save my soul. When I aim it at Jake, it veers right by thirty to forty degrees. When I try to compensate by aiming thirty degrees left, the damn thing goes thirty degrees left. Just when I think it’s hopeless, I get one right to him. Then it’s back to the same ol’ crap.
But somehow, I know how to play badminton.
Badminton’s next on Jake’s PE torture wheel, so I bought some rackets and shuttlecocks a while back, and after our frisbee fiasco we futzed with badminton. And I know how to serve and hit it and all of that. When did I ever play badminton? Sis, didn’t we have rackets and a net when we were kids? Or perhaps it’s because I played some tennis in high school. Not much. Some. Enough, perhaps.
You have to understand, I can’t throw, catch, swing, dunk, hit — none of that. So to find out that I can not only serve a shuttlecock but do it accurately and consistently is nothing short of mind-boggling. Jake’s having a hard time serving, though, but on the other hand, he’s got me beat in frisbee. If we can figure out a game where he throws me the frisbee and I slam back the shuttlecock, we’ll have a great time.
D.
Ripping good yarn
Just finished Charlie Huston’s Six Bad Things, sequel to Caught Stealing, which I micro-reviewed here a little while ago. Six Bad Things is even better than Caught Stealing — funnier, bloodier (maybe; I didn’t do a body count), more poignant. Hank Thompson is back, and we get to find out exactly what he’ll do to protect his parents, who have been not so subtly threatened by the Russian mob. Along the way home he’ll meet up with a drug-dealing stripper, a truckload of mullet-headed subgeniuses who recognize Hank from his America’s Most Wanted episode (an entire episode devoted to Hank, that is), a variety of crooks both blood-crazed and half-witted, and a dog named Hitler.
The appeal of Huston’s Hank Thompson series lies in Hank, of course. On the one hand, he’s a guy who’s fell into the shit purely from doing a favor for a friend. On the other, he’s a guy who is finding it easier and easier to kill strangers and friends alike. Watching Hank’s devolution from nice guy to “dangerous man” (the title of book three in this trilogy) is a lot like watching the wreck of the Hindenburg. He never stops caring about his parents and the other innocents who get swept up in his violent whirlwind, so he never quite loses his appeal — his humanity, if you’ll forgive another Hindenburg reference. He seems like such a nice young man even when he’s shooting holes in people’s bellies.
I do have a few problems with this book. Hank is just so damned stupid sometimes. I mean, here he is one of America’s Most Wanted, and he thinks he can protect his parents by going straight to them? Not a wise play. And Huston also violated (to a mild degree) Chekhov’s Law, inasmuch as he trotted out Hitler and then failed to use him to maximal effect.
Quibbles notwithstanding, this was one of those rare books I had to take with me to work and read to the wee hours of the morning. I’ve already ordered book three.
D.
Craigslist again
From the ages of 4 to 11 I was an immigrant potato farmer. I grew up in a migrant fsmily and live a nomadic lifestyle. I’m in a semi-pro all women’s all contact rollerblading league. it’s my passion in life. someday i want to be an olympic bobsledder, which is something i do in my spare time. i own a luge. i’m looking for a special person to put the whipped cream on top.
Hey, I think I’ve seen this woman. Second from the left.
If I were single, I think I’d write back to her,
Small world! From the ages of 4 to 11, and sometimes later, I ate potatoes. I grew up in an immigrant fsmily (well, children of immigrants lolol) and used to watch women’s professional rollerskating on TV. you know those women buitl like halfbacks who’d crash into each other on the turns? That’s the sh!t mama! Don’t know much about bobsledding, but if you’re looking to play “hide the luge”, let me know.
Hmm. Too subtle?
D.