Hell Hath No Fury (aka, my terrible review of Explorer’s Club)

My friend Anna and I went out to dinner the other night. We went to a casual neighborhood place called The Explorer’s Club, known for its eclectic, global menu. Stupidly, we assumed that a global menu also meant a global sensibility, in that they didn’t expect to turn over tables like Bob Evans or Denny’s. Apparently, we were wrong.

We ordered five small plates and a bottle of wine, like a place with small plates and bottles of wine invites. While we were finishing our last small plate and had an inch of wine left in our bottle, a strange, ugly, bearded man came up to our table, and quite aggressively, told us to “order an entrée or move along.”

“Uh, we have ordered five small plates,” I informed him.

He did not care. “I have tables waiting at the bar, and you are sitting at a four top.”

Note: we had not asked for a four top, nor had we made any indication that we were a party of four. We were clearly a party of two, and there were numerous EMPTY tables in the restaurant, which had been empty for quite some time. Furthermore, and probably most importantly, we had not been offered our check. Had we been there for hours on end, a la, My Dinner with Andre? Certainly not. We’d been there for two hours, completely unaware that this behavior was outrageous.

Because we had not been offered our check, we sat there, clueless about what the hell we were supposed to do. Finally, we flagged down our server, and told her that we’d been kicked out of the restaurant, and were in need of our check.

“That guy was an asshole,” my friend and I told our server. Except that we used the more appropriate term a-hole.  We didn't want to offend the poor girl.  “Is he the manager?”

“No, he’s the owner,” our server told us, clearly embarrassed. The owner!

Anna and I would have been on our way within twenty minutes had this not happened. And, in fact, we would have been on our way with lovely memories of delicious fried plantains and empanadas. We would have recommended this shithole to all of our friends. But because this jackass could not control his own aggression, we, instead, were spoken to in a condescending way, and, spoken to as if we were lollygaggers that were intentionally insisting on staying, despite their polite entreaties to leave. In actuality, this was the furthest from the truth. To repeat, there were a number of empty tables in the restaurant, suggesting that we could linger. Second, we had been there for about two hours, not four hours. A restaurant with small plates and bottles of wine contains an implicit suggestion that guests chose and explore (huh! Explorer’s Club! Who knew!) several options. We had not been offered our check, nor had our server come by to ask if we would like anything else before this asshole came over to our table and told us to leave. To be clear, we had NO CLUE that the ENTIRE FATE OF THIS NOTHING RESTAURANT WAS RESTING ON WHETHER OR NOT WE STAYED FOR ANOTHER TWENTY MINUTES OR LEFT!

So…..Tracy Studer….PLEASE let me apologize in the clearest terms possible. I had no idea that you were following the Denny’s service model of rapid table turnover. I had no idea that, as customers, we were expected to read your mind, or worry about things that were not readily apparent. We had no idea that getting the check was OUR RESPONSIBILITY. I AM SO SORRY, Tracy Studer. I, furthermore, apologize profusely for the fact that you have never learned social skills or how to run a business. How horrible that must be for you. Most importantly, I am so sorry for the people who work for you. It must be fucking torture for them to put up with you, your hysteria, and your insistence on turning away good customers. PS, I did not take your shit out on my server. She was lovely, and entirely deserving of the 38% tip I left on my tab.

Last, and most importantly, I would like to let you know a few things: a satisfied customer tells an average of seven people of his or her good experience. An unsatisfied customer tells an average of sixteen people. Except that Anna and I are not average customers. I write a blog that has an average of 2000 views a month. Anna and I are both articulate lawyers, with a large network of friends, and no hesitation to post reviews on Yelp, Urbanspoon, and Facebook. We have friends who are vindictive motherfuckers, and who will not visit your restaurant out of spite. We live in a city with PLENTY of good eateries, and WE DON’T NEED YOU.

So Tracy Studer, and Explorer’s Club, kindly fuck off. Oh, PS, their contact information is http://www.explorersclubmv.com/contact/. Please feel free to copy and paste this blog entry directly to them. Rock on, rockers.

Dog Manifesto

I’ve had my dog Skye for about three years now, and in those three years, she has transformed dramatically from the girl I thought she was to the girl she is. To wit: when she first came to live with me, the voice I gave to her had a polite Asian accent. She is a Japanese breed, and was somewhat shy, so I felt like this was a good fit. Now, however, her voice is that of a Jersey City housewife. Never satisfied, always screeching, and two breaths away from losing it.

Along with this change, I have also long felt that Skye has been making Big Plans in her head for how things are going to shake out….when the time is right. How can I tell she’s making big plans? Well, mostly because of the way I find her staring at me sometimes, like she is mentally sharpening two very large knives. This occurs mostly when I am leaving the house, and she believes she is entitled to join me, or when I am eating something delicious and not sharing. By the way, I find that extremely rude. I let her enjoy her dog food in total peace, why can’t I eat my tater tots the same way?

So anyway, if Skye were ever able to articulate her Grand Scheme, I feel like here’s what it would say:

“Dogs of the world, now is a time for action. Too long have we been subjected to bad cuisine, sitting in the back seat, and watching the world on a leash. I make the following proposal to get our place at the dinner table, the boardroom table, and that table by the front window that’s too tall for me to jump on:

1. We must learn how to type. Now, it’s silly to think that we’re ever going to get our thumbs back. That train has already passed, evolution-wise. But, by golly, God didn’t give us pointy noses for nothing, so let’s use ‘em.

2. We should probably learn some basic computer skills, or how to roll paper into those rolly things on typewriters. And we should figure out what Ctrl+Alt+Delete stands for. That seems to be an important one.

3. Also: does anyone have a Twitter account? If not, we should get someone to set one up.

4. And think of some really clever hashtags. I was thinking #Petthismuthafucka or #Azzsniffers. Something edgy to let people know we mean business.

5. Okay, so once we learn how to use computers and how to tweet our way into awareness (Tumblr account, too? Check into this) it’s time for us to free ourselves from the soft life that most of us have led. This will take sacrifice on all of our parts. Especially this part: we can no longer hang our heads out car windows. We can’t let the humans see us as tongue-flappers who are satisfied by a mere breeze in our face. And for God’s sake, seatbelts save lives. Wear ‘em!

6. It would be helpful if we learned how to drive cars. At least some of us, preferably the big ones like Great Danes and Irish Wolfhounds. Try to keep this secret from the English Sheepdogs, however, because I, for one, would not want to be a passenger in a car driven by one of them. They can’t even see, and I certainly don’t want to put my hands on a steering wheel after they’ve slobbered all over it.

7. Speaking of bodily functions: can we show a little decorum? No one’s ever going to take us seriously if we eat our own poop. If you must, do it in private.

8. Back to brass tacks: we have communication, we have transportation, now it’s time for liberation. Who knows how to slip a collar? Once we get our basic computer skills up to snuff, let’s set up a ListServe that will allow us to talk about ways to deal with the buckled menace. Oh, and if anyone knows how those little cards work that humans use to buy stuff, that might be helpful, too.

9. Eyeglasses. We need them. Also: pipes and hats. The humans are easily deceived by dogs wearing eyeglass, pipes, hats, and carrying newspapers. We can get anything accomplished RIGHT UNDER THEIR NOSES if we have these basic tools of disguise.

10. Last but hardest for many of you, you will have to say goodbye to your humans. Give them a final lick of the face or sniff of the crotch – whatever you do – and pack one of those little bandana bags that go on the end of a stick. Find your way to the nearest off-leash dog park, and meet your destiny. We will plan further from there.

11. Oh, and bring some pepperoni.

Happy Father's Day

Here is a true story, and I know it’s true because it happened in a church: at my father’s funeral, which was held in the second week of January, Father Lumph gave a long-ass sermon about how Christmas was now and forever ruined for my family. Ruined! And my family was in the front two rows of the church just kind of looking at each other like, “Wha? Christmas is ruined?” Because, to our recollection, we’d gotten through Christmas AND New Year’s Day with the old man just fine. Now if you were to ask me if January 8th was forever ruined, I would have to say yes, but Christmas? Hm.

Anyway, I’m saying all of that as an intro to the fact that, not only is Christmas not ruined, but Father’s Day is also not ruined, despite the fact that my father is no longer around to bask in all of its glory. If he were still here, his eight kids would have showered him with the same things he asked for every year: Meijer gift cards, batteries, and light bulbs. He’d built up enough of a stockpile of those items that, had we all had a mind to live in a house run on batteries, 75 watt light bulbs, and things you could get at Meijer, we would have been comfortable for about ten years. If he were still here, he would have made us figure out the logistical nightmare of getting fifteen or sixteen people around a dining room table made for no more than eight. And he would have said, as he said more and more frequently the older he got, that he was just so happy to have my mom as his wife.

And he was. As my brother said during my dad’s eulogy, my parents’ marriage was a rock. And despite the fact that I’ve been telling people that my mom has been on Match.com AND Christian Mingle since February, the fact is that they had marriage figured out. I have always credited this to separate bank accounts and kissing each other each morning and each night for the duration of their 50-some-year marriage, but it could have just has easily been the fact that my dad rarely complained about my mom smoking, and my mom rarely complained about my dad farting.

In any event, the man built a damn good life for the people who loved him to remember. And while I can’t speak for my siblings, I know that, for me, grief hasn’t been a completely terrible thing. Now, I’m not trying to say it’s been a fucking hoot either, but every time I start crying because something touches a memory, it’s tears that are built on a wealth of memories – how he would sign all of his cards, “D.A.D.,” or how he would say, “You know me… I’m easy to get along with,” when what he really meant was that he was tired of dealing with your bullshit, or how, at about this time of year, he would be tending his garden and already be talking about the Buckeyes’ football prospects. And working through grief is not all tears.  Sometimes it's sharing hilarious memories, like the day I told my friend Trisha about the summer my dad decided to grow pot as an “experiment” in the back yard, and how it mysteriously disappeared when in full bloom.  And how my brother, when cleaning out one of my dad's cupboards, found a 35 or more year-old bag of pot, practically turned to dust, stowed away behind some old highball glasses.  It was a good thing to hear Trisha say, "Your Dad stories are the best." 

So, this Father’s Day, as my family spends our first year emphatically NOT having our day ruined, despite Father Lumph’s best efforts, I send out a sincere hope that all of the dads of the world will get their equivalent of Meijer gift cards, light bulbs, and batteries, as a token of the love and appreciation that their children have for them. And to those sons and daughters who have the opportunity: I really hope you enjoy this Father's Day. 








5.

The Straw Hat

A couple of weeks ago, I went out with a few friends after work to a trendy new bar/restaurant that had a great outdoor seating area and maybe a good selection of beer. I’m not a beer drinker, so I don’t really know the score on that one. Side note: it’s very difficult to get a decent glass of wine in a beer joint. Generally it’s a week-old jug of Ernest and Julio Gallo, splashed indifferently into a dirty glass. Whatever. I’m not that picky.


Anyway, the place filled up like gangbusters, and before I knew it, my coworkers were accusing me of being on the prowl because of the way I was looking around the bar, focusing on people coming in, and where they were sitting. First of all, I would never go on that prowl at a bar. Gauche. Second, I would never go on the prowl. Have you not already heard that I am having a love affair with my couch and TV? Fact is, I wasn’t on the prowl; I was just observing what a giant wad of space-takers had come to this place.

What is a space-taker? It’s a person whose only quality is that they take up space. They don’t have a thought, emotion, aspiration, or impact on the world, save that they procreate and spend money on stupid shit. My biggest clue that there were space-takers afoot was the proliferation of straw hats. Now, in general, I am not opposed to hats. I understand that people like baseball caps, and I say go for it. I know that sensitive new age guys are all about those tight wool caps, and if that’s what you like while massaging your girlfriend’s back or grooming your beard, then by God, wear one. Berets, fedoras, yarmulkes….they all serve a fine purpose. But for some reason, these straw hats really pissed me off.

To be clear: this is the straw hat I’m talking about. The kind Dean Martin wore in the late fifties with a pair of wayfarers and those Mexican sandals that fall apart, like, the second time you wear them to EVEN ONE active quarry. Srirachas? Hurrachas? Something like that. Anyway, that straw hat, sandal, sunglasses look was original and appropriate among the Rat Pack, but is just something that space-takers who think they’re Dean Martin wear now. And the fact that multiple men in this place were wearing the EXACT same hat made it that much more clear that none of them were original; they were just dressing up, and had obviously taken advantage of a sale at Banana Republic.

And you’re thinking to yourself right now, “Whoa, lady, step it back a notch! It’s just a hat!” Good point. However, it’s not the hat that got me. It’s the supreme, yet uniform lack of personality that was on display. Wearing a straw hat with a grosgrain ribbon to a bar is a very specific choice, generally calculated to say something to the world. To me, it says, “I need to make better choices.”

Similar story: one day, I was at a work conference, and a whole bunch of people who worked together in a different area of the company were also there. The place where they work is high-pressure and excessively male-dominated. I looked at the guy sitting next to me, who was wearing a Tom Ford-style slim blue suit with brown shoes - not a personal favorite look of mine, but I get that it’s a thing. I also noted that this dude was wearing a pair of socks that were, like, orange plaid with pink polka-dots. I thought that was kind of interesting, until I looked at all of his equally besuited colleagues, and noted that they, too, were wearing the crazy socks. So, somewhere along the line, someone had made an interesting and original choice, and rather than actually make their own interesting and original choice, all the space-takers decided to just run out and do the same thing.

Now, I’m not saying that this is a harbinger of the decline of our civilization, but I am pretty sure that it is a harbinger of the decline of our civilization. So here is my advice to the space-takers of the world: figure out who you are, and then go out and be that person. Just give it a try. Save the world.