duck-shaped pain

Another present bought (a rice cooker for my mom � hey, she already knows, so it's okay if you know, too), all the cards sent off, the book orders filled. After weeks and weeks of no activity whatsoever on the book-selling front, I got a mass of orders the other day. Which is good on the money-earning front, but bad in a way, since it involves standing in line at the post office.

Which went easier than expected, even though I was in line behind a woman wearing jingle bells on her shirt, pants and shoes [1] and the Stop Book Rate Mail Abuse lady waited on me. Every single time I go in there to mail books off, she hassles me about the uses and misuses of book rate mail. I have to justify myself a million different ways to this woman, assuring her that yes, there were no notes or letters or any other correspondence my book packages and therefore, I was allowed to use book rate mail [2]. She always seems to take great joy in hassling me (and others, I assume) when I try to mail things � her days must be sad and empty, overall.

I finally got my vegetarian tamales. I decided to take my dad out for dinner last night on the condition that we went to the restaurant that had them (I know, what a host I am, but everytime he pays, we have to go to the restaurant that makes its own beer).

This restaurant has surprisingly low turnover � people who worked there when I was in high school still work there, which either means it's a great place to work or that it attracts especially unimaginative employees. Our waitress, however, was new. I only mention this because she was especially fascinating � usually I don't notice or remark on such things.

She was brutal. She was efficient. She had pared down her vocabulary to only the bare minimum of syllables and words needed to do her job, all expelled from her mouth with tremendous speed and force. [3]

"Wa marg?" ("Want another margarita?")

"Na bent?" ("Would you like another glass of the Bent Saguaro, our in-house microbrew? It's a fine blend of hops and barley, blended and aged to a smooth finish. Here, let me get you one.")

"Natoco. Sass." ("Here is your Navajo taco, sir. I bet you want some more salsa to go on that.")

"Gzzrp." ("More water? Again? What are you people, goddamn camels?")

"Please pay me when ready." ("Please pay me when ready, you horrible horrible ungrateful people, with your incessant requests and inability to guide a salsa-laden chip directly into your mouths. Look at the messes you made. Someone has to clean that up, you know. Thank god I had the busboy spit into your food. No mints for you people, and you'd better tip.")

The tamales were good, at least. More entertaining was the table of drillers sitting right next to us, all tanking up on enormous pitchers of Bud. I hear interesting driller stories nearly every day at work (these all fall into one of several categories: drunk driller gets lost in the woods; drunk driller dares another drunk driller to do something dumb; or drillers monopolizing the radio/tape player during drill operations and forcing everyone else on site to listen to hours and hours and hours of AC/DC. [4]

So, anyway, the table next to us was telling stories that definitely fit into the second category. "Yeah, Steve had a few and the was lookin' around, all freaked out and shit, so I told him we needed to go out and look for The Owl. So we went out and the dirt and Steve had heard all these stories about The Owl. Like it eats your eyes and shit like that. I never heard anything like that. We stood out there in the dirt for a long time, an' Steve was getting all spooky and weird. Then, we heard this big HOOT and Steve thought it was The Owl and he peed his pants and ran off yelling, all at the same time. Turns out it was just Jim and his truck, honkin' and tryin' to scare the shit out of us�"

[1] Thankfully, they were just normal shoes with bells temporarily (or not) attached, and not a pair of those god-awful red-and-green jingle bell Converse. Those are Evil and must be destroyed.

[2] However, others I have known have managed to ship an entire stereo system and an eggplant (not at the same time) with book rate mail.

[3] Diction being only for the slow and weak, in this case.

[4] Bearable for the first hour or so, with diminishing levels of enjoyment every hour after that.

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