Sitting here, gazing at the haphazardly thrown together collection of chicken and cheese before me, I must wonder by what thought process I come by to decide to procure one of these alleged sandwiches. It's a bright and sunny day. I don't have to work. Waiting for my girlfriend to return home. There's plenty of food in the fridge and I do love my Dean's Chocolate Drink (milk is for pussies). What kind and just God would allow this...thing to exist? It's two pieces of chicken with bacon, goddamned BACON, in the middle. What sick mind came up with this? How could such an affront to our intestinal welfare exist?
The sandwich itself also comes with what is known as a "Colonel's Sauce". Expunging any mental images coming from the dark, seedy corner of my mind of the Colonel, moaning in exasperated pleasure as he dispenses his trademark sauce onto the chicken, I took note of the sauce's color and flavor- It's the Big Mac sauce, without chunks of stuff, but add pepperjack! My mental image of the Colonel now expanding two-fold in wrongness, featuring Ray Kroc with with Colonel performing a duo-ballet of wrongness into the sauce vat, I prepared to brave my first bite.
My mind raced with questions.
Could I handle this?
Will this sandwich be my undoing?
Will the first thing I see when I visit hell be the Colonel, bending Satan over for a special surprise squirt of the Colonel's Sauce?
Grasping this greasy, unholy amalgamation and feeling chills of apprehension take hold, I took my first bite...
I can see through time.
The taste of pork, chicken, cheese, and Colonel Sanders overwhelmed my senses. I began to feel dizzy, as if my psyche was penetrated by the spirits of the many chicken to fall prey to Sanders' poultrymaniacal empire. Regaining some of my composure I took another bite, this time hitting a nexus of sauce. I fell to the floor, heady with pleasure but my stomach writhing in agony.
"No more! No more!", voices from the stomach shouted at me. "We cannot handle this creation!"
"You will endure!" I shouted back, mildly delusional from the copious amounts of chicken. "I paid goddamned close to $5.50 on this thing and we ARE going to finish it!"
Before my stomach could respond I grasped the blight upon good health and ingested another helping the Colonel's attack on humanity.
My stomach growling in protest and vision blurring from sensory overload a vision came to me. It was of a meadow. Rolling green hills, songbirds in the distance. There was Colonel Sanders. Arm open, bright light illuminating his pristine white suit. "C'mere, you're home now boy." I ran towards him, eager for his warm embrace just to know the feeling that everything will be all right. The Double Down sandwich is here to help right the wrongs of this world. I trust the Colonel." Nearing the visage of our flavor savior my illusion was shattered. A pit opened beneath me, flames shooting up from beneath. The sounds of the unspoken horrors that babble and gurgle in the night surrounded me and darkness began to engulf me. I looked up to catch one final glimpse of the Colonel- twisted and warped from bright and merciful lord of taste and turned into an Elder God, of sorts, that promises nothing but pestilence and dread for your digestive system. My world was shattered at the sight of this Eldritch beast. Cursing Sanders' name I plunged further into the abyss of cardiovascular distress, intestinal trauma, and "SERIOUS WTF ALMOST $6 FOR A SANDWHICH!!!!!!!!!SHIFT!ONE!".
Suddenly I awoke. Fallen prostrate before the box emblazoned with the smiling image of the Colonel. I found myself naked with the KFC logo carved into my cheek. Attempting to regain my composure, and clothes, I found the walls of my apartment smeared with chicken grease.
"What hath Sanders wrought?" I mused out loud; hoping, in vain, for an answer that would never come. I climbed to my feet and staggered to the bathroom, hoping that my body would not give up on me and purge the devils that I introduced to it. I only hope that my will is strong enough to exorcise the Colonel's demons at the porcelain alter. Pray for me, for I know not what awaits me.
In summary- The Double Down sandwich is a mix of tangy, greasy, cheesy, and not all that bad. The price tag is kinda high for a sandwich but it did manage to fill me up. It's ultimately unhealthy but, after all, it is fast food and none of that stuff is good for you. Official Rating- 7.5/10.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, July 16, 2009
E! True Spongebob Stories: The Hidden Past of Mrs. Puff
I originally posted this as a note on Facebook, may as well post it here too.
The following is a late night, sleepytime induced combination of ranting and musing (which I refer to as rantusings), by me, on nothing of any particular importance, with no real proofreading or look over. Enjoy.
I saw something rather interesting on VH1 today. It was a Spongebob Squarepants retrospective that talked about how the show has become a cultural phenomenon of epic proportions, and why it's become the ginormous monster that it has. Part of the reason the show is so popular has to deal with some of the more sophisticated and adult oriented humor that permeated the show's writing throughout, primarily, the show's second and third seasons. I've had those two seasons [hooray for dvd box sets!] and realized the depth and, at times, sophistication of the show's humor. From one-off musings like "The inner machinations of my mind are an ENIGMA!" cutting to a mental image of a carton of milk falling over to spill onto a table to represent Patrick's typical thought processes, to lines of absolute genius such as during the episode "Squilliam Returns" we are treated to a look into Spongebob's mind as he empties it, in order to absorb knowledge on only "Fine dining....and breathing!", in which we see your standard image of hundreds of little clones of the character emptying trash cans. One such character, presumable the supervisor asks the usual smart-ass question "What are we paying you for" to another, which he replies with "You're not paying us anything. We're just a creative visual metaphor personifying the abstract concept of thought." Brilliant, sophisticated, hilarious, and absolute genius.
Throughout my viewings of the series, I've become intrigued by one certain character- Mrs. Poppy Puff. While few characters have had any sort of backstory developed or information divulged; it's been my assertion that Mrs. Puff has had a rather devious past.
The character of Mrs. Puff is that of one a rather stressed out driving school teacher (due, majorly, in part to Spongebob), who seems to be fighting against her own mental instability. Consider the episode "The Bully"- where Spongebob is threatened to be beaten up by Flats the Flounder- during the first few minutes of the episode she comes into the class late and remarks "Sorry I'm late class. I was caught in traffic when that 'I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life thing reared it's ugly head'", and then chuckles nervously. This establishes that Mrs. Puff is suffering from a nervous disorder that is causing her to go into panic attacks out of worry about her current life conditions- perhaps a case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of Spongebob's many, and very destructive, catastrophic failures during his driving tests. Further evidence of Mrs. Puff's mental instability is provided in the Episode "Krusty Love"- the episode where Mr. Krabs falls in love with Mrs. Puff, and begins a relationship with her using Spongebob to help. Spongebob decides to introduce Mrs. Puff to Mr. Krabs; so he walks up behind her and simply says "Hi Mrs. Puff", causing Puff to snap into wild hysterics where she shouts out driving instructions to Spongebob while stomping on an imaginary brake pedal (something not uncommon to people who've been in traumatic automobile experiences). This incident, combined with the aforementioned panic attack, have lead me to believe that Mrs. Puff suffers from chronic anxiety problems, and is mentally unstable. Now, there is something else in this episode (Krusty Love) that further makes me question Mrs. Puff's overall mental condition, but I shall return to it later.
Not only does Mrs. Puff currently suffer from mental problems, it seems she's also had a history of them. In the episode "Doing Time", we another instance of Spongebob failing a driving test. Spongebob is very inattentive to what he's doing, and eventually sends his boatmobile, and a slew of police officers, off the edge of a cliff onto a juice tanker, which floods an old folk's home. In (what we learned at the end of the episode) a vivid hallucination, Mrs. Puff is sent to jail for Spongebob's rampant disregard for public safety, and extensive property damage. While in jail, she convinces herself that she "...can do this, Puff. You can get through this without losing your sanity." She then remarks, interestingly, "Oh, that’s a road we don’t want to go down again." On its own this remark seems innocuous, but when combined with another fact about Puff's past is could signal that Mrs. Puff has always suffered from mental illness. In the episode "No Free Rides"- where Mrs. Puff let's Spongebob pass a test on extra credit and receive his license- Mrs. Puff comes to the horrifying realization about the implications of her letting Spongebob slide (wanton property damage, chaos, traffic pileups), she explains her plan for fixing the problem- "Ill have to move to a new city, start a new boating school with a new name." It's a funny line, but becomes somewhat disturbing when Mrs. Puff then says "No...not again." This means Mrs. Puff has had to flee from her previous home, change her identity, restart her business, and start a new life. The implications of this knowledge are staggering. Let's recap.
Mrs. Puff currently suffers from anxiety issues, is possibly clinically psychotic (what kind of teacher would keep Spongebob as a student, even though he's inflicted great physical harm to her), and has panic attacks. She has had a history of mental instability, been in jail twice, had to flee her previous home, and change her identity. All of this eerily resembles the standard psychological profile of a murderer, or serial criminal. But this is a kid's cartoon right? No one in their right mind could put something like this in a show meant for little tykes....right?
Let's return to the episode "Krusty Love", and the most frightening thing about Mrs. Puff. Has anyone notices how she's called Mrs. Puff, yet there has been no sighting of a Mr. Puff? The only women with the title Mrs. are currently married, or widowers. This idea did not escape Mr. Krabs when Spongebob told Krabs her name. The following exchange occurred between Mr. Krabs and Spongebob:
" SpongeBob: Hey, that's my driving instructor, Mrs. Puff!
Mr. Krabs: Mrs. Puff? Aw, she's married.
SpongeBob: Oh no, Mr. Krabs; she's single.
Mr. Krabs: Then what happened to Mr. Puff?
SpongeBob: She doesn't like to talk about it."
The conversation cuts away to a scene of a puffer fish style novelty lamp being turned on before Spongebob's final line. The fact that this, very clearly, shows that Mr. Puff has been sent to the great Novelty Store beyond the clouds; and Mrs. Puff not wanting to talk about it makes things even more curious. This could simply just be a lady in mourning of her late lover and not wishing to reopen old wounds, but taking into account Mrs. Puffs mental problems and relocation and identity change, there can only be on explanation that can be inferred.
MRS. PUFF KILLED HER HUSBAND.
Be it through a horrific boating school accident, or through murder, Mr. Puff was killed in conjunction with something that Mrs. Puff had done. The murder scenario seems all the more likely in that she's clearly mentally unstable, and under what other circumstances would someone need to skip town and change their identity, thereby restarting their entire life? Only someone who has done something extremely regrettable and would land her in prison for life would have to resort to drastic measures. We, also, can't ignore the fact that the late Mr. Puff is now a lamp- a move that an enterprising Mrs. Puff could have made quite a bit of money, maybe even enough to restart her entire life and pay for the repairs due to the extensive damage done to her driving school as the result of Spongebob's misadventures behind the wheel.
The reasons for Mrs. Puff slaying her husband are unclear. She could have been unhappy with her marriage, her husband could have been a total jerkfish, she could have just wanted the money. But it's perfectly evident that, out of all of the characters on Spongebob Squarepants, none could be more cunning, insane, resilient, and have a past more shady and full of debauchery than Mrs. Poppy Puff.
I hereby salute Mr. Hillenburg, and reward him with the "Life-Time Achievement" award for the "Greatest Mindfuck in Cartoon History" for so elegantly weaving in a character that perfectly matches the psychological profile of a serial killer into a kid's animated program, slipping it completely under the radar, and still making everything about it more hilarious than nearly anything that's ever been done before.
"Next up on E! True Spongebob Stories- Sheldon J. Plankton, the Makings of an Evil Genius"
Plankton- "I was just minding my own business in the schoolyard's playground, when every day these kids would just come up to me saying 'Sheldon! Sheldon! Will always be a tiny one! Sheldon! Sheldon! Being tiny's not so fun!'. It really stuck with me, the pain, you know? *sniffle* Could we...could we turn those cameras off? *starts crying*".
The following is a late night, sleepytime induced combination of ranting and musing (which I refer to as rantusings), by me, on nothing of any particular importance, with no real proofreading or look over. Enjoy.
I saw something rather interesting on VH1 today. It was a Spongebob Squarepants retrospective that talked about how the show has become a cultural phenomenon of epic proportions, and why it's become the ginormous monster that it has. Part of the reason the show is so popular has to deal with some of the more sophisticated and adult oriented humor that permeated the show's writing throughout, primarily, the show's second and third seasons. I've had those two seasons [hooray for dvd box sets!] and realized the depth and, at times, sophistication of the show's humor. From one-off musings like "The inner machinations of my mind are an ENIGMA!" cutting to a mental image of a carton of milk falling over to spill onto a table to represent Patrick's typical thought processes, to lines of absolute genius such as during the episode "Squilliam Returns" we are treated to a look into Spongebob's mind as he empties it, in order to absorb knowledge on only "Fine dining....and breathing!", in which we see your standard image of hundreds of little clones of the character emptying trash cans. One such character, presumable the supervisor asks the usual smart-ass question "What are we paying you for" to another, which he replies with "You're not paying us anything. We're just a creative visual metaphor personifying the abstract concept of thought." Brilliant, sophisticated, hilarious, and absolute genius.
Throughout my viewings of the series, I've become intrigued by one certain character- Mrs. Poppy Puff. While few characters have had any sort of backstory developed or information divulged; it's been my assertion that Mrs. Puff has had a rather devious past.
The character of Mrs. Puff is that of one a rather stressed out driving school teacher (due, majorly, in part to Spongebob), who seems to be fighting against her own mental instability. Consider the episode "The Bully"- where Spongebob is threatened to be beaten up by Flats the Flounder- during the first few minutes of the episode she comes into the class late and remarks "Sorry I'm late class. I was caught in traffic when that 'I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life thing reared it's ugly head'", and then chuckles nervously. This establishes that Mrs. Puff is suffering from a nervous disorder that is causing her to go into panic attacks out of worry about her current life conditions- perhaps a case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of Spongebob's many, and very destructive, catastrophic failures during his driving tests. Further evidence of Mrs. Puff's mental instability is provided in the Episode "Krusty Love"- the episode where Mr. Krabs falls in love with Mrs. Puff, and begins a relationship with her using Spongebob to help. Spongebob decides to introduce Mrs. Puff to Mr. Krabs; so he walks up behind her and simply says "Hi Mrs. Puff", causing Puff to snap into wild hysterics where she shouts out driving instructions to Spongebob while stomping on an imaginary brake pedal (something not uncommon to people who've been in traumatic automobile experiences). This incident, combined with the aforementioned panic attack, have lead me to believe that Mrs. Puff suffers from chronic anxiety problems, and is mentally unstable. Now, there is something else in this episode (Krusty Love) that further makes me question Mrs. Puff's overall mental condition, but I shall return to it later.
Not only does Mrs. Puff currently suffer from mental problems, it seems she's also had a history of them. In the episode "Doing Time", we another instance of Spongebob failing a driving test. Spongebob is very inattentive to what he's doing, and eventually sends his boatmobile, and a slew of police officers, off the edge of a cliff onto a juice tanker, which floods an old folk's home. In (what we learned at the end of the episode) a vivid hallucination, Mrs. Puff is sent to jail for Spongebob's rampant disregard for public safety, and extensive property damage. While in jail, she convinces herself that she "...can do this, Puff. You can get through this without losing your sanity." She then remarks, interestingly, "Oh, that’s a road we don’t want to go down again." On its own this remark seems innocuous, but when combined with another fact about Puff's past is could signal that Mrs. Puff has always suffered from mental illness. In the episode "No Free Rides"- where Mrs. Puff let's Spongebob pass a test on extra credit and receive his license- Mrs. Puff comes to the horrifying realization about the implications of her letting Spongebob slide (wanton property damage, chaos, traffic pileups), she explains her plan for fixing the problem- "Ill have to move to a new city, start a new boating school with a new name." It's a funny line, but becomes somewhat disturbing when Mrs. Puff then says "No...not again." This means Mrs. Puff has had to flee from her previous home, change her identity, restart her business, and start a new life. The implications of this knowledge are staggering. Let's recap.
Mrs. Puff currently suffers from anxiety issues, is possibly clinically psychotic (what kind of teacher would keep Spongebob as a student, even though he's inflicted great physical harm to her), and has panic attacks. She has had a history of mental instability, been in jail twice, had to flee her previous home, and change her identity. All of this eerily resembles the standard psychological profile of a murderer, or serial criminal. But this is a kid's cartoon right? No one in their right mind could put something like this in a show meant for little tykes....right?
Let's return to the episode "Krusty Love", and the most frightening thing about Mrs. Puff. Has anyone notices how she's called Mrs. Puff, yet there has been no sighting of a Mr. Puff? The only women with the title Mrs. are currently married, or widowers. This idea did not escape Mr. Krabs when Spongebob told Krabs her name. The following exchange occurred between Mr. Krabs and Spongebob:
" SpongeBob: Hey, that's my driving instructor, Mrs. Puff!
Mr. Krabs: Mrs. Puff? Aw, she's married.
SpongeBob: Oh no, Mr. Krabs; she's single.
Mr. Krabs: Then what happened to Mr. Puff?
SpongeBob: She doesn't like to talk about it."
The conversation cuts away to a scene of a puffer fish style novelty lamp being turned on before Spongebob's final line. The fact that this, very clearly, shows that Mr. Puff has been sent to the great Novelty Store beyond the clouds; and Mrs. Puff not wanting to talk about it makes things even more curious. This could simply just be a lady in mourning of her late lover and not wishing to reopen old wounds, but taking into account Mrs. Puffs mental problems and relocation and identity change, there can only be on explanation that can be inferred.
MRS. PUFF KILLED HER HUSBAND.
Be it through a horrific boating school accident, or through murder, Mr. Puff was killed in conjunction with something that Mrs. Puff had done. The murder scenario seems all the more likely in that she's clearly mentally unstable, and under what other circumstances would someone need to skip town and change their identity, thereby restarting their entire life? Only someone who has done something extremely regrettable and would land her in prison for life would have to resort to drastic measures. We, also, can't ignore the fact that the late Mr. Puff is now a lamp- a move that an enterprising Mrs. Puff could have made quite a bit of money, maybe even enough to restart her entire life and pay for the repairs due to the extensive damage done to her driving school as the result of Spongebob's misadventures behind the wheel.
The reasons for Mrs. Puff slaying her husband are unclear. She could have been unhappy with her marriage, her husband could have been a total jerkfish, she could have just wanted the money. But it's perfectly evident that, out of all of the characters on Spongebob Squarepants, none could be more cunning, insane, resilient, and have a past more shady and full of debauchery than Mrs. Poppy Puff.
I hereby salute Mr. Hillenburg, and reward him with the "Life-Time Achievement" award for the "Greatest Mindfuck in Cartoon History" for so elegantly weaving in a character that perfectly matches the psychological profile of a serial killer into a kid's animated program, slipping it completely under the radar, and still making everything about it more hilarious than nearly anything that's ever been done before.
"Next up on E! True Spongebob Stories- Sheldon J. Plankton, the Makings of an Evil Genius"
Plankton- "I was just minding my own business in the schoolyard's playground, when every day these kids would just come up to me saying 'Sheldon! Sheldon! Will always be a tiny one! Sheldon! Sheldon! Being tiny's not so fun!'. It really stuck with me, the pain, you know? *sniffle* Could we...could we turn those cameras off? *starts crying*".
Thursday, April 30, 2009
People Are Such Idiots
Time to be blunt- what's going on people? For the past few weeks, I've noticed a trend in the general perceptiveness and awareness of the people surrounding me; in that both have been on a sharp decline. I don't know if we, as a people, decided to say "Fuck it!" to important things like, oh, paying attention to what one is doing behind the wheel, and I've simply not been informed of it; or there has been a brain draining blast of cosmic "Stupid Rays" that just-so happened to nail our pretty little planet, but there's been some unsettling changes in how people have been interacting with their surroundings.
There are two barometers one can use in determining in how much people are paying attention to what they're doing a person can go by- their driving habits and their behavior when interacting with service industry personnel. Not only can one gauge a person's general awareness through these observations, but also their intelligence and level of maturity.
Driving!
I don't know what it is about people and driving. It's not a very difficult skill to master, nor is it particularly taxing to perform (under normal conditions, of course). You get in, start it, and make sure you abide the speed limit and not hit anyone or anything. How this is difficult for so many to grasp is beyond me, but it seems that there are people out there who are on a fanatical crusade against common sense. Take, for instance, these little tales of potential driving catastrophes.
Tale, The First- My girlfriend and I pulled into a local gas station to get a quick snack. While pulling up to the building, some jerk-face in a large pickup truck suddenly backs out of a parking space, his rear bumper and tailgate dead on-course for a nice collision with the hood of her car. She stops. What does Jerk-Face Mc. Drive-Bad do? He continues backing up. If not for my girlfriend's quickness with shifting into reverse, she'd probably be in court trying to pry any money she can for repairs out of the hands of Jerk-Face's presumably tightfisted insurance carrier (assuming he has insurance). Jerk-Face speeds off, we get our snacks, all it well.
Tale, The Second- Whilst driving to her house, my girlfriend and I are making a right turn onto a side street. It's a standard 4-way intersection, with us having the right of way (we had no stop sign to stop at). While in the process of turning, some person sitting at the stop sign to the left of us, suddenly pulls forward, cutting us off. I'm not entirely sure what compelled this guy to risk not only his life, but the life of the person in the passenger seat (whom if my girlfriend hadn't hit the brakes would've had a rather intimate encounter with our vehicle's front bumper), nor am I sure that he was even aware that we A) Had the right of way, and B) We were even there.
Tale, The Third- While taking her dog out to potty, my girlfriend and I witnessed someone in a pickup truck pulling out of his parking area. Not content with simply, and carefully, pulling out onto the street; this person does a 90-degree turn at 30 miles an hour, then speeds towards a turn that's no more than a few yards away to take another high speed 90-degree turn, fishtailing the entire time, only to run a stop sign, turn again, and speed down our city's mini-highway doing 70 mph in a 40 mph area. Meanwhile, someone comes down the road in the opposite direction, doing twice the speed limit, and comes close to smearing my girl's beloved dog all over the asphalt. If this guy has come down the road only three seconds earlier, there's a significant chance he would have collided with the tow truck guy, almost certainly killing them both.
These are only but three examples of people showing a complete disregard for their own safety, the safety of others, common sense, the law, and a willful, and steadfast, refusal to pay attention to what they're doing. I'm not sure what compels these people to become such dangers to everyone around them.
Are they suicidal?
Do they not give a damn that they could, potentially, kill another person?
Are they just completely stupid?
The three preceding tales are naught but a preview of the what the plague of moronic behavior has wrought. I can't begin to recount the number of times I've almost seen a pedestrian struck down because of a negligent driver not watching where they're driving, or a pedestrian blindly strolling into the path of a speeding 2-ton plastic/metal potential death machine. There's a war on rational forethought going on people, and it's no longer limited to politics. People are getting dumber by the day, and they're not afraid to put their idiocy on display.
And what better place to do so than at their local fast food eateries?
If you want a good, and I do mean a real good, look at just how petty, low, cheap, ignorant, and downright disgusting people can act, there's no better place to catch a glimpse of people at their worse than working in a drive through. I have seen fully adult human beings throw temper tantrums rivaling that of a two year old in terms of ferocity. It seems people will get angry over the most miniscule of things, and have absolutely no problem on taking it out on the people there to serve them. Not only will people complain about the smallest of problems, but they'll also pitch a fit about problems that they, themselves, cause. Instead of admitting that they've had an idiot moment of massive proportions, a person will turn around and blame the poor employee for their own screw up. Now, for the presumptuous out there, don't think I'm saying that only customers can be morons; I do acknowledge that there are also incompetent employees out there, but there's a big difference between employees and customers. An employee not doing a good job in a position will, most times, be moved to a position that's better suited to their ability and replaced by someone who can work that position better. There's near nothing that can be done about customers who exist only to suck the intelligence out of whatever room they're standing in.
For convenience sake, I've categorized the typical unastute customers that anyone working in food service, and retail for the most part, can come across. Any customer, at any time, can fall under any or all of the proceeding categories; sometimes existing simultaneously across the entire spectrum of ungoodness.
The Royal Stuck-Up Bitch- Our first example of unbearable customers is the classic Royal Bitch. This is the person who thinks that, not only is she better than anyone who works in the service industry, she owns their soul and they must kneel and fall prostrate before her because she has chosen to patronize that particular business. If you fail to make sure everything, from your service to the way you breathe around her, is "ABSOLUTELY PERFECT RAAAAAAAAAWARARARAGHGHLBLBLBLBL!" she will see to it that the next 45 seconds of your life become the most unbearable hours of your existence. Bitches typically employ screeching, haughty condemnations of our performance, and assurances that "I know the manager and I can make sure you're fired because you refused to give me a bigger smile than what you did" as weapons on a regular basis. They also believe that it's completely fine to "forget" that you, too, are a living, breathing human being who is capable of making errors and also has something not unlike emotions and will yell, scream, and curse like a trucker who just got cut off on the highway which prevented him from taking that off ramp to the motel where he had a free hooker waiting for him and he hasn't had any in months. Bitches are not afraid to have complete temper tantrums in public, and will adamantly insist that their, often insane, demands should always be met because "The customer is ALWAYS right", despite that nine times out of ten they're dead wrong. They'll insist on ordering specials that are discontinued or never existed, blame any equipment failures on the employees, and set such an amazingly bad example for their children.
Think I'm exaggerating any of this? I've had a person say, and I quote "Well why don't you just fucking close the damned store then?!" when I informed him that there would be a two minute wait on Apple Pies. Apple-FUCKING-Pies. I've had another customer give me her order, change her order twice, then change it back to what it originally was, then go and launch a massive bitch-fit because I changed her order from what it originally was. Both of these customers, of course, had children with them. I guess their god-damned Big Mac or Whopper is more important to them is more important than their children growing up well-adjusted and respectful, eh?
Cap'n Cheapy- Trying to get a good deal when eating out is perfectly fine. Cap'n Cheapy takes this idea and runs it past the endzone and out of the damn arena. Not unlike the Royal Bitch, Cheapy will find anything to complain about, no matter how insignificant, and use it to extort more food out of the business.
These have been personally observed.
Employee's tone of voice "wasn't right"? FREE FOOD!
No napkins in bag? FREE FOOD!
"Hey, I ordered this but it wasn't what I really wanted can I exchange it for something better?"
"You messed up my order!!!!!!!!...what receipt?"
*watches as customer takes meat off of a sandwich* "No meat! WANT FREE FOOD!"
The stunts that Cheapy will try to pull often cross the line into blatant scammery. I've seen customers come back day after day claiming that they're "Owed a free meal" for one mess up that happened months in the past. When confronted with the fact that she's never produces a receipt or contacted a manager about the messed up order, this customer sped away, never to be seen again (at least by me). I've seen people swap their food with someone else, then come back and complain that theirs wasn't made right. I've seen people try to claim free food off of a supposedly messed up order and tried to pass off a months old receipt as proof.
These people prey on manager and business owners fears that if they upset one person, then they'll tell all their friends and the business will lose ten or so customers forever because of bad word of mouth. So, they'll bend over backwards to please any customer and Cheapy and the scammers gleefully take advantage of it. Often, the time and energy spent dealing with someone trying to scam the business could be better spent getting one, or more, legitimate customers served. If someone is blatantly attempting to scam some free food, it's much better just to say "No", let them be pissed off and leave, and focus on serving customers that we're actually turning a profit on.
The Eternal Thinker- The Eternal Thinking exists for one reason- causing as many people to pile up after him while he decides if he wants a taco or a burrito. The number one cause of huge, slow moving, drive through lines is the jackass who decides to sit and ponder every single choice, and often settle on what was their very first idea of what they wanted. These people are also highly inconsiderate of others; taking what seems to be joy in seeing how long he can make the line wait before the customers decide it's much better to risk being tossed out for slamming the guy out of the way so they can finally place their damn order.
Mr. Oblivioso- The exact opposite to The Thinker, Mr. Oblivioso opts to display no real sense of coherency at all. These are the people that will order food in drive through, forget what it is that they ordered by the time they get to the payment window, and wonder why the prices are "So god-damned high!!?!!". There is one similarity that these people share with Thinkers, they also cause massive waiting lines for order takers. Unlike Thinkers, though, it's not because they're thinking so-hard about what they want; it's that they're just staring at the menu board until a thought finally occurs. Instead of doing the rational thing and reading the menu board, they'll ask questions about what the price is on every single item there is, ask questions like "What's the price of a *DOLLAR MENU SANDWICH**?", and even order items from a completely different restaurant chain, ordering Whoppers from Mc.Donald's and whatnot.
A fine example of people who are completely oblivious would be a group of college students I witnessed one evening. They piled into a car and drove to Mc.Donald's. They parked, in a Mc. Donald's parking lot, got out and walked to the building. The building has "Mc. Donald's" written in bright lights across the roof and is easily seen. There's Mc.D's propaganda plastered all over the windows, and the, easily recognizable, colors red and yellow all over the place. Let's not forget the big "Golden Arches" sign, and the "Golden Arches" logo on the doors. They open the doors, enter the building, having to have seen, at the very least, the Arches logo on the door, and what, to their dismay, does one of them exclaim?
"This isn't Taco Bell!"
This wasn't just some matter of fact statement that they're in the wrong building. No. Her tone of voice and utter shock that she was, in fact, standing in Mc. Donald's conveyed the feeling that she was genuinely pissed off that she wasn't in Taco Bell...and as they piled back into the car I discovered, much to my horror and non-surprise, that she was the driver.
Bill Cosby once said that all children are born with brain damage. I'm wondering if there's some that never grow out of it.
The Absolute Asshole- The creme del a creme of nightmare customers, we have the Asshole. This guy wants only one thing in life- to make everyone else as miserable as possible. These are the bathroom vandals, the people who speed through the parking lot at 50 mph, the people who smoosh food against windows. They are the perfect example of just how rotten people can be, and I fucking hate these cretins with a passion. I've seen people pull up to a speaker box just to yell profanities into it and speed up, cut people off in drive through, yell and curse at other customers, throw food around, leave massive messes, piss in the trash cans, scrawl swastikas on the bathroom doors. You name a depravity that they can perform in public, chances are good that I've witnessed it. These people need to be banned from public places and beaten. They think these acts are hilarious, like splashing hot sauce on employee's faces, and believe they're just SOOOOOOOO FUCKING AWESOME when out acting like god-damned retards. A sad fact is that there isn't a set age-group for these peoples. I've been people with ages ranging from 15-50 acting completely unbearable simply for unbearability's sake. What drives them to do it? Is it funny? Is it because they think they can get way from it? I guess, since there's very little that's actually done about it. These people need to be banned from any and all public places on sight. Their vandalism and chicanery cost so much in the energy needed to clean up after them, and emotionally in that I've seen people break down in tears because of how they've been treated by an Asshole. It's sickening to watch, and I don't see why we, as a people continue to allow it to happen. I've made it a point to put Assholes in their place when I see them when I'm out and about my business; so many others should do the same thing. If we, the decent and mature citizens of the world, would band together we could expel the Jackassery menace from our favorite places to eat and make the world a much more comfortable, and bearable place for all of us.
There are many more categories that could be made of bad customers, but these are the most broad and easily recognizable. I'm not sure how people who have, most of them, graduated high school and are either parents, role models, higher education students, educators themselves, or have attained some other title or role that typically requires them to be rational, forward thinking, decent human beings. Sadly, it seems that intelligent and perceptive people are becoming a rare breed, as the rest of the human race sinks into the mire of its own idiotic despond. I'm not sure why people are becoming more reckless, stupid, cruel, oblivious, or just plain stupid these days; but it's clear that they're at war with common sense, and the first causalities are decency, respect, and even lives. The tide must be turned before things get worse, and Idiocracy becomes reality. If not, we're screwed.
There are two barometers one can use in determining in how much people are paying attention to what they're doing a person can go by- their driving habits and their behavior when interacting with service industry personnel. Not only can one gauge a person's general awareness through these observations, but also their intelligence and level of maturity.
Driving!
I don't know what it is about people and driving. It's not a very difficult skill to master, nor is it particularly taxing to perform (under normal conditions, of course). You get in, start it, and make sure you abide the speed limit and not hit anyone or anything. How this is difficult for so many to grasp is beyond me, but it seems that there are people out there who are on a fanatical crusade against common sense. Take, for instance, these little tales of potential driving catastrophes.
Tale, The First- My girlfriend and I pulled into a local gas station to get a quick snack. While pulling up to the building, some jerk-face in a large pickup truck suddenly backs out of a parking space, his rear bumper and tailgate dead on-course for a nice collision with the hood of her car. She stops. What does Jerk-Face Mc. Drive-Bad do? He continues backing up. If not for my girlfriend's quickness with shifting into reverse, she'd probably be in court trying to pry any money she can for repairs out of the hands of Jerk-Face's presumably tightfisted insurance carrier (assuming he has insurance). Jerk-Face speeds off, we get our snacks, all it well.
Tale, The Second- Whilst driving to her house, my girlfriend and I are making a right turn onto a side street. It's a standard 4-way intersection, with us having the right of way (we had no stop sign to stop at). While in the process of turning, some person sitting at the stop sign to the left of us, suddenly pulls forward, cutting us off. I'm not entirely sure what compelled this guy to risk not only his life, but the life of the person in the passenger seat (whom if my girlfriend hadn't hit the brakes would've had a rather intimate encounter with our vehicle's front bumper), nor am I sure that he was even aware that we A) Had the right of way, and B) We were even there.
Tale, The Third- While taking her dog out to potty, my girlfriend and I witnessed someone in a pickup truck pulling out of his parking area. Not content with simply, and carefully, pulling out onto the street; this person does a 90-degree turn at 30 miles an hour, then speeds towards a turn that's no more than a few yards away to take another high speed 90-degree turn, fishtailing the entire time, only to run a stop sign, turn again, and speed down our city's mini-highway doing 70 mph in a 40 mph area. Meanwhile, someone comes down the road in the opposite direction, doing twice the speed limit, and comes close to smearing my girl's beloved dog all over the asphalt. If this guy has come down the road only three seconds earlier, there's a significant chance he would have collided with the tow truck guy, almost certainly killing them both.
These are only but three examples of people showing a complete disregard for their own safety, the safety of others, common sense, the law, and a willful, and steadfast, refusal to pay attention to what they're doing. I'm not sure what compels these people to become such dangers to everyone around them.
Are they suicidal?
Do they not give a damn that they could, potentially, kill another person?
Are they just completely stupid?
The three preceding tales are naught but a preview of the what the plague of moronic behavior has wrought. I can't begin to recount the number of times I've almost seen a pedestrian struck down because of a negligent driver not watching where they're driving, or a pedestrian blindly strolling into the path of a speeding 2-ton plastic/metal potential death machine. There's a war on rational forethought going on people, and it's no longer limited to politics. People are getting dumber by the day, and they're not afraid to put their idiocy on display.
And what better place to do so than at their local fast food eateries?
If you want a good, and I do mean a real good, look at just how petty, low, cheap, ignorant, and downright disgusting people can act, there's no better place to catch a glimpse of people at their worse than working in a drive through. I have seen fully adult human beings throw temper tantrums rivaling that of a two year old in terms of ferocity. It seems people will get angry over the most miniscule of things, and have absolutely no problem on taking it out on the people there to serve them. Not only will people complain about the smallest of problems, but they'll also pitch a fit about problems that they, themselves, cause. Instead of admitting that they've had an idiot moment of massive proportions, a person will turn around and blame the poor employee for their own screw up. Now, for the presumptuous out there, don't think I'm saying that only customers can be morons; I do acknowledge that there are also incompetent employees out there, but there's a big difference between employees and customers. An employee not doing a good job in a position will, most times, be moved to a position that's better suited to their ability and replaced by someone who can work that position better. There's near nothing that can be done about customers who exist only to suck the intelligence out of whatever room they're standing in.
For convenience sake, I've categorized the typical unastute customers that anyone working in food service, and retail for the most part, can come across. Any customer, at any time, can fall under any or all of the proceeding categories; sometimes existing simultaneously across the entire spectrum of ungoodness.
The Royal Stuck-Up Bitch- Our first example of unbearable customers is the classic Royal Bitch. This is the person who thinks that, not only is she better than anyone who works in the service industry, she owns their soul and they must kneel and fall prostrate before her because she has chosen to patronize that particular business. If you fail to make sure everything, from your service to the way you breathe around her, is "ABSOLUTELY PERFECT RAAAAAAAAAWARARARAGHGHLBLBLBLBL!" she will see to it that the next 45 seconds of your life become the most unbearable hours of your existence. Bitches typically employ screeching, haughty condemnations of our performance, and assurances that "I know the manager and I can make sure you're fired because you refused to give me a bigger smile than what you did" as weapons on a regular basis. They also believe that it's completely fine to "forget" that you, too, are a living, breathing human being who is capable of making errors and also has something not unlike emotions and will yell, scream, and curse like a trucker who just got cut off on the highway which prevented him from taking that off ramp to the motel where he had a free hooker waiting for him and he hasn't had any in months. Bitches are not afraid to have complete temper tantrums in public, and will adamantly insist that their, often insane, demands should always be met because "The customer is ALWAYS right", despite that nine times out of ten they're dead wrong. They'll insist on ordering specials that are discontinued or never existed, blame any equipment failures on the employees, and set such an amazingly bad example for their children.
Think I'm exaggerating any of this? I've had a person say, and I quote "Well why don't you just fucking close the damned store then?!" when I informed him that there would be a two minute wait on Apple Pies. Apple-FUCKING-Pies. I've had another customer give me her order, change her order twice, then change it back to what it originally was, then go and launch a massive bitch-fit because I changed her order from what it originally was. Both of these customers, of course, had children with them. I guess their god-damned Big Mac or Whopper is more important to them is more important than their children growing up well-adjusted and respectful, eh?
Cap'n Cheapy- Trying to get a good deal when eating out is perfectly fine. Cap'n Cheapy takes this idea and runs it past the endzone and out of the damn arena. Not unlike the Royal Bitch, Cheapy will find anything to complain about, no matter how insignificant, and use it to extort more food out of the business.
These have been personally observed.
Employee's tone of voice "wasn't right"? FREE FOOD!
No napkins in bag? FREE FOOD!
"Hey, I ordered this but it wasn't what I really wanted can I exchange it for something better?"
"You messed up my order!!!!!!!!...what receipt?"
*watches as customer takes meat off of a sandwich* "No meat! WANT FREE FOOD!"
The stunts that Cheapy will try to pull often cross the line into blatant scammery. I've seen customers come back day after day claiming that they're "Owed a free meal" for one mess up that happened months in the past. When confronted with the fact that she's never produces a receipt or contacted a manager about the messed up order, this customer sped away, never to be seen again (at least by me). I've seen people swap their food with someone else, then come back and complain that theirs wasn't made right. I've seen people try to claim free food off of a supposedly messed up order and tried to pass off a months old receipt as proof.
These people prey on manager and business owners fears that if they upset one person, then they'll tell all their friends and the business will lose ten or so customers forever because of bad word of mouth. So, they'll bend over backwards to please any customer and Cheapy and the scammers gleefully take advantage of it. Often, the time and energy spent dealing with someone trying to scam the business could be better spent getting one, or more, legitimate customers served. If someone is blatantly attempting to scam some free food, it's much better just to say "No", let them be pissed off and leave, and focus on serving customers that we're actually turning a profit on.
The Eternal Thinker- The Eternal Thinking exists for one reason- causing as many people to pile up after him while he decides if he wants a taco or a burrito. The number one cause of huge, slow moving, drive through lines is the jackass who decides to sit and ponder every single choice, and often settle on what was their very first idea of what they wanted. These people are also highly inconsiderate of others; taking what seems to be joy in seeing how long he can make the line wait before the customers decide it's much better to risk being tossed out for slamming the guy out of the way so they can finally place their damn order.
Mr. Oblivioso- The exact opposite to The Thinker, Mr. Oblivioso opts to display no real sense of coherency at all. These are the people that will order food in drive through, forget what it is that they ordered by the time they get to the payment window, and wonder why the prices are "So god-damned high!!?!!". There is one similarity that these people share with Thinkers, they also cause massive waiting lines for order takers. Unlike Thinkers, though, it's not because they're thinking so-hard about what they want; it's that they're just staring at the menu board until a thought finally occurs. Instead of doing the rational thing and reading the menu board, they'll ask questions about what the price is on every single item there is, ask questions like "What's the price of a *DOLLAR MENU SANDWICH**?", and even order items from a completely different restaurant chain, ordering Whoppers from Mc.Donald's and whatnot.
A fine example of people who are completely oblivious would be a group of college students I witnessed one evening. They piled into a car and drove to Mc.Donald's. They parked, in a Mc. Donald's parking lot, got out and walked to the building. The building has "Mc. Donald's" written in bright lights across the roof and is easily seen. There's Mc.D's propaganda plastered all over the windows, and the, easily recognizable, colors red and yellow all over the place. Let's not forget the big "Golden Arches" sign, and the "Golden Arches" logo on the doors. They open the doors, enter the building, having to have seen, at the very least, the Arches logo on the door, and what, to their dismay, does one of them exclaim?
"This isn't Taco Bell!"
This wasn't just some matter of fact statement that they're in the wrong building. No. Her tone of voice and utter shock that she was, in fact, standing in Mc. Donald's conveyed the feeling that she was genuinely pissed off that she wasn't in Taco Bell...and as they piled back into the car I discovered, much to my horror and non-surprise, that she was the driver.
Bill Cosby once said that all children are born with brain damage. I'm wondering if there's some that never grow out of it.
The Absolute Asshole- The creme del a creme of nightmare customers, we have the Asshole. This guy wants only one thing in life- to make everyone else as miserable as possible. These are the bathroom vandals, the people who speed through the parking lot at 50 mph, the people who smoosh food against windows. They are the perfect example of just how rotten people can be, and I fucking hate these cretins with a passion. I've seen people pull up to a speaker box just to yell profanities into it and speed up, cut people off in drive through, yell and curse at other customers, throw food around, leave massive messes, piss in the trash cans, scrawl swastikas on the bathroom doors. You name a depravity that they can perform in public, chances are good that I've witnessed it. These people need to be banned from public places and beaten. They think these acts are hilarious, like splashing hot sauce on employee's faces, and believe they're just SOOOOOOOO FUCKING AWESOME when out acting like god-damned retards. A sad fact is that there isn't a set age-group for these peoples. I've been people with ages ranging from 15-50 acting completely unbearable simply for unbearability's sake. What drives them to do it? Is it funny? Is it because they think they can get way from it? I guess, since there's very little that's actually done about it. These people need to be banned from any and all public places on sight. Their vandalism and chicanery cost so much in the energy needed to clean up after them, and emotionally in that I've seen people break down in tears because of how they've been treated by an Asshole. It's sickening to watch, and I don't see why we, as a people continue to allow it to happen. I've made it a point to put Assholes in their place when I see them when I'm out and about my business; so many others should do the same thing. If we, the decent and mature citizens of the world, would band together we could expel the Jackassery menace from our favorite places to eat and make the world a much more comfortable, and bearable place for all of us.
There are many more categories that could be made of bad customers, but these are the most broad and easily recognizable. I'm not sure how people who have, most of them, graduated high school and are either parents, role models, higher education students, educators themselves, or have attained some other title or role that typically requires them to be rational, forward thinking, decent human beings. Sadly, it seems that intelligent and perceptive people are becoming a rare breed, as the rest of the human race sinks into the mire of its own idiotic despond. I'm not sure why people are becoming more reckless, stupid, cruel, oblivious, or just plain stupid these days; but it's clear that they're at war with common sense, and the first causalities are decency, respect, and even lives. The tide must be turned before things get worse, and Idiocracy becomes reality. If not, we're screwed.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Introductions
Salutations internet dwellers. I'm Nod, prolific writer on Shoutwire.com, awesome internet comment fighter, and a modern day Sage. After several minutes of boredom, I've decided to go ahead and start a blog-thing. Why? As I said- boredom.
"But Nod, if you're a writer for Shoutwire, why would you even need a blog? Write some editorials!" Well, you see, for me, writing editorials isn't easy. It takes something bugging me, latching onto my psyche like a flea, and annoying me until I can't take it any more and hammer out a psychotic rant. As you may imagine, this doesn't lead to much in the way of consistency. So, I've figured, what better way to help fight through writer's block, improve my non-ranting writing, and just get some stuff on my mind into the open than through one of these damn things?
Another reason for not writing everything I think of as editorials is, simply, the front page is premium space on the site. We can't just allow anything on there, and a lot of my thoughts just aren't editorial material, but I still feel like ranting about them.
So yeah, this is my repository of bad ideas, half-finished thoughts, philisophical ramblings, and quick one-off rants that may be turned into something better in the future.
Now get off my lawn.
"But Nod, if you're a writer for Shoutwire, why would you even need a blog? Write some editorials!" Well, you see, for me, writing editorials isn't easy. It takes something bugging me, latching onto my psyche like a flea, and annoying me until I can't take it any more and hammer out a psychotic rant. As you may imagine, this doesn't lead to much in the way of consistency. So, I've figured, what better way to help fight through writer's block, improve my non-ranting writing, and just get some stuff on my mind into the open than through one of these damn things?
Another reason for not writing everything I think of as editorials is, simply, the front page is premium space on the site. We can't just allow anything on there, and a lot of my thoughts just aren't editorial material, but I still feel like ranting about them.
So yeah, this is my repository of bad ideas, half-finished thoughts, philisophical ramblings, and quick one-off rants that may be turned into something better in the future.
Now get off my lawn.
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