Apropo of nothing...

this has nothing to do with the restaurant industry except that it happened while I was working in a nightclub in Lackawanna, NY.

My first car was a Plymouth Champ which was smaller than a Dodge Dart but served me well and rarely got stuck in the Western NY winters that are so world-wide famous. It had front wheel drive and when it did get stuck it didn't take much to yank it out. But it was an admittedly tiny car. Anyway, I always parked my car in back of the club, so one night when I was reeling drunk out of work at 5 am I couldn't find my car. I complained to the other people I worked with and they pointed out that my car sat on the far side of the parking lot. Of course I knew I didn't park it there, but I thought someone had taken my keys from my purse and moved the car while I worked.

It happened again a couple nights later and it was when I saw the bouncers falling all over themselves with laughter that I found the culprits. But they weren't stealing my keys. They were physically picking the car up and moving it across the lot. I knew my car was small but well, thank god I'm not a guy I guess or I'd have size issues.

Ugly American

I hate foreigners. All servers/bartenders do. They don't fucking tip as a rule or they do but in a way that's so insultingly low that you wish they hadn't bothered at all.

Last night, case in point: $2 on a $69 bill. And I'll bet they thought they were doing me a favor. You know, it's just them pretending that they are foreign and don't know how to do it, because they can ride the subway downtown to ground zero and, more importantly, Century 21 without much problem, so they can certainly read the NY tourist brochures that tell them to tip 15% to %20. I'll take %15, hell, I'll take %10. But the next person who leaves a couple bucks on a significant check gets an earful. I don't care if they don't understand English.