By Jerome Haller

During a recent Sunday night, I remarked to the Nice Cashier that the morning employee who relieved her had been showing up on time for a change. Of course, the tardiness promptly immediately resumed. On Monday morning, the Nice Cashier had to work overtime before returning home to her kids. “You jinxed it,” she said to me during a lull that night.
Yes. Yes I did.
Thus chastened, I didn’t even blink when an elderly woman walked in the store while pushing a cart. A regular with a stooped back, she wore a blue blouse and dirty white pants. Her body odor wafted in the air.

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Posted on August 7, 2009

By Patty Hunter

Our busy season is almost over. Families have spent their vacation money and are now saving up to buy new school supplies and autumn clothing. Does this mean they are cutting back on eating out? No, they’re just tipping less.

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Posted on August 6, 2009

By The Beachwood Meet Up Affairs Desk
Highlights from the newest Chicago Meetups.
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The Northwest Indiana Spirituality Meetup Group
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The Four Agreements Meets The Law of Attraction
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Russian moms of southern suburbs of Chicago

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Posted on August 5, 2009

By Jerome Haller

As I stood at the security post on a recent Friday night, a man waited in line to pay for his goods. He wore a T-shirt that said. “I Got Out of Bed for This?”
The shirt provided the theme for my shift.
Thanks to a bout of insomnia, I got out of bed and arrived at the store 40 minutes early. The guard on duty smiled. “I’m really glad to see you,” he said. “Can you stand here for five minutes? I have to run to the store and buy some bread.”
I gladly agreed to perform the favor. Since replacing a guard who had dropped the F bomb on a cashier, he had been a team player. He arrived on time, helped tackle a perp, and gave me tips about would-be thieves and company policies.
So I stood at the post. Five minutes had passed. Nothing wrong with that. Then 10. Nothing wrong with that either. At the 20-minute mark, I started to fume. Why should I get fisted for doing someone a kind deed?
At that point, I saw the T-shirt.

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Posted on August 4, 2009

By Patty Hunter

Oh, local Chicago pizzeria, how I loathe thee!
With thine poorly tipping guests
And ne’er enough of the most popular beers –
I have never met one that drove me so crazy.
Oh, local Chicago pizzeria, you surely kid!
Surely no busser would use Sprite in the place of table wipes –
But alas! ’tis true, for a guest phoned and complained.
How hast thee possibly stayed Zagat rated?

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Posted on July 30, 2009

By Jerome Haller

As I walked toward my store on July 4, an acrid smell hit my nose. It was the smoke enveloping the area. Fireworks had produced the stench and haze. A mixture of sounds attacked my ears: fizzles, small pops, loud booms that set off car alarms. Apparently, the locals had decided to re-enact the Revolutionary War.
One weary cop walked in the store. “How’s it going out there?” I asked. “Every day is a joy,” he cracked. Another griped about manning the paddy wagon on one of the worst days of the year.

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Posted on July 23, 2009

By J.J. Tindall

WHITE DREAM
Dreams come
in clouds, floating through
the blue
brain. There goes fame,
there fortune, there
beautiful

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Posted on July 20, 2009

By Scott Gordon
Last of a series.
To get to breakfast in the Windjammer, I walk up one flight of stairs and turn a corner. As soon as I’m around the corner, the perky photographer from Day One’s dinner springs at me bearing a life preserver labeled “JUNEAU” and yaps out some eager photo-command. I laugh her off and walk past another photographer who’s working with a guy in an eagle suit. After you get through the morning’s small gauntlet of photo ops, and in fact any time you enter one of the ship’s restaurant spaces, you hit an appetizing wave of Purell scent. Two automatic Purell dispensers flank every doorway, and one attendant stands by them all day, gently urging people to sanitize their hands. Purell is fucking gross, but I want people to keep buying me drinks after the great flu pandemic, so I step up. The dispensers always give you a gratuitous blob of the stuff. I’ve developed a habit of just sticking one finger out into the sensor; the friendly Latin American lady who’s always tending the Windjammer entrance has come to enjoy watching me do this.

Previously: Part One: Into The Well Of Cheese Part Two: Douchey young people Part Three: Hump-busters Part Four: Skagway scams

I believe vacation is giving me too much time to think. My activity today, the “Glacier View Bike And Brew,” will at least bring some peaceful moments as our group cycles through Juneau to the Mendenhall Glacier viewing center. More blue ice, more dirt. In the van on the way to the bikes, I realize part of my group is the LBJ-Ken Lay Fan Club, as I have secretly named a group of three domesticated wisecrackers from Houston. The oldest one is in the “gas and oil” business; the other two are his son and son-in-law. The first question the in-law asks our bike-tour guide is, “What’ the average house price in Juneau?”

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Posted on July 17, 2009

By Scott Gordon
Fourth in a five-part series.
Well, the mystery dinner theater was not as big a trainwreck as I expected, but did involve a “gypsy” fortune-teller and a cursed diamond whose previous owners included Richard Simmons, and some backhanded small-penis jokes, just to establish that it was an adult-oriented sort of deal. But did the staff keep the red wine coming? Did they ever. I was blasted before the main course even arrived. Often I’d wave off one server’s refill offer, saying, “Nope, I better slow down,” only to have another swoop in minutes later and crank me back up without even asking. The best part was everyone had a nice buzz on by the time we spotted a pod of whales spouting water from their blowholes off to the port side. Consequently, today I am hung over from the mystery dinner.

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Posted on July 16, 2009

By Scott Gordon
Third of a five-part series.
My mom: “Some cultures don’t have a sense of personal space.”
Me: “Yeah, like cruise ship culture!”
The “luxury” cruise combines the corporate retail world’s idea of “customer service” with an insecure three-star restaurant’s notion of same to breed a helpful hydra, sprouting forced grins and goofy interactions that linger a bit too long. I truly feel bad for Royal Caribbean’s hump-busting staff, but if they get any further up my ass, I will begin charging them rent. In what other situation would a complete stranger be allowed to waltz up to our breakfast table and feed my little six-year-old brother a few forkfuls by hand? I get the feeling most crew members might be required to have some kind of gimmick or trick, or that at least these people are pretty damn smart in their pursuit of tips and enduring loyalty to RC. While my dad and I were shooting pool yesterday, a server came up to the table next to us, tray in hand, and kept on balancing the tray as he wowed his customers by making a tricky shot with only one hand on the stick. A bartender the other night pulled out a magic trick in which a penny vanishes, then reappears, under a rocks glass.

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Posted on July 15, 2009