Happy Fathers Day!

Just a little suggestion for all you Facebookers: instead of wasting your time updating your status with generic Happy Fathers Day messages, why don't you actually go express your gratitude directly to the fathers in your lives. There are no actual fathers out there who are genuinely touched by your thoughtless, semi-sincere Hallmark tripe.

I mean really, you're just clogging up my news feed.

Kvetchup

I went to dinner with my friend Jonas last night to Ketchup, a meat haven on the Sunset Strip that looks like the set of a Stanley Kubrick movie. They couldn't seat us right away, so we had a drink at the bar first.

When we got our table, the bartender asked us to close out at the bar. The complication was this: we had a $100 voucher Jonas had gotten from Groupon.com that we wanted to pay with. But after the bartender went and asked the manager, he informed us that we could only use the voucher to pay for dinner, and not at the bar.

This was annoying. The bar was in the restaurant, but we had to pay separately for the two bills? There was no possible way to merge them together? Give me a break. The manager probably asked the bartender, "Are these customers a couple of pussy-looking Jews? They are? Okay, you handle it however you want. Whatever's easiest. They're not gonna make a fuss."

So we paid for the drinks separately. But the bartender, swell guy that he was, could sense our aggravation, and eased our frustration by saying he was only going to charge us for one drink. "Hey, thanks man, really appreciate it," we gushed gratefully. "No problem guys," he said, waving his hand modestly, as we went and sat down at our table.

Later on in the meal I ordered another drink, but Jonas didn't want one. But then our waitress informed us it was Twofer Tuesday: all drinks are buy one, get one free. "Okay," Jonas said, "I'll get another one."

Then we looked at each other, realizing. That asshole bartender had made himself out to be such a great guy by only charging us for one drink, like he was doing us a favor, when that was just the standard promotion for the evening. We got fooled by the old "For you, special price" line fancied by used car salesmen and third world souvenir hockers. He had stood there and basked in our gratitude, using our appreciation to feel good about himself, when in reality he had pulled nary a string for us.

I feel so dirty.

I, Philanthropist

Lately I've been feeling a vague yearning for more responsibility in my life, so I went down to the library and signed up to be an adult illiteracy tutor. The program requires you to attend an all day seminar to learn how to be a tutor, then commit to meeting with your student for an hour and a half, twice a week, for six months. Kind of a big commitment, but hey, that's what I was looking for, right? Plus, I wanted to be able to say to girls on dates, "In my free time, I teach illiterate adults how to read."

So I attended the excruciatingly boring seminar, forfeiting an entire Saturday, at the end of which I was assigned my student: Kyung Jin Yon, a 23-year-old Korean girl. Right off the bat this struck me as a bit odd. A young foreign woman didn't fit the demographic of what I was expecting of an illiterate adult.

So I called Kyung Jin, who spoke in broken English, and managed to arrange a time for us to meet - on a Sunday afternoon, because she said she was working full time. This was contradictory to the information I had been given about her, which said she was available from 2PM-7PM on Mondays and Wednesdays. I didn't really want this to become a weekend thing.

The night before our meeting, Kyung Jin cancelled, sending me the following text message: "Teacher, really thank u for understanding* finally, I went to the hospital by emergency on last sat. i have been taking some of medicion plus i feel better (i am still sick a little bit) But I could see you this sun at noon, i will promiss! how about you? the main thing is the work! and no time for studying but i need. i know it is late taking msg..i just remember u now/think..good night..sorry, i don't speak english well. Loveable Angel :)"

Obviously, this was a red flag. Sure, there are some grammatical shortcomings and spelling mistakes, but really, not much worse than the text messages I get from most literate American adults I know. It's also one of the longest texts I've ever received.

Clearly, this girl was not illiterate in English. And even if she was, it's her second language! She's just trying to brush up on being bilingual! As I would learn, "Loveable Angel" was how she signed all her texts. She's got a full time job and is sending me text messages in fluent English, signing them with a signature nickname?! Illiterate people don't have signature nicknames on text messages!

I was being robbed of my philanthropic experience.

After she cancelled our meeting a second time - this one scheduled for 7PM on a Thursday, because she was working overtime - I texted her asking if she was going to have time to meet twice a week. She never responded.

Then I emailed the program director at the library, explaining the problems I was having getting Kyung Jin to meet me, and my reticence to tutor her based on my strong suspicion that she wasn't a legitimate adult illiteracy candidate. She never got back to me, either.

This is what I get for trying to improve my own life by giving back to society. I should just go work on my tan.

Nuttier

If you had told me when I woke up this morning that I would be writing two separate nut-related kvetches on the same day, I would have said "You're NUTS!!!!" Then, after you had stopped groaning, this would have happened...

I was just down at Ralph's again, picking up a few sundries. Because I was running low thanks to the exploits described earlier today, a fresh can of nuts was on my list. Last on my list, to be exact. So after I had gotten everything I needed, I went over to the nut aisle.

There I happened upon kind of a strange scene: a rotund man with a mustache was speaking to two homely women, one of whom was filming him with a video camera. I couldn't quite understand what they were doing. The man was holding up different products and seemed to be describing them, trying to be humorous, but I wasn't really paying attention, because the three of them were standing right in front of all the nuts.

I didn't want to be the guy who interrupted whatever inane folly they were filming, especially because it wasn't going to be a quick in-n-out type of deal. I wasn't quite sure what kind of nuts I wanted. I needed to peruse the nut selection, and there was no way I could do that given this stupid scenario.

I waited for a couple moments, trying to be inconspicuous. Then I walked down another aisle, killing thirty seconds looking at products I didn't need, before wandering back to the nut section. These yahoos were still doing their schtick, not budging from where they were hogging the nuttery. There was no telling how long they would be there.

So in the end, I gave up. I went to the check out line, glancing back one last time while cursing my unfortunate timing to go get my precious nuts at the exact time something so random and unexplained would prevent me from acquiring them.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww, nuts.

Nutty

I was just snacking on a tin of onion & garlic flavored almonds, when I looked at the side of the can and noticed a little tidbit bubble that said: "One serving per day may be healthy for your heart."

I find this information vaguely unsettling. One serving per day may be healthy for my heart? Maybe I'm just a glass half empty kind of guy, but what I infer from that statement is that one serving per day also may not be healthy for my heart.

Hasn't there been enough research done on nuts to determine if they're good for you or not? And in what quantities? I'll tell you what, if the makers of the almonds can't even definitively say that their product is healthy, it probably isn't. It's kind of like a drug dealer saying "Come on man, one line of cocaine a day might actually be good for you. You never know. Just buy the shit."

I don't know about you, but if I went to a doctor and he prescribed me pills and said "This might be beneficial to your health," I'm finding a new doctor.

Lunch Woes

I absolutely cannot stand when something that should be a routine, everyday order of business turns into a needlessly aggravating hassle. I just popped down the street to get a sandwich from the deli counter at Ralph's, and by the time I got home I was a ball of world-resenting hostility.

They've recently adopted the "take a number" system at the deli counter, so I took my number, which was 73. At the time, they were on 67. So I went and stood all the way at the end of the counter, where they make the sandwiches. The problem was, the five or so Hispanic deli ladies were all clustered down at the other end of the counter, by where they have the giant loaves of cheese and the pre-made salads and stuff. So I waited.

And waited. And waited. None of these deli workers acknowledged me. Finally I looked up and noticed that 73 was lit up on the screen, so I walked down to where they were working, but they were all busy doing things. So I stood around for a moment, continuing to get ignored, before shuffling back to where I had been standing.

Then one of them called out "74," and a guy stepped up to place his order. I darted back down to that side of the counter, waving my ticket. "I have 73!" I called out. "I call out 73 already," one Hispanic deli worker said. "I was down there waiting for a sandwich," I said, pointing. "You guys need to keep an eye on the sandwich counter."

"I call out 73," this lady said to me again. This highly annoyed me. "You called it out from 50 feet away!" I said. "I couldn't hear you. I've been waiting here for like ten minutes."

To her credit, she apologized. Then she made my sandwich with the wrong bread and forgot to slice it in half. And now I'm back home, stewing with frustration over what I had no reason to believe wouldn't be a perfectly lovely little lunch.