Revulsion.

Many years ago, when my Mike and I would tour the various nightclubs and bars, we came across a local one we never set foot in before. It was all of ½ mile from our neighborhood and being a boring Wednesday night, we decided to stop in.

Tommy's Lounge. We found it had a couple of pool tables and something of a dance floor near the back. There was nothing exceptional about it, local bars are local bars.

“I'll set up the balls...you get the beers.” Mike told me.

I go up to the bar, order two beers and glance at the kid sitting in a stool next to me. He's barely 20 and wearing a black leather jacket with no shirt underneath...in humid July. He gave the the meanest sneer he could. It was readable...”Cmon...knock this chip off my shoulder...I dare-ya ta do it!”

I've become better with my poker face, instead of showing exactly what I'm feeling in certain situations. When I first saw this kid in his tough-guy attire, my face probably telegraphed what I was thinking...”Young and dumb with no future.”

I took the beers back to the table and told Mike, “ONE game, then we're out of here.”

Meanwhile a couple of other guys showed up, filthy from working with god knows what, with a white trash girl. She was a 20 something girl with a K-Mart halter top, greasy hair combed back over and a pair of ratty shorts. Those showed off her legs with various old bruises.  For all I know, she may have been porked in the plumbing van that was parked outside fifteen minutes ago. Too add to her femininity, she was loud and brash. 

Mike and I play our pool game, trying our best to seem too interested in our shots in hopes of ignoring the threesome at the next table. Of course, white trash girl has to invite us to a game with her friends. Jesus...

We don't answer right away and I probably telegraphed another thought on my face, “Ewwwww.” This is a tip off for those kind of people to feel completely slighted and bitch about their injured self esteem. What follows is their amazing ability to read everyone elses thoughts.

I tell her that we're not finished with our game yet and when we do...we'll play. This is a lie of course.

We finish and then sit at a table and talk for a bit. White trash girl comes over and asks again. I can hear the tone in her voice already. It's adversarial.

“Yeah..in a minute.” I tell her. “We're talking for a bit here.”

“WHAT? YOU THINK I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?”

In my heart I'm thinking, “Girl...you and your kind disgust me. Your street language, street morals, street everything...and having to fight every fucking perceived threat you invent in your minds annoys me...and yes, I am better than you!”

I finally stand up, motion Mike to stand too and I say to her. “Wow, you can read minds? I'm thinking of a number between 0 and 3, can you guess it?” She was heated, she played along. 

“TWO!” she nearly shouts out. 

“WRONG!” I say. In fact, I hadn't thought of any number.

I think Mike and I had about 30 seconds to beat it before she alerted her two greasy boyfriends to come and defend her. Then again, I may have been wrong, they may have thought it no consequence at all to insult her. We left without any problems.

We never went back. I don't know if Tommy's used Clorox and a wire brush to sanitize itself since.  

PEEEEE YEEEEWWWW!

Take a whiff, that ain't no rose!

Roll down your windows and hold your nose!

For sons, Mother's Day is important. Above all, don't forget it. You also had better put at least some thought into the gift you're going to give her, otherwise you'll be seen as a useless, thoughtless son who never cared about her or anything, anyway.

Mom's know where the guilt button is located on their sons.

Father's day, around here anyway, I could put the least amount of thought into what gift I ought to give to dear ol' Dad. Usually it involved my Mom stuffing a few dollars into my hand the day before and sending me off to CVS or Apex to “get something nice.” Getting something nice meant two things. Cologne or a tie.

My idea of a nice cologne when I was a kid meant FUMIGATION. If you couldn't smell it ten feet before you arrived, it was no good. Then again, my Mom didn't give me that much money to get Dad a decent bottle of anything really. Don't blame me! I think the most offensive of the lot of colognes I bought was Olde English Leather.

The bottle looked way cool. It had a huge wooden top. Anything made of wood meant quality...right? It also was very cheap and fit the budget my Mom had given me. To top it off, it gassed a room with a few mere drops. “This'll last Dad a lonngg time” I would think.

Other colognes I found that were cheaply bought were Aqua Velva, Hai Karate and Brut. But they all didn't match the Death Star power of English Leather.

My Dad, acknowledged most Father' Days gifts with a few grunts, a head nod and a “Thank You.” The whole ceremony took about 90 seconds. That was good enough. I wanted to go outside and play anyway. What I did notice that was he'd never wear that cologne I bought him.

When I had asked him why the English Leather sat on his bureau for months after, I got a kind, white lie that he was “saving it for a special occasion.”

My Dad dies years later and the English Leather went into a drawer and sat there for over a decade. When I was younger, I'd tear apart the drawer to see the old photos, high school diplomas and other things from way back before I was born. It was museum day here. I'd ask my Mom about certain people in the pictures and I found out they were old friends or relatives who had long since died back in Ireland. The English Leather became a relic in that drawer. 

**

If you've ever left the window down in your car during an overnight summer thunderstorm, you know of the pool that can collect on the floorboards. Once you've sopped it up, you then have to deal with it smelling like a mushroom farm till the sun bakes the car dry.

I was getting disgusted by the reek when I went looking for something to cover it up. I find the English Leather, open it and it still smelled “good.” Good in that it hadn't lost any of it's superhero powers. I drizzled some onto the carpet and immediately my car began to smell better. The dank smell was gone. I was happier...for a day at least. 

Not only will English Leather arrive five minutes before you do, it stays for WEEKS after too. I begin to really regret the fact I had dumped it into my car as the stuff had this miraculous staying power. It just wouldn't budge.  It's sickening and then becomes nauseating too. I'd drive with all windows open hoping to air it gone but..son of a bitch...it just wouldn't go. I think the stuff could outdo a skunk on stink-staying power.

It took a good two months,  I swear,  before that last vestiges of it finally aired away. Never again. I threw it out and it sat ontop of the garbage out on the sidewalk.

This happened:

The next day, the garbage truck comes along and one guy notices the cologne ontop and proceeds to use it to splash the inside of the truck where that compactor thingy is. I was watching them from the front window and goofed on it. I bet that truck was the “best” smelling truck at the Johnston landfill later that day...hell, even for a few weeks after it had to have smelled like English Leather.

Happy Father's Day to who this may apply. At least wear that ugly tie just one time or use ONE drop of the latest Stink Juice your kid bought. If they see you use their gift just once, you're star will have risen a few more points.  

Avoiding Life's Giant Potholes

I'd rather be a pessimist because then I can only be pleasantly surprised.” --Benjamin Franklin.

If so, then Franklin had Abundant Hope at one time. 

How about I point the snide and snarky comments on this blog at someone else? Like myself?

I was snarky and snide even as a kid. I never took the “your elders are your betters” to heart when I saw, as a kid, so many adults being utter losers at life.

I remember a third grade teacher, Mrs Keough, complain to me that I, “Ought to respect my elders!” Gee, elders in my neighborhood like the pedophile at the end of the street? The child abuser? The drunk? The gambler? The blowhard? The wife cheating husband? There were so many people I could look up too!

I'm not sure where my bullshit detector came on-line but it was early. By the time I was eight I think was the time. At that age, you really make advances in your ability to figure stuff out and I aimed that at the world around me. Bullshit detection is a necessary tool and I used it. The problem for the adults was that, at times, I blurted out my opinions. That made them angry when you exposed them in the full noon sun.

“From the mouths of babes...”

It's all about being able to detect people, institutions and anything else trying to deceive you. It's self defense. This is America and it's history and we, have been always tried to persuade the sucker next to us. You, like I, have had how many people try to con us? This is the core of our nation, the freedom to bamboozle the guy next to you.

Pessimism and cynicism doesn't look pretty, nor does it sound it when it's said. And yes, it's kind of gloomy as it sounds like. It reads like a total repudiation of ever there being anything good. But the reason why there's so much of it? There's a lot of horseshit to wade through. But there are diamonds of goodness in that pile of offal. The ugly task is that you have to shovel through it to find them. They are there. The other trick is not to knee-jerk everything in a cynical light. Doing so will blind you to the great opportunities that do lie out there. I know for myself, it's hard not to do, when there's so much sewerage around. I have to be a distinctive miner and know there are occasionally diamonds sitting in that glop. I have found a few, massive Hope diamonds during my life that I still keep today.

Here's an example when I was a complete asshole where I dropped a very Politically Incorrect statement at a meeting when I was in my old occupation in social work.

The local propagandist (read this as: In house PR person) would remind us of the Holy War we were to fight for the developmentally disabled.

“But the developmentally disabled want to be like everyone else! They should be treated like everyone else!”

I said: “Ok, then they should be lied to, stolen from, abused, ignored, forgotten, pushed aside and be treated like another number...just like everyone else is.”

That didn't win me many converts. I was supposed to believe in and promote the happy horseshit that life was always about. Que a Disney song with happy lyrics now. “It's a small world, after all!”

I can at times just shoot my mouth off and come off like an asshole. I do regularly enough to lower my social standing for a few minutes. Sorry, when I hear or see BS...I can just open up and respond in a not so kind manner. I have years of practice with it.

Does doing that make me a less “liked” by others at the time? Sure does! I know most people don't want to have a pretty veneer ripped open to show the ugly pus underneath...it's not happy stuff. And people prefer happy and don't want to be around unhappy. I get it. But I cannot stand obvious heaps of horse malarkey being called a pile of roses.

I forget the story, but it's about an elephant in the room and everyone there refuses to mention it nor talk about it. I, however, if annoyed enough, will blurt out, “Jesus! Can't you smell this thing? Are you that blind?”

Whoops...I wasn't supposed to do that...I was supposed to go along with it all.  

Stalking

One great use of the internet are the “where are they now?” queries. It helps if you remember their names and there are times when trying to remember someone from jr high school is a bit of a stretch. If I'm lucky, I'll find that one person and then I can hit up their Facebook page. 99% of the time the person really hasn't changed too much from what I recall them to be.

Ex girlfriends, ex-coworkers and anyone I'm curious about I generally can find. Some others seem not even to be on the internet at all and I begin to wonder what happened. Even if you're dead there's usually a record of that somewhere.

This morning I was reminded of “the ones that got away” and used that as my category to search.

I once worked in the social services area and met a co-worker who was fall on the earth pretty. Not only that, she seemed to have a good heart as well, which is better than superficial beauty. So she was excellent in both ways. She had been broken up with a long time boyfriend and seemed ready.

She was coy about my rooting around her den and I really didn't come on too hard, but it was obvious I was interested. I finally asked her out one day and was shot down in the nicest of ways. There are some people who are great at the “kiss off” and can deliver bad news and make you feel great about it, for about thirty minutes, that's until you think about what happened and you come to your senses finally.

“Wait a minute...everything she said was a cunning lie...and you bought it for just the right amount of time!”

After a while, I asked others just what she was about and why I was shot down. You see, no one ever keeps a secret and the gossip network can't help but spread information. I was told that she thought I was “nice enough” but not her type.

“What's her type? I ask. I figured it had to do with physical looks, as it usually does.

I get a really circuitous answer that really isn't meant to tell me the truth. I hate that. In fact, if you try that with me, I'll psychologically torture you by incessant questioning till you do spill the beans. Thank Jesuit training for that skill.

The girl I'm talking to finally says it in the nicest of ways. “She doesn't think your ugly or anything, it's just that she's looking for someone in a field who will be successful one day.

When I heard the word “successful,” I translated that to mean “rich.” The field I was in at the time does not lead one to affording homes in the Hamptons.

Not too long after, she had found her boyfriend. A couple of years later they were married and I was out of that field anyway, starting a new career. I never saw her again.

This morning out of curiosity I use Intelius to locate her. She's there and I find the husband's name. So I “Intelius” him and I find out she scored herself a fat prize. She found her “successful” man.

I never knew anyone who ever worked for Aramco. Aramco is Saudi Arabia's state/private oil company that has more money than Allah. It's massive. I find her husband is this pipeline engineer who designs the actual pipeline, valves and software to run it all. His resume spoke of someone that spent their entire life inside the oil business and had a degree from CalTech. This guy is a rocket scientist who turned that into heaps of money.

“Wow, she certainly knew where to look and bag the big one” I thought to myself.

When I Facebooked her, I find that her likes, movies and such were paltry. Her comments were flat and hollow and her largest interest was in JoAnn's fabrics. If not that, then links to various high end clothing and jewelry stores.

There are people you've met where “there's less there than meets the eye” actually is true. When I meet someone new, I dig, I investigate and learn who this person is. It's out of genuine curiosity and to me, it's fun to swim in the depths of another personality. The key here is depth. There are people who, if you try to dive into them, you smack your head on the bottom of their pool as it's only a foot deep. I find that surprising that how anyone can have lived something of a life and NOT manage to deepen and grow from it. How can you not? I guess there are some who succeed at not evolving.

Why I didn't know this then when I actually knew her? I hadn't packed on the years of experience yet.

I continue to read her Facebook and a thought dawns on me...”you're a Trophy Wife!” I imagined a conversation at the dinner table.

“Honey...I found a new bauble from Sax Fifith Avenue today. What did you do?”

“Well, I laid another 20 miles of gas pipeline...rewrote the pressure gauge software using the C programming language and C#. We'll have to get the Saudi attorneys into this as well as the Bedouins are complaining about their treaty rights now and how this pipeline runs on their territory. How much was that Sax thing again?”

Perhaps my lack of that kind of success was a good thing?

Dust unto Dust

This story is old but still funny...

Back when my friend was commanding a ship for the now disbanded 2^nd Fleet (Atlantic), retired naval officers and their families could hitch a ride to wherever the ship was going for free. There were times where he had to give up his cabin for an ex Admiral or other outranking officer that came on board. The ship didn't have to cater to these people as if they were a cruise ship, but you had to make sure the travelers were comfortable.

They brought their pets at times too. And this story is when his ship managed to kill the poodle owned by the wife of an admiral.

The admiral had gone ahead of his wife to Naples, she eventually followed him on my friend's ship. She had his cabin and her dog. Apparently she was a bitch who complained about the smallest things aboard the ship and Barn, my friend, had to cater to her while commanding the ship too. Another thankless job that had nothing to do with the real tasks at hand.

Once in Naples, she told him she'd disembark later in the day for good. In the meantime, would he watch the dog while she did some shopping. He said he would, as long as the dog was crated and she agreed.

Once she was gone, he handed the task off to a seaman and told him to “put the damn thing in the forward compartments” where they warehoused supplies and generally was very quiet. The seaman did as he was told.

Naples in the summer can be amazingly hot as hell and Barn told me that day was.

Later that afternoon, the same seaman came to the bridge in a panic to deliver the news that the dog was good and dead. Apparently the air conditioning unit in there had failed and the Mediterranean sun had baked the metal in that part of the ship to over 100 degrees. The dog had broiled to death.

“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” Barn remembers yelling out on the bridge when he heard the news. He knew this bitch wife of an admiral would cause the biggest stink in the world once she came back to collect her baggage and her precious poodle.

The commander asked him, “What the hell do we do now?”

Barn said, “Give me a few minutes to think this out.”

After thirty minutes, Barn said, “Get the bridge crew in their dress whites today, get a few of the seaman all dressed up too...we're going to have a burial at sea when she returns...you do NO talking...I'll break the news to her.”

“You're giving a dog a funeral? Are you kidding? If Norfolk finds out, we're screwed! This is a dog! Not military personnel!” the commander said.

“Norfolk won't find out...if we do this right.” Barn replies.

Barn tells me he broke the news to her in the most compassionate way he could. He completely lied about where the dog had died and the circumstances and finally asked her would she please attend, “a proper burial at sea.”

He was amazed his ruse worked. She was “oh so thankful” that he arranged a ceremony for her poodle.

“All hands bury the dead!” an officer shouted. The ships flags were then lowered to half mast. A group of men carried a 4x8 sheet of plywood that was wrapped in white sheets with a further wrapped poodle on top. The American Flag was also draped, as well as it could for a small poodle on the same bier.

The bier was placed on a stand that jutted out over the edge of the ship. As there was no chaplain on board, Barney officiated.

“I went on about the close relationship dogs and owners have. How dogs are family. How dogs are loyal and loving...I laid it on thick!”

“Firing party..present ARMS!” the officer shouts.

The bier is tilted and the wrapped poodle slides into the Mediterranean sea and sinks.

Three guys with M-14's fire a three volley shot as the dog slid off the platform.

He presented the folded flag to the admiral's wife and said a few words to her as taps was playing.

I ask, “Did it work?”

“Oh god did it ever! I just went on like I was the World's Best Dog Lover and I managed to bamboozle her! My biggest worry was that one of the guys on deck would start laughing his ass off. Hell, I was worried I'd laugh my ass off!”

A month later, long after the wife had been left in Naples, Barn was in the ward room when a cable was brought to him that originated from Norfolk. In it was message from Operations that said.

“We could court martial you for that stunt you pulled in Naples. But Command here thought it was so funny that one of us laughed coffee through his nose. We finally considered the matter never happened. Don't do this again as these ceremonies are for HUMANS.”

The wife had returned to the US and told a few of her naval friends of a “lovely funeral that her dog was given in Naples” and how grateful she was for it. This made it's way up the chain of command apparently. Norfolk did find out....to their amusement.  

Woof!

No FAIR!!

An acquaintance admitted to me that he was diagnosed with Asperger's as an adult. These diagnoses weren't around in the late 60's and a lot of good that did him to find out now. Back then, he was regarded as shy, weird and all around peculiar. He managed to make it through the academics in school, an average student, but suffered greatly socially as it was all a mystery to him.

I admit I know little about it. This is one of those medical pronouncements that came way after I had left grammar school. Back when I was a kid in school, they either called you retarded (their word, not mine) or incorrigible. To some in my generation, Asperger's is a made up disease and certainly wouldn't have been taken seriously back in 1969.

He tells me:

“I tried to join in with the other kids, but I was rebuffed time and time again and I didn't know why. I didn't do anything to upset anyone...it felt like I was being excluded for a sin I never knew about. If you're rejected and you know why, that's one thing..but to be kept in the dark?”

Apparently I am told Aspies have a hard time finding out why they are abandoned. If they don't know, they can't correct it.

He goes on:

“Since I was pretty much shut out, I invented a rich fantasy world that kept my mind going, otherwise I'd die of boredom w/o any friends around. It got to the point where my default state was fantasy...it was far better than the real world I was in.”

His fantasies were the usual scripts kids have. Spacemen, cowboys, cops...but in his case he was the Lone Sheriff, the Lone Astronaut, Lone...you get it. He said it was what kept him sane and helped deal with the loneliness he had to endure.

“Great, a month ago I get this wonderful diagnosis. What good does it do me now? After all these years, I've managed to learn enough social skills to make it out there, most times. But I needed this when I was 5.”

“So fuckin' unfair..damned unfair.”

I had to agree with him. It was unfair. I wasn't about to rebuff his complaint with “if it's all the same to you fella...we all get screwed.” But there are those in this world who are Royally Raped by Life. How many little kids can we point at that come down with leukemia. I'd like to ask God about that one. Ask the 12 million murdered by the Nazis. Ask a kid born into a family with shitty parents. No wonder, when they grow up, they ask..”Why!?”

There's a long line, miles long, full of people wanting to know “why?”

I myself was once rebuffed by a client who made a great point to my weak attempt to “spell it all out for him.” I had said that we all get a hand of cards at birth and the only answer to it is to make the best of them. The only choice is to “move forward.”

“Oh sure, make the best of it...I'll throw down a pair of 2's or maybe another pair of 5's. Meanwhile some bastard was born with a Royal Flush...and I have to be aware of that? I have to see it up close? It's like my misfortune is being rubbed into my face!”

His point was that he was perfectly cognizant of how others have soo little, while others are relishing in abundance. There was no rhyme or reason to how it was dealt and not only that, those screwed by life get to compare, up close at times, their paltry conditions to someone who has a profusion of great luck. It made him angry to be made FULLY aware of how little his life had given him. (And in his case, it wasn't his fault...try living a full and normal life after your parents beat you like a ragdoll...this is also when his uncle was taking far too many liberties with him as well).

I had no answer for him.

Ignorance is bliss....I guess so. If you don't know what you're missing, how can you be upset?

When I was a kid, the rant, “NO FAIR” was often shouted out to others who cheated at games or broke the candy bar 70/30, giving you the short piece. I heard it a lot in this neighborhood. Hell, I was one of the 7 year olds complaining at the top of my lungs over unfair deals. Either a parent (GOD) would intervene and set everything right or, most times, you had to fight for it and grapple back your share or if you couldn't, you sat there stewing in your own bile about being shafted...and quietly plotting revenge. More times than not, you had to fend for yourself w/o GOD (a parent) coming to save you.

Guess what? Adults still yell NO FAIR!. But they do it in their heads. Shouting it out will have others asking you, “Are you just find that out now?” Of course we didn't just find out now but we are still rip shit pissed like we were when we were seven.

Einstein said “God Doesn't Play with Dice with the Universe.” I gotta wonder though. It does seem oh so random at how some people are chiseled by life from the get-go. We all are born and start at the staring line. There are others who start a mile back, with chains and crutches and barely hear the starting pistol when it goes off.

Random...

When I hear people bitch about it, I'm reminded of a Kurt Vonnegut quote from one of his books when he was a POW of the Germans during WW2.

“As the Americans were waiting to move on, an altercation broke out in their rear-most rank. An American had muttered something which a guard did not like. The guard knew English, and he hauled the American out of ranks, knocking him down.

The American was astonished. He stood up shakily, spitting blood. He'd had two teeth knocked out. He had meant no harm by what he'd said, and evidently, had no idea that the guard would hear and understand.

'Why me?' he asked the guard.

The guard shoved him back into ranks and said, 'Vy you? Vy anybody?'”

Vy any of us? I swear it's all just dice.  

Ahhh...I'll Just Microwave a Hot Pocket...

I find most restaurants pretty underwhelming. The fare doesn't blow my socks off unless I'm looking only to gorge myself. After-which I lie fat and motionless like an elephant seal on a beach after swallowing 150 herring.

“Ughhhh..I shouldn't eaten it all...if I just can fall asleep...”

Chain restaurants are the worst I find. You get these surgically proportioned meals priced surgically too. Applebees was one experience I found myself never returning too. Chicken Broccoli pasta with a Mornay sauce is great, but not when they give you handful of angelhair dampened with the sauce. The chicken was deviously prepared by slicing a breast in half then flattening one half of it with a mallet. Bastards.

Then there was Margarita's, which specializes in salt. I like salt, probably more than the average person, but when you cure all your offerings with enough salt to make it last past Judgement Day, I gag. I was told later that it was in an effort to help you purchase more of their signature margaritas to wash it all down. Their “El Presidente for Life” margarita was the size of a gold fish bowl that came with a hefty $12.99 price tag and I don't even like tequila to begin with.

It's all about keeping food costs under the Prime Directive of 30%...and charging the customer as hard as you can.

There are exceptions though.

Cedar Street in Sturbridge, MA surprised me. The prices do tend to kick you in the balls but it's not like Menton's in Boston...where the check can easily rise to $300, up that to $500 if you want wine. What was I doing in an up$cale restaurant knowing I'm a cheap, skinflint Yankee? Easy answer. I didn't have to pay! The Worcester Telegram paid! One of the friends I've had along the way was their food/wine critic and he was allowed to take along one person when he visited various middle Massachusetts restaurants. His job wasn't to crucify these places as they liked to buy advertising space in the Telegram, so every review was 3 stars or up. Only one place was a Choke 'n' Puke and they got three stars too.

Cedar Street was one restaurant where the claim to understand food actually was true. The combinations of foods/flavors to produce a first, second and cumulative, special third flavor actually occurred. I thought one offering, a vegetable terrine, would be as boring as cut grass. I was wrong. The thing went off in my mouth like a hand grenade and it wasn't due to spices either. It was the various veggies they combined together to get that effect.

I forget what the name was of what I had, Camel ala Red Sea but it was some middle eastern meat that was done well. If I wanted strange, foreign flavors, I got them in this dish. Most dishes, their ingredients, tend to sum themselves up into a final tally. It tastes like this. When you can prepare it so that every ingredient has it's time on your tongue, like a stage, then walks off, one after another, is something to experience. That dish was like this.

Cedar Street won it's five stars from my friend.

By the way, want to get excellent service in a place? Whip out a pocket notebook and scribble anything on it while you are being served and as you eat. The servers will run back to the kitchen to report there's a food critic there.

While we were at Cedar Street, Rick, the Telegram critic, tried to hide his note taking but was busted by one of the young waitresses who badly tried to hide her “Oh, I have to go the the kitchen to pick up an order” and alerted the chef. The service after that went up 300%.

Since he was busted, Rick went to the kitchen afterwards to tell the chef there were no worries, the chef scored the five stars anyway.

Know what I think is another Five Star place? House of Pizza on Division St in Pawtucket. A proper pizza, when tilted, must have it's grease slowly run across the top. Also, you better see them making piles of fresh dough every day. Yelling at the customers in Greek helps too.