by Lindy West
It was just simple stuff: sandwiches, nachos. I’m sure the nice owner-man thought: Any fool can do this job. I did eventually attain competence, if that may be measured by people no longer sending their food back because the cheese wasn’t melted. But I never quite got the extremely basic triangulation of making each and every thing as delicious as possible for other people just as you would for yourself at home. Also, if I got more than one order, I felt like I was falling behind, all alone, doomed; I just didn’t have anywhere near the nerve for working in a kitchen.
I did learn the best way to cut an avocado, and how to pull a tap beer with a snap, and to never, ever take a drink from a man before it was completely, incontrovertibly empty—I almost lost a hand a couple times that way at the Roanoke. The jolly bartender Tom would go out back to “play ping-pong,” leaving me behind the bar, and the guys who drank there in the afternoons teased me, and I was shy, which made it even better sport. Once when I was back in the kitchen five minutes before the end of my shift, the phone rang—an order for 20 hot sandwiches, to go. “Tommmmmm!” I wailed, sticking my head out. All the guys all along the bar laughed uproariously, especially the one still on the other end of the line.
My last food job was in San Francisco. It was at a café that paid under the table; I lived in a room that was meant to be a closet, so I’d be able to get by. The café is gone, and for the life of me, I can’t remember the name. I worked with the immigrant brother of the immigrant owner, who treated his brother more like a dog. But the owner wasn’t around much, and the brother and I got along. He was taking ESL classes, and when we weren’t busy, I helped him with his reading.
But there was the matter of the ravioli. I didn’t even know we served ravioli until someone ordered it. I asked the brother about the ravioli. “Ah!” he said, and started burrowing in the glass-doored refrigerator. He went so far back that he all but disappeared. Eventually he emerged with a metal hotel pan with dripping, opaque plastic wrap over it. He unwrapped it to reveal a school of gray ravioli suspended in fetid water. “We can’t serve that!” I whispered. “Oh, no, no, no, it’s okay,” he said, and fetched a colander and dumped the ravioli into it in the sink. He started running cold water over the ravioli, rinsing away the visible gray skin on each one. “NO!” I said, louder. “It’s okay! It’s okay!” he said. “NO IT IS NOT OKAY! WE CAN’T SERVE THAT!” I said, loud enough for customers out at the tables to hear. We went back and forth for a bit, but I put my foot down, and I made him throw it away in front of me.
A little while after that, a regular at the café was talking about his new internet company, and it turned out there was a great job for an English literature major there. I called the owner to tell him I had to quit, that I was getting my shifts covered—he interrupted me with a stream of invective I’ve not heard the likes of before or since. “I GIVE YOU THIS FUCKING JOB AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO TO ME!” He went on and on, cursing fabulously and liberally. It was insane, but he was a grown-up, and I was shaking with an animal fear. Finally, he paused in his rage, and suddenly I knew what to do. “NO, FUCK YOU!” I said, and hung up the phone.
APPENDIX B. THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE THAT THERE ARE
BY LINDY WEST
PEOPLE WHO CHOOSE TO CORRECT YOU ABOUT THE DEFINITION OF “HOBO”
Am I making this up? I feel like every time someone uses the word “hobo” to mean “homeless person,” somebody else has to climb waaay up on their high horse and don their semantics cap and start getting highfalutin all over town about how “a hobo is someone who rides the rails in the Great Depression, and is it 1934 right now? I don’t think so! And I can’t believe you don’t even know what words mean. How embarrassing. Have you heard of Wikipedia? Hhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Maybe I’m making all of this up, but if I’m not, I’d just like to say that I’m aware of what year it is, and I am going to continue using the word “hobo” however I please (within reasonable homeless-related limits, of course), thank you very much, and the way in which I please to use it is, “No thank you, hobo, I do not wish to go on a date with you.” Also I will accept “transient.”
PEOPLE WHO ARE MEAN TO HOBOES
Lay off, man. Being homeless is the worst thing. Give the dude a dollar. (I’m still not going on a date with you, hobo.)
PEOPLE WHO STILL HAVE JOBS
As bad as things are, this is still most people. People with jobs are great, except for the few who talk shit to people without jobs (things like “Hey, get a job!” or “Where’s your job?”). In such instances, these people need to be reminded that they, too, possess jobs vulnerable to layoffs and should probably shut the fuck up.
PEOPLE WHO ARE QUIETLY LESS THAN $100 AWAY FROM COMPLETE DESTITUTION
You have to hope it’s going to be okay. This can’t go on forever.
PEOPLE WHO SECRETLY HAVE VAST FAMILY FORTUNES/TRUST FUNDS TO KEEP THEM FROM EVER KNOWING COMPLETE DESTITUTION, OR EVEN MILD HARDSHIP
Just do something interesting with it. You already won. Be grateful. Don’t be a douche.
PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO BE AFRAID OF CLOWNS
These people (and they are numerous) are attempting to cultivate a cute quirk, but they are really just aping a cute quirk cultivated by thousands of cute-quirk-cultivators before them in a giant, gross, boring feedback loop. Yes, clowns can be mildly creepy. But come on. Among the many things that are scarier than clowns: fire, earthquakes, a guy with a knife, riding the bus, colon cancer, falling down the stairs (it could happen at any time!), rapists, people who just kind of look a little rapey and are standing too close to you in line at 7-Eleven, Marlo from The Wire, influenza, and scissors.
PEOPLE WHO DON’T WATCH TV
Symbolically not doing something for the sake of not doing it is almost never evidence of sophistication. It is evidence of not knowing what you’re fucking talking about. Are we really still having this conversation? Television is a part of the cultural landscape at this point—a lot of it is good. A lot of it is bad, some of which is also good. You know, LIKE ALL THINGS MADE BY HUMANS? Obviously it is also a good idea to go outside once in a while. But the presence of a television in your home does not make that decision for you. You make it. Feel free to still go outside at any time.
PEOPLE WHO WILL JUST HAVE A BITE OF WHATEVER YOU’RE HAVING
Please, please, please just order your own lasagna.
PEOPLE WHO STUDIED ABROAD IN A THIRD-WORLD COUNTRY
Congratulations.
PEOPLE WHO ARE INTO WHIMSY
You can’t really be mad at people who send away for porcelain figurines of poodles wearing poodle skirts that they saw in the back of PARADE, or who enjoy movies in which impish children attempt to call grandma in heaven on the CB radio. That’d be like punching Helen Keller in the face. These people just want to be left alone with their extremely lifelike baby replicas—small false humans filled with pretend love that can be asphyxiated with attention and never poop, cry, or grow up to make fun of anyone’s stretch pants and doily collection. Forever-babies. (Note: Sometimes people who are into whimsy are not into things like gay marriage. In which case, fuck ’em.)
PEOPLE WHO ARE WHITE WHO CALL BLACK PEOPLE “BROTHAS” WHEN TALKING TO OTHER WHITE PEOPLE, AS IN, “A LOT OF MY FRIENDS ARE BROTHAS”
These embarrassing people have lots of black friends and are very comfortable around black people. They also aren’t weirded out about being at the gay bar because their ex-girlfriend was bisexual.
PEOPLE WHO ARE OLD
Notable old people include: Methuselah, George Burns, Andy Rooney, an elephant, Dick Van Dyke, Slade Gorton the senator, Father Time, Slade Gorton the Gorton’s fisherman, John McCain’s mom, the old lady who dropped it into the ocean at the end, Harrison Ford.
OLD PEOPLE WHO THINK PIGEONS ARE THEIR BEST FRIENDS
Listen, old people. Pigeons do not love you. Much like robots and the British, pigeons do not have the capacity to feel love. They only have the capacity to desire croutons. And when you spread infinity croutons
across the grass outside MY house, for the purpose of making pigeons love you (WHICH WILL NEVER HAPPEN), the only result is infinite feces. I now have to walk upon feces-encrusted streets through a feces-encrusted world. Because of you and your delusions of pigeon love. Stop it.
BABIES
The opposite of old people. They are like you and me, except smaller, more illiterate, and with less money.
PEOPLE WHO ARE SECRET HOOKERS
They’re your friends, but they’re hookers! Ssssh!
RECESSION HOOKERS
No judging. Sometimes these things happen. There but for the grace of writing a bunch of bullshit go I.
PEOPLE WHO ARE PRETTY AND SMART AND FUNNY AND NICE
You probably want to hate these people, but why bother? They are absolutely wonderful, and all we can do is deal with it and hope to be charming enough that they will someday mate with us so that our children can absorb some of their impossible magic.
PEOPLE WHO ARE HOT GREEK WAITERS
Once, my sister and I were in a restaurant in Greece, having a fight, and the hot waiter (all waiters in Greece are hot) took one look at our bleak, tear-puffed faces and said, “Ouzo power.” He brought us two little glasses of cold, cloudy ouzo, and the ouzo cured our fight. OUZO POWER.
PEOPLE WHO SMILE AT YOU ON THE STREET
It’s always nice when any noncreepy stranger smiles at you. There is not enough interstranger smiling going on these days. I also appreciate it when people working in customer service behave in a genuinely nice manner. Thank you. Please enjoy this large tip for your wonderful smile.
PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW HOW TO DRINK
Sometimes a person forgets to eat dinner, or sometimes they just didn’t have time or money, and then they end up at the bar and the only snacks available are tallboys. And yes, sure, sometimes they grab your beard and tell you, “You are drinking the most successful sausage,” even though that’s barely even English, and then they lose their keys and have to sleep on your floor, where they wake up utterly bewildered and have to walk all the way home across town and drink a Big Gulp of Sprite for breakfast on a Thursday. Be kind to these people. They mean well.
PEOPLE WHO ARE ONLY INTERESTING WHEN THEY’RE DRUNK
This one is a bummer, but it’s so much less depressing than its half brother, which is People Who Are Just Boring All the Time.
PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN SASQUATCH
What’s that? You couldn’t afford your bunion surgery because you spent all your money on Sasquatch detectors? And now your bunion hurts? Bummer. A few years ago, a friend of mine told me that he’d discovered the secret to finding Sasquatch (he’s a believer because once, in an Idaho forest, he “heard things” that he “couldn’t explain”) and called some cryptozoological society to announce his epiphany: “Just find out what it eats, and then go to where that is.” He and I, we are not friends anymore.
PEOPLE WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION BUT LOVE ANTIBIOTICS
Seriously? Either you believe in science or you don’t. If you want to say sentences to me like “God made the earth 29 years ago out of Billy Graham’s stool” or “Every time you take the morning-after pill, Satan has two orgasms,” then go ahead and stay away from Dr. Syringey O’Medicine, MD, from here on out. Because you know that pill that made your strep throat go away? Science invented that. For you. Hey, why don’t you just pray for God to take care of that root canal? I’ll tell you why: Because God didn’t go to dental school, because dental schools don’t admit people who DON’T EXIST.
WIZARDS
Assholes with beards who do magic. In modern times, wizards look just like normal people, because they’ve learned to wear tracksuits and tuxedos over their robes. This means that wizards could be anywhere. Can you trust the people you work with not to be wizards?
RUSSIANS
Citizens of Russia. The sworn enemies of wizards.
RUSSIAN WIZARDS
Don’t be ridiculous.
PEOPLE WHO LET THEIR CAT WALK ACROSS THEIR KITCHEN CUTTING BOARD, EVEN THOUGH THOSE ARE THE SAME FUCKING PAWS THAT HAVE BEEN TRAMPING AROUND THAT SHIT-FILLED CAT BOX AND I DON’T SEE A KITTY FOOT-WASHING STATION AROUND HERE, DO YOU?
Well? Do you? ANSWER THE QUESTION.
PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW HOW TO NAVIGATE A FOUR-WAY STOP OR AN UNCONTROLLED INTERSECTION
Can a lady get a wave, please? Just a courtesy wave. That’s all I ask. These people are under the impression that rules do not apply to them. They do not have to wait their turn because they are special. They are probably the worst people on this entire list, and that includes wizards.
ANIMALS THAT ARE REALLY PEOPLE WHO GOT TRANSFORMED BY A WITCH
These are people who got on the wrong side of a witch. Now they are turkeys and iguanas or some shit, and all they can do is cry (except not really, because emotional tears are a physiological phenomenon unique to humans and possibly camels). Don’t loan these people money, because they obviously have bad judgment.
PEOPLE WHO THINK “HIPSTERS” ARE A THING
You guys, “hipsters” are not a thing. Put it to bed. PUT IT TO BED.
PEOPLE WHO ARE JUST A DOWN-TO-EARTH GUY, WHO ENJOYS THE LITTLE THINGS IN LIFE LIKE GOING FOR WALKS, LIFTING WEIGHTS, OR JUST DOING WHATEVER (LOL), WHOSE FRIENDS WOULD PROBABLY DESCRIBE HIM AS HONEST, TRUTHFUL, LOYAL, AFFECTIONATE, COMPASSIONATE, AND ROMANCEFUL, AND IS LOOKING FOR A WOMAN WHO IS THAT RARE COMBINATION OF STUNNING ON THE OUTSIDE AND BEAUTIFUL ON THE IN SIDE, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY DOWN-TO-EARTH, ENJOYS THE LITTLE THINGS IN LIFE, LOVES CHILDREN, ANIMALS, HAS A PASSION, LAUGHTER. I ESPECIALLY LIKE ASIANS.
Oh shoot, I’m actually busy from now until the moment of my death.
PEOPLE WHO TRY TO PRETEND LIKE THEY ALREADY KNEW THE STORY ABOUT JIMMY STEWART SMUGGLING A YETI HAND OUT OF NEPAL IN HIS WIFE’S UNDERPANTS
I do not believe you, unless your name is Jimmy Stewart’s Wife’s Vagina. And I’m pretty sure Jimmy Stewart’s Wife’s Vagina doesn’t know how to read. So …
PEOPLE WHO SAY “WHOLE FOODS? MORE LIKE WHOLE PAYCHECK!”
Some people, when talking about the grocery store chain Whole Foods, like to say, “Whole Foods? More like Whole Paycheck!” And when those people say, “Whole Foods? More like Whole Paycheck!” I like to say, “Whole Foods? More like Whole Paycheck? More like Whole Foods more like Whole Paycheck more like Whole Still While I Murder You!!!” Because SERIOUSLY, JUST GO TO A DIFFERENT GROCERY STORE IF YOU’RE SO MAD ABOUT IT.
PEOPLE WHO JUST THREW UP IN THEIR MOUTH A LITTLE
No, you didn’t, liar. Get a new catchphrase. This one is deceased.
WOMEN
Women are people! Make a note of it! (See also What No One Else Will Tell You About Feminism.)
AMERICAN PEOPLE OF IRISH DESCENT
Look, Kevin, you’re from fucking Fresno, not County Cork, so unless you’re about to grant me three wishes or whatever, JUST
SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.
PEOPLE WHO ARE BILL PAXTON
I really enjoyed your work in Twister.
PEOPLE WHO MISS THE POINT
(See also: People Who Choose to Correct You About the Definition of “Hobo,” People Who Claim to Be Afraid of Clowns, People Who Don’t Watch TV, People Who Will Just Have a Bite of Whatever You’re Having, Old People Who Think Pigeons Are Their Best Friends, People Who Don’t Believe in Evolution but Love Antibiotics, People Who Are Bill Paxton, and Babies.)
PEOPLE WHO DON’T MISS THE POINT
I love you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge our boss and spirit animal, Tim Keck. Without him, The Stranger would not exist and neither would this book. All of the contributors—Grant Brissey, Paul Constant, Goldy, Jen Graves, Jonathan Golob, Eric Grandy, Anthony Hecht, Brendan Kiley, Madeline Macomber, Cienna Madrid, Charles Mudede, David Schmader, Stuart Smithers, and Jesse Vernon—are made out of solid gold. So are Stranger staffers Gillian Anderson, Dominic Holden, Anna Minard, Kelly O, Eli Sanders, Dave Segal, and Megan Seling. Hearts! Li
kewise: Bob Fikso and Laurie Saito were indispensably helpful. Flowers! Also, we heap thanks upon Corianton Hale, who made this book so fucking beautiful, and Whitney Ricketts, Gary Luke, and Sarah Plein, who ushered it out into the world. Kittens! Oh, and especially: Thanks, Mom and Dad. Sorry about all the bad words.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
LINDY WEST writes about movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and more. You may have witnessed her single-handedly putting an end to the Sex and the City movie series. Lindy’s work also appears in GQ, New York magazine, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the New York Daily News, Deadspin, and other places. She is a staff writer for Jezebel.com.
