by Joan Rivers
Which brings up the next thing: No hugging or touching. I hate widows, especially the sloppy kind. We all liked Bernie, but I don’t want mucus on my mink.
I hate people who bring flowers when the family has requested either no flowers or “in lieu of…” The most appropriate gift is a donation to the person’s favorite charity, or their alma mater, or the Bunny Ranch if that’s where he spent most of his free time.
And finally, it is always good manners to send a note or card offering condolences. Amy Vanderbilt sent out 237 individual suicide notes. All in calligraphy. I’ll say it again: a lady till the end.
EXCUSES
My favorite excuses to cover gaffes, mistakes or hideous faux pas:
I’m a widow.
The more recent, the better. Here’s how it goes…
You: “I’m sorry I sat on your priceless Ming vase. I’m a widow.”
Host: “Oh, how terrible, when did your husband die?”
You: (pause, look at watch) “Three o’clock.”
Host: “And you’re here?”
You: “One has to push on; I couldn’t miss your party.”
I lost a child.
Is there anything worse than losing a child? Yes, losing two or three. Unless of course you’re the Octomom, in which case that would just be considered thinning the herd. This is an excuse you can only use under the direst of circumstances, i.e., you gave military secrets to an enemy or threw up on Oprah, or wore orange to a black-and-white ball.
I survived 9/11.
This is the perfect excuse for everyone. “I’m sorry I sideswiped your Mercedes. I survived 9/11.” You don’t have to have been in the Towers, or even known anyone in the Towers. You don’t have to be a New Yorker or even an American. You could simply be someone who was alive that day and the excuse still holds water: The trauma of the day is still so intense that no one questions you.
The Holocaust.
9/11 with striped pajamas. “I lost my entire family at Auschwitz.” You don’t have to add, “We got separated in the gift shop.”
I was raped when I was in college.
Other than me, what kind of person is going to snoop to verify your claim? Medical and academic records are private. This excuse really only works if you graduated during the last ten years. After fifty, no one wants to think of you in any sexual situation whatsoever, and will not be sympathetic to you. “Raped? By whom, the Comanches?”
My father beat my mother.
Is there anything more traumatic than watching your father beat your mother? Yes… watching your mother beat your father. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you David Gest and Liza Minnelli. When Gest filed for divorce he claimed Liza used to beat him up. How is that possible? Liza Minnelli doesn’t have the strength to beat an egg or a drug habit, yet she was able to kick his ass up and down Christopher Street??? Please.
I just found out my brother is my father.
This excuse is best used in the Deep South, Utah or Mackenzie Phillips’s house.
I was forced into being a sex slave.
You’re only a slave if you didn’t get a back-end distribution deal.
PTSD.
Not unlike the 9/11 excuse-mongers, you don’t have to have been in an actual war to claim post-traumatic stress disorder. Simply having seen Marlon Brando in a loincloth in the jungle in Apocalypse Now is more than enough of a shock to keep this tidy little excuse in your back pocket.
I sometimes hear voices.
This implies the voices just might come back, and they might come back now, while you are shaming me and making me feel bad about myself because I didn’t send a thank-you note for your stupid e-card. No social miscue is worth that kind of risk. (What I don’t add is that although usually when people hear “voices,” those voices tell them to kill passersby or to go on shooting sprees in Southern malls and fast-food restaurants, my voices say, Hurry over to Bergdorf’s for their amazing mid-winter fur sale.)
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*Business friend: Someone you wouldn’t spit on if he were not in a position to help you make lots of money.
*Exactly what is a “companion animal”? A goat you’ve been fucking for ten years but refuse to marry for tax purposes?
*A tip to dieters: Be aware of the caloric intake involved here. According to the New York Times, one teaspoon of sperm contains 148 calories, or if you’re in Weight Watchers, two points.
EAT ME!
If God wanted me to cook, my hands would be made of aluminum.
I live in New York City where there are probably five million apartments and I believe only eleven of them actually have kitchens. New Yorkers don’t cook. We order in, or we go out. The only things New Yorkers put in the oven are their heads.
I consider cooking to be one of the true wonders of the world, like the great pyramids of Giza or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the unexplained success of Carrot Top. I’ve never been much of a cook; in fact when Melissa was born I had one of my neighbors breast-feed her. I told her to think of it as “ordering in.”
But I have eaten in restaurants and homes all over the world, from Buckingham Palace to White Castle, and whether it’s a five-star or a drive-thru, I can always find something to complain about.
Question: What’s the most important thing for a restaurant?
Answer: Location, location, location.
Most major cities have ethnic neighborhoods and ethnic restaurants. In Los Angeles, you can go to Koreatown; in Detroit, get in your car and go to Greektown; in Miami, it’s Little Havana; in San Francisco, it’s Chinatown; in New York, it’s Little Italy. You know what I hate? There is not one city or town where you can just hop in your car and say to the kids, “Let’s go to Jewville; we’ll get some derma and some heartburn.”
I hate maître d’s. They’re just ushers with control issues. And the first thing you see when you walk into a restaurant, at least in a restaurant that’s good enough that the Heimlich maneuver instructions aren’t taped to the front door, is the maître d’. You show up at some fancy restaurant at four o’clock in the afternoon on a hot Tuesday in August; the place is so empty (there’s more activity in Jessica Simpson’s head), the maître d’s reservation book is so white he’s getting snow-blind. And yet he says, “Do you have reservations?” No, do you think you could squeeze us in before that horrible 4:05 rush? And then, after he spends twenty minutes looking through his empty list, you slip him a sawbuck and he gets all friendly and sweet. I hate that.
He says in this very condescending tone, “How are we, tonight?” I always want to say, “We’re a little gassy. Come close and take a sniff. How are you?”
Fortunately, through the years I’ve learned there are ways to get back at snotty maître d’s. First, after they seat you, complain about the draft and make them move you to a warmer spot. Then, a half hour later, tell them it’s a little stuffy and ask to be moved back to the original table. Second, if the kitchen closes at eleven o’clock put in a huge order at ten fifty-eight. And third, linger. When you see the maître d’ wants to close down the restaurant and go home, dawdle over your dessert. Drag it out as long as you can. Pretend you’re having a romantic moment with your dining partner, even if your dining partner is your brother. And if you really do have to leave, send a note and a fifty dollar bill to another table and ask that couple to chew slower than Chris Christie jogs; make that motherfucker work late.
I hate politically correct jerks who whine that the words waiter and waitress are pejoratives. The PC storm troopers insist that waiters and waitresses now be called “servers.” According to them it’s because they’re “serving.” I say, “Fuck them.” I’m waiting—for my food.
I don’t think waiters and waitresses really care what you call them as long as you tip well. If I was a waitress and I knew there was twenty-five percent coming at the end of the meal, you could call me “Joan Rivers, dog-fucking terrorist child molester” and I’d say, “Thank you, come again!”
I also hate
waiters who introduce themselves. “Hi, I’m Steven. I’ll be your server tonight.” “Hi, Steven, I’m Joan, and I don’t give a shit! Just bring me my Caesar salad and shut up.”
The waiter’s job is to bring me food from the kitchen; my job is to eat it (or at least push it around the plate and pretend to eat it, like all of those anorexics in Hollywood do). That’s going to be the extent of our relationship. We’re not going to become BFFs or have pajama parties or spend a crazy weekend on Mykonos together.
But if we were going to be pals, then I’d need a lot more information than just a name. “My name is John” simply doesn’t cut it. John who? John Foster Dulles? John Philip Sousa? John Wayne Gacy? I vet my friends. I’m like a dog sniffing a hydrant; I know everything about them and their parents and their parents’ parents. So if Johnny in the apron wants to be friends, I’ll need to know a couple of things, like where he’s from, did he go to college, did he go to prison, does he have a girlfriend, does he have money, does he have a will, am I in it?
I hate it when the waiter comes to the table and asks, “Would you like to see a menu?” What’s the correct response to that question: “No. Let me guess what you have in the refrigerator.” Or “No, I’m not worthy. I’ll just eat the crumbs off of the lap of the old lady at table seven.”
I hate it when the waiter reads the daily specials like he’s Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice. (And by the by, Sophie made a terrible choice. She should have given the Nazis both of those overacting kids.) The waiter has all the daily specials memorized and he recites them with vigor and gusto and you have no idea what he’s talking about and, worse, he has no idea what he’s talking about. “Today’s entrée special is a bouquetière of garden vegetables.” You grew up with a prison mom; she didn’t serve her parole officer a bouquetière, she blew him for a pair of nylons. The other inmates weren’t banging their cups and chanting, “We want a bouquetière! We want a bouquetière!”
And don’t come to my table and ask me if I’d like a “festival of roughage.” It’s a bowl of lettuce and I’m going to shit for a month. Now get away from me and go back in the kitchen.
I hate diners who hound the waiter with ridiculous questions like, “If your mother was eating here tonight, then what would you serve her?” Who knows what his relationship with his mother is like? What if he doesn’t like his mother? The last meal Lizzie Borden served her mother was Jell-O and ground gravel. So it’s really just a stupid question.
I hate when customers say, “Is that gluten-free? It has to be gluten-free or my throat closes.” I was on a plane once and the guy next to me almost died—his throat closed and they had to lay him down in the aisle for the entire flight. I loved it: Finally I had extra leg room. In coach! Since then, every time I travel I carry a tiny bottle of gluten in my purse, just in case I want to stretch out a little.
When I grew up nobody was “gluten-free.” Nobody even knew what gluten was. Now everyone’s gluten-free, afraid to eat wheat. What a bunch of pussies. Here’s an idea: Stay home and have a can of Nine Lives. Stop bothering everybody.
I hate when diners ask, “How is that prepared?” Like the waitresses showed up an hour early to watch the chef cook. Just once I’d like to hear her say, “Well, once the rats are done crapping on it, the chef kicks it across the floor and then I pick it up and reheat it under my armpits.”
Equally as annoying is when they ask for substitutions: “Can you replace the mushrooms with olives and replace the bread with fruit and replace the spinach with rice?” I’d love the waiter to say, “How about if I replace your teeth with my fist? Bon appétit!” And…
I hate it when people say “bon appétit” in inappropriate places—which would be any place other than France. If your salad comes in a plastic container or you’re mixing your own coffee or if your entrée is sold by the bucket, don’t wink and say, “Bon appétit.” Just let me leave quietly, under cover of the night.
I hate men who order wine and like to let it “breathe.” You know those types: They put the “f” in pretentious? Every time I see one of them sniff the cork, I have an incredible urge to run over to his table and shove it up his nose.
The asshole sniffs the cork, swirls the wine around his mouth, gargles and then says, “It’s bold but not so brash as to overplay the occasion. Do you taste the raspberries? Do you find this wine to have a fascinating woodiness?” I always say, “Yes, I do; just like the inside of a mahogany casket.” And then I’d like to water board him with his Chablis.
I hate tipping. After every meal there is the moment when the waiter brings the check to the table. It’s for nine dollars and forty-seven cents, you put down a hundred dollar bill and he says, “Would you like some change?”
“Hmm… let’s see. The bill is nine dollars and forty-seven cents and I gave you a hundred dollar bill.… You know what, I don’t need any change. I always tip eight thousand percent. And if the ninety-dollar tip isn’t enough for you, here are my keys—take the car, let yourself into the house. It’s yours. No, really, the service was that good. And on your way up the stairs feel free to fuck my sister. She’s in the guest room!”
I hate paying cash. I always tip more on a credit card than I do if I’m paying in cash because somehow it feels like I’m spending Visa’s money, not my own. And technically, I’m right because, according to federal law, if you die with a balance on your credit card your family is not obligated to pay it off. Which means that if I have a massive stroke and drop dead right after eating, the last meal was on the house. So I say, “Charge it!” whenever I’m feeling poorly.
I hate it that nowadays everyone expects a tip. In this country, waiters make about a dollar fifty-three an hour, hardly a livable wage, even if you live in Iowa. (I hate it when people come up to me say, “You know, Joan, for what you pay for an apartment in Manhattan, you could have a twelve-bedroom house in Iowa!” That’s right, I could. But I’d be in Iowa.)
Tipping isn’t an issue in European countries and Australia because waitstaffs are unionized and they’re paid decent salaries. They’re not working for tips. Which means the service really sucks. I hate that.
But suddenly, everyone expects to be given a gratuity. In the old days delivery boys, hairdressers and the occasional uterus were tipped. Now, everyone expects a reward for “exceptional service.” All across America, there are tip jars everywhere. Tip jars are popping up more than Anthony Weiner at a photo shoot.
There are even tip jars on the counters at Baskin-Robbins ice cream stores. Why? There’s no kitchen, no table service. It’s a scooper, rum raisin and a cone. How exceptional could the service be? Did Billy with the acne make my scoop of vanilla ice cream look like a soft sculpture of Barack Obama? Did he sing the entire score of Kiss Me, Kate while putting sprinkles on my cookie? Why should I tip him when he didn’t do anything?
I blame the “tipping for no reason syndrome” on Starbucks, who make their customers do all the work. When I go to Starbucks, I’m putting in my own sugar, my own cream, my own straw… I might as well go to Columbia with Juan Valdez and get on a donkey and pick the beans. So from here on in, no tips for the “baristas.” Barista by the way, is an Italian word that means “fucking lazy.”
Am I supposed to start tipping everybody, like the usher at the movie theater? How about the guy on the highway crew who waves orange flags to divert traffic? Or my plastic surgeon? Should I leave a twenty on the dresser if he makes my nipples wink?
I hate it when the tables in restaurants are too close together. The only person who likes having strangers on top of him is George Michael in a public toilet.
I don’t want other people so close to my table that I can hear them chew, burp and fart. If I want to hear those things, I’ll dine alone.
I hate “family restaurants.” Next to cheap perfume and vaginal warts it’s my least favorite thing. The first time I saw an ad for a “family restaurant” I thought I’d give it a try. Why not, I’m an adventurer, just like Magellan. I thoug
ht wrong. The ad said the experience would be “Just like eatin’ at home.” Sure enough, I sat down and the waitress came over and said, “Put your napkin in your lap, sit up straight, it’s a fork, not a shovel, you’re fat, you’re ugly and your father doesn’t touch me anymore.”
Then there’s “family seating,” which is a complete social aberration. Family seating means long picnic tables with dozens of total strangers sitting next to one another chewing. Who does this? Who needs this kind of aggravation? I don’t like to have dinner with people I know, let alone a group of strangers that just drove in from Nebraska. Even the Donner Party knew better than to do family seating; they got to the pass, they split up the corpses and then went and ate separately. And you know what? It was a perfectly nice night on the mountain. And no one had to hear strangers’ kids complaining, “Knees, again?”
Tasting menus are bullshit. A lot of fancy-schmancy restaurants offer “tasting menus.” A tasting menu is when the chef sends out tiny little dollops of his favorite courses for you to taste and charges you three hundred dollars, which is about fifty bucks a dollop. Those dollops, combined, might fill a finger bowl and that’s only if you’re deformed and have very small, childlike fingers. The biggest problem, other than the cost, is that when you finish the tasting menu you have to go to another restaurant and order a real meal off of their eating menu.
