Use your big words!

Dear America,

Use your big words like a big boy. I know you can do it!

Love Always

Brian

It has come to my attention that there is a lot of pointing going on. I am sure this has happened a lot in the past and will always be a problem that will plague man kind, but I have noticed it a lot more lately. I do not pretend to be a pointless person. I have on my fair share of days pointed. My favorite is the point and laugh, which no one has mastered like my friend Crystal. This pointing I am talking of is when people want something and they point at it. Let's say that someone has a hankerin for a donut. The may walk up to the counter and point and say "I want that one." So I turn and look and what do I see? That's right folks I see a case that has over twenty verities of donuts in it. So a point and that one, does not do much for me.

Now I know what you are going to say. These people do not make the donuts. They do not spend the time that I do lovingly making sure that these tasty treats come into existence. You see I nurture these little donuts so that they can become that special afternoon or morning treat for someone. So yes I can look at a donut on a wall o donuts and know which one is which. So I can understand why it can be a bit confusing. But you see, we have come up with a wonderful way for you to tell what donut is what. They have tags under them. So if you want a Barbarian Cream, all you have to do is look at the tag and say the name that is under it. It's not that hard.

It is not out of the ordinary for someone to come in and point and say I want that one. So then I ask them, "Which one did you want?" and they usually reply "The Chocolate one." Well that helps a lot. You see on the wall o donuts you have, chocolate glazed, double chocolate glazed, chocolate frosted, chocolate frosted cake, boston cream which has chocolate on top, and chocolate kreme, which is filled with chocolate icing. So when you just say, "chocolate" it really does not help.

So the next step in our dance of ineptitude, is for me to get the donut. Invariably what will happen is I will grab the wrong one. So the customer then says, not that one, that one. This makes it all so much clearer. I mean you didn't want that one you wanted that one. The clouds have parted and I now know what it must have been like to be one of the 12 deciples when the tongues of fire descended from heaven and made it possible to understand all languages. Everything is clear.

Then the customer will do the final step and they will point and shake their finger. I am instantly transported back to the night that my godson Grady wanted his Pah (pacifier) and we would not give it to him unless he said that he wanted it. He continued to point and scream, but we would not give it to him. He had to say Pah as we knew that he could. Sometimes I just wish I could treat the customer like a 2 year old.

"Mr. Williams, you cannot have the Boston Cream donut until you ask for it properly. Don't you shake your finger at me young man. You are not too old for me to put over my knee. Use your words, I know you can!."

This is how I feel when customers order. It is not hard to look at a sign and read it. Why must they point or order in a way that makes it possible to understand them. Why do customers think I will understand them when they order the donut that has the stuff in the middle and the stuff on top? That is about ten of the donuts that we serve. Why can't you just know what the donut is and order it? It just baffles me.

My hope is that someday someone will point at a donut and their finger will fall off.

Tipping the Balance

Dear America,

If you are going to order food and have it either brought to your table, or your house, then you should tip. It is the right thing to do. If you cannot tip, then do not order!

Love Always,
Brian

Tonight my father is out of town and my little sister is working late. So I decided that I would do something that I often did while living in my own home. I ordered take out. Having gotten up at 3am this morning to make the donuts, and working until about three this afternoon, I decided that after my nap I would have food delivered. Before I ordered my food I took out my check book and looked at ecxactly how much money I had in my account. It was not that I feared that I would bounce a check, (though this is a reality I have to live with these days as my paycheck is smaller and this makes it harder to stay within the limits of my budget) but it was to see just how much I was comfortable tipping the delivery driver.

Many of you out there may think... "Why is he doing this? What is the big deal about a tip. Just give a couple dollars and be done with it."

To this I answer, SHAME ON YOU! Having once been a delivery driver for a very nice Pizza Company, I have seen it all. Let me tell you, when a man opens the door and his erect penis is pointing out of his pajama bottoms, you have earned that two dollar tip! When you find a note on the door that says... "Dear Pizza Man, We are having Sex. Do not ring the door bell. Money is under the mat. Tip included. Please leave Pizza on door step. Thank you." You deserve the dollar that has been left to you. It is also hard to believe how people order food and then have sex before the delivery person arrives. I cannot tell you how many nights I have stood on a door step and knocked, called, rang the door bell, and then heard the tell tale sounds of "Oh so Sweet Lovin" going on. That my friends is why I carried a magazine in my back pocket. I would settle in on the door step and read for a bit. It was not always that long before someone in that apartment or house was a little bit happier and a little bit hungrier. So once the high sign was given (and you know what I am talking about ladies, or maybe you don't, hope you do though) I would ring the door bell and then smile when the guy answered the door. Sometimes this got me a bigger tip. Some would ask me what the magazine was for,and of course I would say

" Just waiting for you to finish up."
Some would smile, some would laugh, others would frown, but it was always worth it.

You see delivery drivers and waiters/waitresses have to deal with a lot. Contrary to popular beliefe, they do not only have one delivery or one table. So when you deliver to a frat party and you are taken into the house and shoved into a room where two people are having sex, are you really suprised that you delivery man is going to call you a stupid, festering bitch monkey! (yes this did happen to me, and yes those were my words. I also recived a very large tip that night as i threatend to call the house mother and tell her what happened to me)

I do not understand why it is funny to people to mess with thier delivery drivers, or why they think that they do not need to tip them. I have seen family members who tip 30 -40 percent to a server only tip the delivery guy a dollor or two. Why does he deserve less than a waiter. In all likelyhood, he has answered the phone, taken your order, made your pizza, and driven to your house. So are you honestly suprised that he tells you to get bent, when you look at him and tell him that he must give you a dollar because he does not carry change and you want your change, which is a dime? Are you suprised that when you give him a fake address and he cant find your street after 45 min of driving, that he is going to give you the finger and tell you to F%*@ yourself five ways from Sunday, when you call him and give him the real address. (seriously, Streets do not just magically change, and if they some how do, people usually know thier addresses.) So I don't care if you are black, white, green or yellow. If you are gay, straight, bi or a tranny. If you are handicapped or not. You will treat a delivery person with respect because they are people too. (and you are lucky I am not your delivery man, cause the last guy in a wheel chair who refused to pay me the correct amount of money got my finger in the air, and his pizza on the ground.)

I do have to say thank you woman who chased her boyfriend from the house with her high heel and made him give me a twenty dollar tip. (he had given me a wad of money and jerked the pizza out of my hand. He then slammed the door in my face, and I found that he had stiffed me five dollars.) She beat the crap out of him. Also thank you to the guy who gave me a fifty dollar tip becuase I brought back change for a hundred. Some people are cool. What some people do not understand is that delivering or waiting on tables is hard. It is not our fault that someone did not put the right toppings on your pizza. It is not our fault that the cook did not make your order right, or forgot to make it. We do what we can, but when you have 5 tabels all with 5- 10 people who all want one thing after another, but wait for you to come back from getting that fork, or that napkin, or the breadsticks, it might take some time. So why punish the waiter. (also when you stiff the delivery driver or you give him the wrong amount of money, he pays for that pizza out of his tips. So you may think that you are screwing with corporate america, but you are really hurting the small guy.)

What if I had a son who was in high school. Lets say that he had to write a paper on Sherman's march through Atlanta. The teacher has taught my son what he needs to know. She has helped him after school, she has given him books to read and done everything possible to make sure that he gets a good grade. He gets his paper back and gets a C. Now what if I walked into her classroom and told her that she had to give me twenty bucks, or that I was going to have the school dock twenty dollars from her paycheck. You would think me crazy! Well let me tell you something America, this is what you do on a day to day basis. So just tip the waiter or delivery driver. If you go to starbucks everyday and the barista behind the counter knows your name, birthday and what grade your daughter is in, drop a freakin dollar in the tip jar. That barista helps about a thousand people a week ( if you do not believe me, my slowest store pushed 3,000 people a week through the doors on a slow week). So it is pretty amazing that they know your name, drink, personal information and that your drink is ready before you have finished paying!

Some of you may say that you do not want to tip. Well then i have a solution for you. It is easy and simple. GET YOUR FAT ASS OF THE COUCH AND COOK YOUR OWN DINNER, OR PICK IT UP YOURSELF! ( and for all that is wonferful and pure, wait untill after you pleasure your self to order your pizza!)

Kids ordering. donuts and the Breakfast club!

Dear America,

It is not cute when you let your kids order in a store. In fact it can be a little annoying!

Love Always,

Brian

There is a new trend sweeping the nation! Parents are letting their kids order when they go to a restaurant. Now I am not talking about a ten year old, or even an eight year old, hell I am not even talking about a six year old, I am talking of kids that range from the age of one to four. Five is a kind of no man's land, a veritable toss up. Kind of a Almond Joy/ Mounds kind of thing, Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. By that I mean that sometimes the kids will order, and sometimes they will not.

As I was standing behind the counter the other day, trying to resist the urge to grab the donuts and hurl them at people, I had a customer walk up and order. The mother ordered, the father ordered and the teenage son all ordered. Then it was little Sally's turn. Sally is three. She is cute. She has the pig tails with the satin ribbon that is pink. She is so tinny you could just put her in your pocket and eat her up. She wears all pink with little sandals that sparkle like my hopes in the sun. She will either grow up to be a very cheery cheerleader, or she will be the goth girl that sits in the back of class and eats her hair. She will be Molly Ringwald or Allie Sheedy. ( If you do not get this reference to the Breakfast Club then you must stop what you are doing, go out and rent this movie and watch it. if you do not you may never read this blog again!)

So our young lady, our future Molly or Allie, is being held by her mother and mother says...

Mother: "Sally tell the nice man what you want."

Now let us be clear about something. I am a nice person. I do what I can to be the person that God and my parents raised me to be. Sally does not know this. To Sally the nice man is Santa or the guy a Publix that gives her a free cookie every time she comes in. I could easily be this man if I had a relationship with Sally. If we saw eachother on a daily basis then I would be the nice man. To my customers like Susan or Wilma that come in everyday I am the nice man that makes their coffee and smiles as I had it to them I spend thirty to fourty seconds of the day smiling for them and asking them how they are or telling them how pretty they are. So to them I am the nice man. To Sally I am the slightly over weight man in a very large blue shirt that sweats a little and is wearing a hat with a headset on it. I am not the nice man. I do not have the keys to the kingdom, the power is not mine, I may not collect 200 dollars I may not pass go. I am sure that Sally wants to scream and run away..... I know that sometimes I do.

So what does Sally do after mommy tells her to order from the nice man? That's right she does what any future Molly or Allie would do, she buries her head in her mothers shoulder and looks away. This does not stop Mommy from repeating that Sally needs to order from the nice man. After about a min of not ordering from the nice man Mommy trots out her next plan.

Mother: "Sally would you like the pink donut with sprinkles?"

We have not reached the point in our program where Mother is going to list all of the donuts. This is usually where we can tell who Sally will become. You see Mother will start with all of the girly pretty donuts. We will look at the pinks and the whites, the chocolate frosted with sprikels, or the sugar raised because they sparkle. If little Sally picks one of these then she will be a Molly. It will be all sunshine and happiness. She will lead others in cheers, she will be bubbly and happy and most likely date a guy names Biff. Ohhh but if she orders outside the pretty pretty pink princess donuts it is all over. If she orders a chocolate frosted we still have a chance of Molly, after all women love chocolate. If she orders a maple or an old fashioned then we have an Allie. Sally will sit in the back of class and eat her hair. She will shy away from everyone and one day in detention Molly will take Sally and take her from Allie to Molly.

But I digress. What I am really getting at is that we need to get back to the good old days. When I was but a wee lad, my father did not give me a choice. Daddy would order the donuts, and we would eat them and be grateful. You see, once upon a time I dared to say that I did not want a glazed donut. I wanted a lemon filled ( I was always a strange kid) and what was my father's response? No donuts for Brian! Now some of you might think that this is harsh, but I will tell you something. It made me realize that there are consequences in life. That you have to make a choice, and mommy will not always be there to point out all of the pretty pretty princess donuts. I had to learn to thing for myself. Also there was never a nice man in a blue shirt wearing a hat with headphones and sweating just a little, that wanted to throw donuts at me. I was also not a Molly or an Allie. I was not Michael Anthony Hall (Brian) or Emilo Esteves, or Judd Nelson. No I was me. I was me because my parents taught me that sometimes you have to make up your own mind, but more importantly, they taught me that sometimes you just have to work with the donut that you are handed.