Stinky Craig

I can’t stand the guy who works as valet at my restaurant. Let’s call him Craig, ’cause let’s face it, Craig is a dick name. When I first met Craig I was brand new and unaware of the magnitude of this guy’s dorkiness. He said he needed a ride–he doesn’t have a car–and that he only lived 2 blocks away. [What kind of valet doesn’t have a car? Not the kind I want driving mine.] I told him I’d be happy to drop him off since I was clocking out anyway. Thanks so much, he said, it’ll only take two minutes.

So, we trudged up the hill to my car and the whole time I’m resisting the urge to throw him my keys, and be all, “Run! It’s the green one!!” But I figured he’d been getting bossed around and running all night so we both walked. Once in my car he realized that he forgot to do any sort of closing duties in order to leave. It was about this time that Craig’s dipshitedness began to materialize before my eyes. He didn’t take his box in or sign the book. He was so sorry, he assured me, and ran in to take care of business. A full five minutes later he returned, and that was when I noticed his seriously foul body odor begin to cloud up my car. He refused to sit in silence as we drove, instead making the most inane of small talk before asking if I could drive him through at Wendy’s. He hadn’t eaten in 13 hours and he was starving. How do you deny a guy with no car and an empty belly fast food? Begrudgingly, that’s how. The line at the drive-thru crept along so slowly that it took 5-6 more minutes to get to the menu to give the order. Which was ENORMOUS. Stinky Craig ordered two double cheeseburgers, a “biggie” french fry and some other fried chicken strip thingy. And he only told me what he wanted and made me order it. Meanwhile, my lasagna in a box is growing cold in the floorboard of my car.

Then, without asking, he began eating his food in my car. Whatever, I was going to have him out of there in a few seconds anyway. But the smell of onions and his armpits made me want to hurk–a smell to this day I can fully remember. I finally dropped him off and made my way back to the expressway when I noticed it had been half an hour since I clocked out at work. So, from then on I sorta didn’t like Stinky Craig.

Since then he has continually made my life a little bit of hell. First of all, I hate the way he saunters. He puffs out his chest and puts a thumb into the waistband of his khakis and walks around like a cowboy fresh off a horse. It’s so repugnant. Sometimes I’ll look outside and catch him doing calf raises or squats. Not discreet calf raises, no. He’s got one hand on a street sign, the other on someone’s Jetta and he’s all bent over doing full-on, gym-style calf raises. No wonder Craig is stinky.

And he’s always telling me what he is doing after work. “I still have thirteen sets of keys and I told a group of girls I’d meet them at 11.” Group of girls. It will be one girl, if any, once they get a whiff of Stinky Craig. Oh, and my managers are constantly telling him not to smoke or talk on his cell phone while on duty. Sometimes I look out and Craig is on the phone, smoking, all the while idly scratching himself.

And he always wants to talk. Always. It’s slow, he gets bored, and sometimes so do I. But Craig takes that as a sign that I want to hear how many pages of the newest John Grisham or Stephen King he’s read while waiting to park cars. I will be busily working a crossword when I hear, “I read 250 pages just now.” And that is all. Just the declaration that he can read and has done so in a quick-like fashion. I can barely manage that fake, annoyed smile one give when trying very hard to express one doesn’t give a shit.

Oh my God, and he never has a pen. Seriously, every day. And every day he tries to profer some lame-ass excuse. “Do you have a pen, I left mine at home today?,” he asks EACH AND EVERY CONSECUTIVE SHIFT. “I bring it at dinner, but can’t remember it for lunch.” Or some other empty bullshit excuse. I’ve just begun to hold out the little box of crayons when he first walks in the door. That way, I hope, there will be no exchange of actual words. Instead he says, “Why do you keep a box of crayons under the host stand?”

“We used to keep them for kids to, ya know, color with, but lately it is only used for dumbshit valets who never, ever manage to bring a pen,” I said. Actually, no I didn’t. But the next time Stinky Craig has the gumption to ask me for a writing utensil I just may punch him in the throat. Or the dick.