Entries Tagged 'Lists' ↓

Assorted things you might hear from the kitchen staff where I work:

• "Order’s up! Move your ass!" -the stoned one
• "Okay, Mommy." -the salad guy
• "I’m not gay, I’m an actress!" -the grill guy
• "BritStone, you’re looking beautiful today." -the chef
• "Doo Doo on the Walls" -it’s a song
• "I’ve got a see server." -various waitstaff
• "We need hot bread in yesterday." -the food runner
• "Daniel, where are you from?" "Tuskegee." -he is from St. Thomas
• "All servers out of the kitchen!" -the hungover sous chef
• "I believe that I might be part wolf." -he’s not gay, he’s an actress
• any number of renditions of popular songs with the lyrics changed to suggest that entire cook crew are repressed homosexuals

• Leave the house with a freshly scrubbed face.  Undereye concealer (at least!) is now an absolute must.
• The splits.  It’s too bad really, because nothing was better than doing the splits at a party or something.  Everyone laughs.
• Eat a shitty, high-fat meal and not feel gross and sleepy the rest of the day.
• Stay up past 2 a.m.  I used to leave to go out at 2 a.m. less than two years ago.
• Sleep through the night without getting up to pee.
• Write poetry.
• Work several shifts in a row and not feel like I’ve been badly battered.
• Make it through a whole day without coffee.
• Sing the very high soprano parts.
• Ride a bike without feeling a little bit scared the whole time.
• One-handed cartwheels
• See a baby and not lose my shit, with all the cooing and carrying on.
• Have more than 2-3 drinks without getting absolutely smashed.  Or sleepy.
• Fit into a size 6 jeans.
• Shave my legs more than once a week,
• Take Tori Amos seriously.

A sampling of customer responses to the greeting, "Hi.  How are you?":

• "Diet Coke with extra lime."
• "There will be four of us" (usually said while pointing at the empty chairs and menus)
• "What is your soup of the day?"
• "Can we sit over there by the window, we feel this is a lesser table."
• "Do ya’ll have sweet tea?"
• "It’s about time."
• "Give us a minute."
• "What are your merlots by the glass?"
• "Does it seem cold in here to you?"
• "Where is the bathroom?"
• "Is the salmon wild or farm raised?"
• "We have to be at a movie in 45 minutes."
• "What is your name?"
• "We are ready to order."

• Rush
• Barenaked Ladies
• Mr. Bungle
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• Yes
• Korn (or any variation thereof)
• Matchbox 20
• Counting Crows (excluding their first album)
• Collective Soul
• Bright Eyes
• Liz Phair (the difference is I always have)
• Guns N Roses (see above)
• Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Green Day

Goodliest Cereals In All The Land

• Cinnamon Life
• Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats
• Cap’n Crunch, Peanut Butter
• Cap’n Crunch, Berries
• Cocoa Pebbles
• Oh’s!
• Lucky Charms
• Wheaties
• Apple Jacks
• Count Chocula
• Trix
• Honeycomb

Cereals I Would Politely Decline [Then I Would Cross You Off My People Who Like Cool Cereal List]

• Anything with Raisins
• Golden Grahams
• French Toast Crunch
• Fiber One
• Cinnamon Toast Crunch
• Special K Red Berries (Those berries taste like wet styrofoam.)
• Fruit Harvest Apple Cinnamon
• Oreo O’s
• Grape Nuts (Mmmm, milk over gravel.)

• Brittneylynn  (Just one word.  My dad calls me this.  It’s so cute.  He goes, "Brittneylynn, now listen here."  Or "Brittneylynn, why aren’t you eating meat?"  He does it so often I wonder if he calls me that to my sister as well.)
• Twizzler  (My friend Travis called me this.  One day at work I was in the kitchen where we both worked completely loaded down with plates in both arms.  It is about that time that Travis offered me some of his licorice.  I chose to have some even though I don’t really like licorice, but I really want to, ya know?  So I just keep eating it then spitting it out.  It’s wasteful, really.  Anyway I opened my gullet like a hungry fish since I couldn’t take the licorice fromhim by hand.  Seeing me in a compromising position led Travis to decide to smack me about the lips and face with the flacid piece of licorice a la some freaky porn movie starring grandpas.  Henceforth I was known as Twizzler.)
• Twiz  (It evolved.  This is what he calls me currently.)
• Booty  (This did tragic things to an adolescent’s self esteem.)
• Skinny Innis  (My dad’s side of the family–a robust set at best–called me this.  I PROVED THEM WRONG!)
• Burt ze Bra  (I’m not really sure about this one.  My friend Carrie was weird.)
• Skeeter  (This was my code name from when I was in the DYCG club.  A club that had four members, two of which hadn’t gotten there period, who liked to make up dances.  DYCG stood for Daring Young Courageous Girls.  And that is pretty much what we were.
• Britta  (My sister calls me this.  Britta is how I signed my own yearbook in fifth grade.  Thing is, nobody called me Britta which sheds light onto why I was signing my own yearbook in the first place.  Nothing like a nickname that is always a little sting of humilation.)

Also, I want to tell you the best nickname I have ever heard.  It belonged to a dishwasher I worked with almost 7 years ago.  His name was Cool Breeze.  And man, if anybody was ever a cool breeze, well, Cool Breeze was the one.

Alison Krauss
Kenny Loggins
Richard Marx
Janet Reno
One of the She-Daisy ladies
Lee Ann Womack
Brad Paisley
various members of Lambchop
Mindy Smith
Garrison Starr
Fleming and John
Josh Rouse
Annette from Venus Hum
Marty Stewart

*I’m counting B-listers, C-listers and local celebrities

-All the apartments share the same heating duct system. Now that fall is here we’ve discovered that we live amongst some smokers. It bothers the boyfriend more than it does me.

-We can’t open any windows, except for the bathroom. The painters who put on a fresh, new couple of coats before we moved in painted the windows shut. Besides the sliding glass door in the kitchen, we have only two other exposed windows, both of which contain an air conditioning unit.

-We have to wash dishes in a bus tub because our sink doesn’t have a divider thingy. You know, one side for washing, the other side for rinsing? We just have one big sink with no divider. Makes hand-washing dishes even more laborious.

-Apparently, the ceiling leaks. Getting for work the other morning I noticed the top of my dresser was slightly wet. I thought I’d spilled something. I look up to find the source of the water is rain leaking through one of the many seams that runs through the ceiling.

-Our wooden back balcony is covered in moss or mold or something. So when it is wet it’s like ice skating. Real safe.

-Our daily-pizza-ordering, Outback-take-away-eating neighbor refuses to take her fat trash to the fat street herself.

-This same neighbor has this ridiculous high-pitched screaming laugh that I hear all too often since I think she watches “The Queens of Comedy” on repeat. God knows that Mo’Nique is one laugh riot.

-We can’t purchase anything bigger than a breadbox because our place is too small.

-There is no fenced in back yard for the dog. Our dog. The dog we don’t yet have, but will get as soon as our lease is up. I’m kinda sorry I suggested Agent Cooper for my friend’s dog’s name, ’cause he took my suggestion and now I want it back.

-Taking a shower may mean standing in the corner of the shower stall quivering because the cold water is all gone and you can’t just stand under a piping hot water stream. If someone is doing laundry my shower might take a full twenty minutes. Actually, I don’t take that many showers, but the boyfriend does his shaving in there, so he is more often enraged by this than I am.

Things I Will Miss:

-My writing nook.

-The tiny park with the running track one block down the street.

-The downstairs neighbor’s three cats.

-Tretorns (I desperately wanted blue plaid ones.)

-Keds (We could only afford the generic version. To my 12-year-old self that tiny blue label on the back was as much a status symbol as any Bentley or diamond ring. I got a pair of hand-me-down Keds from my cousin. They were completely trashed, brown with a big, huge hole in the toe. I wore them proudly anyway, making sure to mention how badly I needed to replace my Keds to anyone who gave my worn old shoes the hairy eyeball.)

-navy blue sweatpants (Gym in 7th grade required a uniform. A public school-issued shorts and t-shirt set worn by some other pubescent kid last year. Or you could just wear the provided shirt and wear navy blue sweatpants brought from home. We couldn’t get the sweatpants. I was one of two girls in my entire grade who did not wear sweatpants to gym. And I was one of one girls in my entire grade who was not allowed to shave their legs. That experience left me a scarred, wounded woman.)

-Eastlands (Specifically the soft brown shoes basically made of three panels of leather that tied with brown and yellow laces. It was trendy in my junior high to loop the shoelace around on itself like little curls on each side, leaving them a bit loose and untied. I got the generic version of that shoe, which was made of brown plastic and held together by glue.)

-I.O.U. sweatshirt (This highlights my redneck past brilliantly. Anybody but me remember those hideous things? Gaudy $45 sweatshirts best paired with mis-matched socks, a turtleneck underneath and a banana clip. Again, I got the generic version, which was I.O.V. or some shit.)

-balloon barrettes (I’m not even sure you could buy these in stores, but all the most popular girls in my school had them. Dozens of unblown-up balloons glued to a clip. ALL the coolest girls had them, and I wanted one too. I bought a pack of balloons and found a broke old clip and grabbed up some Elmer’s and went to town. The balloon barrette I made was big and beautiful, and my hair had finally grown long enough to get a little chipmunk ponytail in back, so I wore my balloon barrette proudly to school. And died over and over again all day long as balloons fell off one by one leaving me with a sad balding balloon barrette.)

-Duck Head shorts (These went especially well with the balloon barrettes.)

-Debbie Gibson Electric Youth perfume (I actually finally got this! For Christmas! And it wasn’t too already out of style. But when your first bottle of perfume is hot pink and smells like bubblegum floor wax, someone ought to tell you how to wear it. Light spritz at the nape or wrist. Rarely both. I, however, wanted everyone to know I was wearing Debbie Gibson’s Electic Youth perfume so I woke up every morning and swum in it.)

reading
baking sugar cookies
writing and reworking two pieces for entry into a local writing competition
blowing my nose
watching football
organizing the new blog, The Double R
thinking about quitting
meditating
mulling over the season finale of “Six Feet Under”
spending time with the sister
making my boyfriend sick
taking a break from the gym
sleeping
tripping unto the light fantastic
considering getting a puppy
starting a new project