JAIL BAIT - blog 1 - By Baxter

For anyone who reads this blog and thinks I'm an asshole, you'll be happy to know i'm in jail...well I WAS in jail and I just got out, so HA! I'm back! These 'Jail Bait' entries will just be my tales & random musings about life on the inside.

Menos - By Bitten

While many women hysterically curl up in the fetal position when they get their period, I beam for 3-7 days and silently thank the moon, ocean tides, my non-knocked up womb, Santy Claus and whoever/whatever else I deem responsible for allowing me to bleed another month.

The reason for my borderline psychotic glee is simply due to the fact that I'm not menopausal.

Menopause isn't something they fill you in on when you sit awkwardly in your sixth grade sex-ed class and view a dusty film reel displaying diagrams of boners and fallopian tubes.



I didn't go to middle school in 1957, but the film I watched in 1990 hadn't been updated much since then. Nobody warns you that white jeans, sore boobs and breakouts will one day be the least of your concerns - that as you drift slowly into your 50's a Cathy Guisewite alien latches itself onto your reproductive system and forces you to do terrible things to yourself (chopping hair off, wearing Snuggies and Ugg boots everyday, growing out moustache) and others (Writing ten page complaint letters to a Starbuck's assistant manager about lukewarm latte, describing your hot flashes to a health food store clerk for an hour).

See, I've become familiar with what mother nature has in store for me thanks to my job at a restaurant that seems to attract every non-menustrating woman within 20 miles. Apart from sorority girls and stew bums who come in and clog our toilet with newspaper, menopausal women are the absolute worst customers and seem to constantly travel in packs, ensuring your day will turn to shit by the time they've all had the chance to break a small part of your spirit.

I can sense them a block away now. The skies darken and birds scatter as they approach the restaurant. Their cackling laughs pierce what was a silent and unevenful lunch rush. I immediately turn on the charm, ensuring that I tend to all their needs. It's a little test I run every time a new table of menos walks in. "This one is going to be different", I say during my little self pep talk "These women are going to be delightful, and tip well". Within five seconds I resign myself to the fact that they're just like all the rest. "Can I get you ladies something to drink"? I attempt to make eye contact with each of them, but they're too busy scowling at the menu. One of them grunts. No response, so I ask again "Would you like a few drinks before ordering lunch"? Long pause, then:

"Do you have any Splenda if I were to order an iced tea"?

"No, I'm sorry. Unfortunately we only have Equal or Sweet & Low at the moment".

She bristles, "How can you expect me to drink my iced tea without Splenda"? Her gaze is fixed directly on me, waiting for a response from me to meet her impossible approval.

"I'm really sorry" I say, and then "We recently ran out, but should have some in stock within the next day or two".

"Well, I'm here now" she looks like she is on the verge of tears. Her three friends haven't said a word, or glanced up at me since I approached the table. The Splenda lady hunches over and begins to read the menu again. I stand over them for a awkward sixty seconds in silence before I begin to walk back to the kitchen.

"EXCUSE ME"! another woman from the table shrieks across the restaurant. I spin around to catch a set of beady eyes shrouded by dark circles glaring at me. "WE ARE READY TO ORDER NOW"! She's violently shaking. Her frizzy brown perm with two inch long grey roots makes her look like one of her hands is constantly palming an electrostatic ball used at science fairs. Her friends also look livid. Like I didn't literally just walk away from their table after asking them several times if they'd like to order. I force a smile, and head back. They look smug. I briefly consider grabbing the bucket of used mop water from the kitchen staff bathroom and dumping it on their table. Five minutes pass, and I still haven't written down half of their orders due to diet restrictions, neurotic specifications on how they'd like their lunches heated and inability to decide on soup or salad, chicken or salmon, regular Coke or Diet Coke. Meanwhile, several tables of recently sat customers are boring holes into my back with their eyes as they grow increasingly irritated by the wait time. The menos appear to delight in the fact that I'm becoming a bit frazzled. I punch their complete order into the computer and silently scream during the process. Their order reads:

Bacon burger, no tomatoes, onions or mayo.
Add extra pickles. Cook bacon and burger to a crisp.
Cut fry order in 1/2, sub rosemary for salt.
Iced Tea with one lemon and one lime muddled.

Caesar salad, split on two plates.
Add salmon, 1/2 order, blackened well - rubbed with cajun spices.
Dressing, parmesan and croutons on side.
1/2 caf 1/2 decaf coffee with 2% milk (heated up in microwave), sugar and honey

Grilled cheese, hold the cheese (lactose intolerant)
sub tempeh. Grill like a panini, but on a sourdough roll.
No fries, sub salad. Cucumbers only, dressing on the side.
Sugar free Italian vanilla soda with extra shot of syrup and side glass of soda water (in case it doesn't live up to her standards)

I take my time with their order. No way am I going to give them the satisfaction of sending their plates back. After I drop off their drinks, the complaints begin "My coffee isn't hot enough. Can you brew a new pot and pour another cup"? "I'd like more lemon muddled in my iced tea". It's always something. I imagine the few of them who are still married heap so many demands on their thoroughly emasculated spouses that their husbands contemplate washing a bottle of Xanax down with a liter of vodka on a daily basis.

I watch them from the bar, glaring at each new customer that walks in. Always miserable.

Later that night I start my period, and feel like throwing a party. Thank fucking G

OMG U R PREGNANT? SO THE FUCK WHAT?!?! - by Baxter

So you're knocked up...who cares?..other than your immediate family. Now you will act like the Queen of All Humanity as you carry around some rotten fetus for the next 9 months, like the rest of the world should be bowing at your feet. Wake the fuck up you stupid slut. Your retarded boyfriend convinced you condoms 'don't feel good' so you let him jizz inside you and now you're preggo and the rest of the world is supposed to automatically give a fuck?! HA!!! Congrats on accomplishing something that hundreds if not thousands of people around the world make happen, DAILY,...even on accident! Way to go! What do you want a gold medal for taking a load up your meat wallet?

We're all supposed to give you red carpet, VIP treatment for taking some frat party creampie?! Your baby is not a miracle, it's a product of your slutty college years that you think makes you feel accomplished in life. Now you can feel even more accomplished by changing diapers and carpooling to soccer practice. Good for you! This does not, however, give you any right to treat everyone else like shit just because your feet hurt and you're craving pickles. Boo mother fucking hoo. You get to get fat and use your 'miracle baby' as an excuse to STAY fat for the rest of your adult life. All the while claiming, 'stay at home mom' as the toughest job in the world. Oh really? Watching Sesame Street and complaining about your screaming spoiled Raptor baby is the 'toughest job in the world'? HAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAA...ok, keep telling yourself that and keep running your Susan B. Komen bullshit breast cancer marathons to make yourselves feel important. Meanwhile heart disease is killing off more people than titty cancer & AIDs combined, you dillusional zombies, so wear all the pink ribbons you want...you're just funding more rich white WASPs ivy league college tuitions for their bratty Disney Princess daughters.

An Open Letter To Senior Citizens - By Baxter

An Open Letter To All the Senior Citizens:

Out of all the places I've lived and visited, the senior citizen community in the Scottsdale/Phoenix metro area still remains the meanest and most rude of anywhere in America, (except New York maybe). The following perspective, while generalized, will have obvious exceptions and is merely my subjective view based on 20 years of varied experiences.

You can't drive properly, yet you insist on doing so, endangering the lives of everyone around you. You make right hand turns from the left hand lane, you drive 20mph BELOW the speed limit, your vision & hearing are already impaired, and don't even consider checking blind spots or rear-view mirrors, remaining oblivious to the rest of the world behind you, as we attempt to get around you or away from you for fear of our own safety.

Parking lots are a whole other challenge entirely. How many times have we seen stories in the news of an elderly man or woman mistaking the gas pedal for the brake and then plowing through a storefront or wall or crowd of people, often resulting in serious injuries and fatalities? About as often as the people who try to drive their cars through flooded streets. Yet the MVD continues to only administer driving tests to 16 year olds, instead of the far more dangerous 80 year olds.

When, or if, you ever reach your destination, most likely a store, restaurant, movie theater, etc., you seize this opportunity to torture every employee in sight with endless complaints and demands. We employees in customer service are trained to serve you and help you, which most of us are more than happy to do, but you seem to enjoy making it as difficult as possible. Take note: do not talk AT us as if we are your child, student, or personal assistant. While we are paid employees, we are not your personal punching bags or doormats for you to release whatever other frustrations you have in life upon us. In return, we will not treat you as bewildered blue-hairs looking to be coddled. You get what you give. Also, when you ask someone to 'check in the back' for an item you want, it can take quite a while to dig through a crowded warehouse full of heavy boxes to find it, so we'd appreciate if you didn't proceed to ask 5 other employees for the same thing every 10 seconds. Patience is a virtue. And when those 5 employees realize we're all looking for the same thing for 1 person, we get offended and stop searching because of your total lack of consideration by assuming we must be so incompetent to have made you wait longer than 5 seconds to be gratified.

Clearly, some people who have never worked in customer service before have no idea what it's really like. It's not your neighborhood general store nowadays, it's big box chain stores, overstocked, unorganized and understaffed. Also, while most of us are required to wear name tags, it is entirely creepy when you, a complete stranger, addresses us by name as if we are friends. I'm not 'Jimmy Olson' from the malt shop on main street in 1956, I'd prefer to keep my identity private and just do my job. It's bad enough that we are on display for you to stare at while you wait in line, like we are monkeys in a zoo. Did you ever work in an office or cubicle? How would you like it if 10 people stood right behind you and stared at your every move while you tried to make a spreadsheet? Not so comfortable is it? Just let us do our jobs and save your complaints and demands until we have finished and you're still not satisfied.



You'll never actually be satisfied with anything, you'll always be condescending and you'll always be horrible drivers, I've come to accept these as facts of life. The world as you knew it has changed drastically beyond your means and comfort zones, as is to be expected with aging for all of us, but I felt compelled to write this perspective in the hopes that maybe one person will read it, recognize a part of themselves they weren't aware of, and perhaps try to change it or approach certain situations differently. And don't try to justify your sour attitudes by being a war vet or that you suffered through 'harder times'. You had World War I & II, we have Desert Storm/Iraq/Afghanistan/Iran, you had Pearl Harbor, we had 9/11! So those points of contention are no longer valid to current or future generations.

For the rest of you who just want to continue complaining the music is too loud, the line is too long, and demanding a $2 refund on some old can of soup you raided from your recently deceased friend's pantry, or acting entitled to preferential service, then not tipping or being gracious about it? Contemplate this: Who gets Social Security checks each month? You. Who gets Medicare & Medicaid services provided to them? You. Who gets to retire? You. And who currently gets their paychecks taxed to fund all of these luxuries that will most likely not exist by the time we would be eligible to use them ourselves?...The rest of us.

GROCERY STORES: A SURVIVOR'S GUIDE - By Baxter

1. Grab a basket, don't browse, do a lap, throw in the necessities and try to get out alive! Hint: make a game out of it and pretend you're on the awesome 90's cable tv game show 'Super Market Sweep'. My friends were actual contestants on the show, made it to the final round and lost :( they still got to wear the rad sweatshirts and grab the big inflatable bonus items. Here is a clip from the Canadian version of the show with some crazy lady being dragged by her cart as she slides into the checkout...


2. PAY ATTENTION YOU DROOLING ZOMBIE!!!
Studies show as soon as you begin the errand of grocery shopping your brain switches to primal cavewoman gathering mode to feed family. Wonder why the parking lots at grocery stores are so crazy? Or why you forget what you're shopping for as soon as you walk in? Or why you go just to buy milk and end up dropping $100? Primal cavewoman mode. If you're hungry at the time, even worse. Don't hand your cashier empty packages of food you've already consumed while shopping, all that says is "i'm a desperate, hungry, fat zombie with no self control and no life so i feel accomplished by buying and consuming lots of shit that i don't need". Hint: learn how to drive, learn how to park, eat before shopping, bring a list, control yourself.



3. GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!
You are the people who walk through a doorway...then stop and look around. You are the people who make right turns from the left lane. You are the people who get off an escalator and then stand there like an idiot. You are the same people who park your giant cart full of 2 items in the exact center of the aisle so nobody can get around it, oblivious to the fact you have blocked a busy walkway with your empty cart. Wake the fuck up! There is an entire world full of people, behind you, desperately trying to find a way around your zombie ass while you stare at apples and tap on melons and try to find the most perfect, freshest, newest tomato sent from heaven. Guess what idiots, it's all from Mexico and it's all dirty, picked from workers who shit in the fields because they aren't allowed to take breaks, enjoy your salad!


4. PAY WITH CREDIT/DEBIT OR CASH ONLY!!!
You have food stamps? EBT card? well that's your own fault for continuing to reproduce when you can't even pay your rent. You are an idiot and I don't feel sorry for you at all. Paying by check? Do you live on dinosaur island? Well it's 2010 now, and while we don't have flying cars yet we have made some majorly easy and convenient advances in point of purchase payment methods, so please do the modern world a favor and send your son out to do your shopping. Also, the giant illuminated sign that says "EXPRESS LANE 15 ITEMS OR LESS CASH or CREDIT ONLY" is not a suggestion.

pic of what YOU all look like to the rest of the world...


5. GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!
I don't want to chat about the weather, or share recipes, or babysit your spoiled, bratty kids while you talk on the phone. I want you and your entitled ass to stop staring at me and go home! And hey old people, just because i'm obligated to wear a name tag doesn't mean you can address me like i'm Jimmy Olson from the corner market in the 1950's. I'm not your friend, i'm not your neighbor, i'm not your son or your student,... i'm just the guy you stare at in line, i'm the guy behind you trying to get around your fat ass, i'm the guy who gets to clean up all the trash you just dump on the shelves, i'm the guy who's in refrigerator trying to find the FRESHEST berries for you then you walk away after 5 seconds or ask someone else. Have a nice day!!!