It seems I was wrong. It seems the impression of me isn’t limited to just standing there yawning. Nope. Not by a long shot. Nor is it limited to “Jesus Fucking Christ, how do these things happen?” Turns out, upon digging a little deeper, everyone has their own impression of me. Some of them are based in reality, others not so much, and one (Oscar’s) can’t possibly be true. Though I admit I find it instructive that in each, the voice is the same. A neurotic, agitated Yogi the Bear. I’d like to think I don’t sound like that, but … nonetheless. Here you go. Their individual impressions of me. I’ve been asking all week, and all week, they’ve been coming clean.

ALAN: “Hey, Alan, you’re a little bit late, Alan, we want you here by five and it’s five oh one, Alan, going to have to take that minute out of your pay, Alan, and be sure you run your IRS report at the end of the shift and not in the middle, Alan, and quit eating cheese in the walk-in, Alan …”

REGINA (while holding two glasses under two taps): “See, pouring a beer is all about the angle. You need the proper angle. This. Not this. See? This. Not this. This? No good, too much head. This? Just … the right … amount … of head … what. What’s so funny.”

JIMMY: “We sure are learning a lot from these customer comments. For example. Did you know most customers want food that doesn’t suck? Or if it must suck, they want to pay less for it?”

ALL THE MEXICANS EXCEPT OSCAR AND RUDY: “Oh, hey. My name mister (squirrel) and I so fucking cheap I one cheap motherfucker. Oh, hey, portion control, oh, hey. Oh, hey.” (They only admitted to the portion control line. Not the fucking cheap motherfucker line. I had to eavesdrop to learn that one.)

JULIE: “Someone smeared boogers all over the bathroom mirror. Why would anyone do such a thing? There are so many better places to smear a booger. This guy never heard of Kleenex???”

JASON (slapping someone else’s hand kinda sorta hard): “No! No! No, no, NO!!!”

REGINA again: “You know in England, they call fish sticks fish fingers. You didn’t know that, did you. And pork meatballs are called pork faggots. Didn’t know that either, did you. I didn’t think so. But imagine that.”

OSCAR: “Easy. Lemons don’t grow on trees, you know.” (No way I actually said that. No way. He swears I did, though, and he has a few witnesses to back him up. If you ask me, I think it sounds pretty fucking apocryphal.)

CHERYL: “Steaming pile of crap. That’s what that is. A pile of crap which is steaming.”

MY ENGLISH FRIEND, HIS WIFE and OUR MUTUAL AND ALSO ENGLISH FRIEND: “About? About? ABOUT?”

JIMMY again: “Stop using the word Succulent. Is someone paying you to use the word Succulent? Always seem to be using the word Succulent lately.” 

STEVE: “Whatever, Steve.”

LAURA: “Laura, what did you do last night. I’ll tell you what I did. I photoshopped a mustache onto my face and I flecked some gray into it to make it look like it would if I had a mustache and do you know what? I think it looked pretty special. You know what else? If I grew a mustache, I’m sure I could be the mayor of Wisconsin.”

RUDY (walking like he’s a cowboy just off a horse and about to have a gunfight): “Hi, how are you. Ha-Ha-Ha. How is it going with you. Ha-Ha-Ha. Tonight you will eat here. Ha-Ha-Ha.”

SARAH: “This is worse than half slob of ribs and full slob of ribs. Changing the U to a W in bleu cheese? Blew cheese? Blew cheese!?!?!” (Begin gesticulating wildly, and pacing about the room.) “Blew cheese!?!?! Blew cheese!?!?! Blew cheese!?!?! …”

WIFE-ASAURUS: “Lemme sleep, lemme sleep, lemme sleep, I’m sleeping, you do it.”