Faking Laughter, Making Excuses, & Mocking the Crazies

I had no plans to mention Halloween or what slutty occupational costume I wore while working today, but I find it absolutely ridiculous that, during a six hour time period, no fewer than twenty-three men (Yeah, I counted.) felt it necessary to crack a joke about wanting me to arrest and/or frisk them. The first few times I utilized the ubiquitous fake laugh that every Hooters Girl cultivates for such drearily unfunny times like these, but as the day wore on, my laughter quickly mellowed in to a sarcastic half-smile, accompanied by a decidedly forced, "Haha." Most depressing is that all but one of these twenty-three comediennes clearly fancied themselves quite clever.

Obviously, I have been a markedly shitty blogger as of late, and for that I apologize and offer up a few equally shitty excuses: Things have been busy/stressful/demanding, especially in regards to house hunting. Fortunately, The Boyfriend and I have finally found a house that we love. Our offer was accepted by the seller and the initial inspection went well. We are now in the process of getting loans finalized and securing FHA approval. If all goes according to plan, we will be moved in by Christmas. At this point, I am still unsure what this means for my job at Hooters. Though I do plan to continue working there, I will likely be scaling back on hours a bit, and possibly finding another job a bit closer to the new house, and I might take a brief leave of absence around the holidays. Posting will likely continue to be a bit slow for a while, but I promise that I am not deserting the job or the blog entirely. In addition to general business and being unable to summon the creative energy required to write a decent post, shifts have a been a bit slow lately, thus fewer crazies wander in and give me cause to make a mockery of them on the internet. Fortunately for the quickly atrophying muscles that I use to type, however, a new character has arrived. He's been coming in at least twice a week for the last four weeks, always while I am behind the bar. I mentioned him briefly a few posts back (He is the guy with the conspiracy theories who hit it off so famously with Classy Nipples.) and I have been referring to him as the, "Crazy Liberal," when telling The Boyfriend about him.

Crazy Liberal is a bachelor in his mid-forties. He believes strongly in the power of his mind and is completely convinced that the reason the severe acne that he dealt with as a teenager eventually subsided was due to his mental powers ( and not, you know, because he grew out of it like ninety-eight percent of the population does). He also believes that his supposed mind power is responsible for him not going bald yet. Apparently the guy literally stands in front of a mirror and repeatedly says, "I will not lose my hair," on a regular basis. As discussed previously, Crazy Liberal also believes that the George Bush's are members of a secret organization who began the war as some sort of scam, and I think I overheard him talking about government mind control at one point. He mentions Big Brother a lot, and seems to enjoy discussing political corruption and conspiracy theories of all kinds, most of which he is an avid believer in. When not ranting about these sorts of things to I or Classy Nipples, who also appears nearly every day that I work, Crazy Liberal spends his time discussing his sensitive stomach and how fond he is of my ass. Even more disturbing, just a few days ago Crazy Liberal let slip the fact that he has been a fan of my ass since I began working at Hooters more than a year ago. I cannot even begin to explain how disturbing it is to listen to a man nostalgically reminisce about the first time that he noticed your butt, especially when the aforementioned reminiscing is coming from a man who you have no recollection of ever even seeing prior to the last few weeks.

As time passes, more and more of the Hooters Girls who were already working at Hooters when I began have left. I am now one of the senior girls on staff, and I am truly beginning to appreciate some of the coldness from girls like RW Jenn when I first started working on the floor. As being friendly and conventionally attractive are the two most highly sought after traits in new hires, a disturbing and seemingly ever-increasing number of my coworkers have intelligence levels akin to the intelligence levels of the average cow; that is to say, quite frankly, I work with idiots, and lately, I have simply been assuming that everyone is an idiot until proven otherwise.

Today, while rushing back and forth behind the bar, tending to customers, pouring drinks, and somehow managing not to slip in my heels, I noticed that one of GM J's latest hires was not picking up any of the drinks that she had been ringing in. Several times I shouted her name, figuring that she had simply not heard me above the noise of the busy restaurant, but still she did not come. Finally, several minutes after my latest call, I noticed her at the main window where most of her drinks were waiting. She was not taking them, however, so teetered down to where she was.

"You need something, hon?" I asked her.

"No..," she replied, seeming slightly confused. "I thought I heard you call me."

"Um...yeah. Your drinks are up," I explained deliberately. "Almost all of these are yours," I went on, gesturing at the eight or nine drinks in front of me. "They need to go out. The beer is going flat and the ice is melting."

"These are mine?" she exclaimed, to which I nodded.

"Most of them."

"But not all of them?" she asked.

"No..." Now I was confused.

"How do I know which ones are mine?"

I must confess, at this point, my incredulous bitch face took over and I had to work to keep from asking just how low her I.Q. really is. "Well, the drinks that have tickets with your name on them are yours. The ones with someone else's name are not, although you can run them if you want."

"Our names are on them? So that's how you know who to call!" she exclaimed, beaming with excitement at having figured that one out.

RW Jenn was standing nearby and overheard this exchange. She just laughed. What else can you do?