Wednesday, June 27, 2012

What you want


If you ask me, there are seven main possible benefits from asking for what you want in this world:

1. You’re more likely to get what you want
2. You're more likely to avoid what you don't want
3. If you do get what you don't want you get to say 'hey this isn't what I wanted'
4. If you do get what you don’t want the person who didn't give you what you wanted will most likely say 'sorry'
5. If you did get what you want you get to say 'thank you'
6. Chicks dig movie stars and movie stars often get what they want and so if you get what you want you can tell chicks 'I'm just like a movie star ...... In some very minor occurrences, I mean just now and then, on occasions when I get what I want, cause movie stars get what they want too, can I get you a drink, anything you want'
7. Sorry and thank you are nice words

I think it’s pretty safe to say, that after reading this list, that most people would find themselves asking for what they want most of the time. Well despite these obvious benefits I often still don’t ask for what I want, and I developed this list! What kind of an idiot am I?

Answer: One that thinks someone saying sorry is worth not getting what you want.

Also I am the kind of idiot who almost never asks for exactly what I want in food service situations.

I believe this is mostly just because I'm painfully scared of doing things that will make me not liked, while simultaneously being very prone to feeling feelings of embarrassment, whether warranted or not, and I find suggesting to a waitperson that I don’t like what the chef has pre-ordained his food to consist of to be both an unlikable trait and one likely to bring me embarrassment.

One way this regularly manifests itself is that when I am ordering a burger, something I do several times a week, I usually don't ask for my burger to have no pickles or tomatoes, despite knowing that almost all burgers, especially here in the United States, come garnished with both pickles and tomatoes, and also knowing I particularly don’t like either of these fruits and/or weird green things on my burgers, or anywhere else on my plate thank you very much (thank you are nice words).

So I just order it the way it comes, and then pick off the un-tasty/ bad texture bits, and leave them to rot on my plate and remind me that I am pathetic for not ordering my burger the way I want it. (Oh also, have we forgotten that we ‘order’ food, in the army you CANNOT ignore an order. That’s why sergeants or whatever are always yelling shit like ‘that’s an order private’. So if they don’t cook you your steak the way you like it in the army does the cook get court marshaled?)

Then when the waitperson comes to pick up my plate I get super embarrassed at leaving the pickles and tomatoes on an otherwise empty plate and now I can't help but think the waitperson is staring at me saying with her imagination 'you could have ordered it the way you wanted you asshole' and the food prep person in the back now finds out and is yelling at me with his mind 'what you think I like slicing this shit so you can make me throw it in the trash' and before I know it everyone hates me. It’s a vicious cycle

Sometimes I'll specifically ignore ordering the burger that I currently feel like consuming just to avoid this excruciating turn of events.

Last week I was at my local diner and I did in fact order the burger, and yep, I did chicken out of ordering it exactly the way I wanted. As I pulled off the tomato and pickle I felt ashamed of myself. I have been trying to be less of a pathetic idiot recently when it comes to moronic things like this and I had failed again. Then I opened the ketchup bottle and it exploded!

Both of my hoodie’s arms were covered in Ketchup. The whole bench/ bar where I was sitting was covered. The man to my right had ketchup on his face and all over his left shoulder. The two men to his right had ketchup all over the front of their shirts. And the two ladies behind me to my right had ketchup speckles in numerous spots on their outfits.

As I researched later, and discovered first hand now, apparently sometimes when you re-fill a ketchup bottle that was still half full, the new and the old ketchup do not get along and create a gas build up which can have explosive results. This thing sprayed like the end of a porn movie, only with ketchup, and with half a bottle all over everyone!

I sat shocked for a moment, and then I apologized to everyone as profusely as I possibly could. As the staff ran to get us towels, and the manager started to promise free meals, and offer us free drinks, I kept saying sorry (a nice word) to everyone, it was my hand, on my ketchup bottle, that had done the crime, and I felt awful.

To a man they all assured me that it was not my fault, and everyone, for the most part, began joking around about what a crazy thing we had all just witnessed, and one old guy began telling us stories that had no point and didn’t go anywhere about his war days. I laughed too, but I also felt utter humiliation, for the others did not blame me but they also knew not my secret shame.

I hadn’t even wanted ketchup with my sweet potato fries, at all, I had wanted chipotle mayo, and at the last minute found myself too embarrassed to ask for it.

‘Who cares’ I thought to myself when the waitress had asked if I wanted anything else ‘I only found out that this chipotle mayo existed a week ago, and before then you were fine with ketchup on your sweet potato fries’ I had justified to myself, to try and convince myself I wasn’t just pussying out once more.  

Because you see, the chipotle mayo isn’t on the menu, I only know about it because a friend of mine ordered recently just on the outside chance that they had it, and I suspected that while they did have it, it was designated for use on another menu item which I have yet to discover, and that, and this is only a suspicion, they would prefer it if not too many people ordered it as a condiment to sweet potato fries, because that would create more work for the kitchen staff, and possibly slightly less profits for the owners, and I was worried that if I ordered it there would be discussions about me in the back, and someone would get upset and yell with their minds ‘you can’t expect me to make an extra little bowl of chipotle mayo everyday just in case you come in and order sweet potato fries you little shit!’ and I don’t want that imaginary person hating me, so I did not order it. And now disaster had struck, and we all sat in damp hastily wiped off clothes, with free food, but horrendous visions of ketchup flying and spraying all over us. And it was all my fault.

‘Well no more!’ I screamed at myself. No, I ORDERED myself. It was time I began to ask for what I want occasionally!

Possible benefit from asking for what you want in this world

8. Less likely to spray five strangers with an exploding ketchup bottle.

Tonight I returned to that very same diner for a late night diner. I may not have gotten a burger, because I wasn't in the mood to deal with the tomato and pickle issue, but, and call me a hero if you must, I did get ask for chipotle mayo to dip my sweet potato fries in, and they gave it to me with a smile, and not a single item of clothing was destroyed!

Ok if you won’t I will – David Tieck, you are a hero! And that’s an ORDER!

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