Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

The Hoggy's Experience

Yesterday, at 5, the J-Dogg met us at Hoggy’s for an early dinner. Tongue-in-cheekiness doesn’t work anymore for me; so, I figure I’ll be a downright fucking mean son of a bitch.

I saw several things that made me think that this was a fairly significant day in the history of mankind, y’know, like this was some kind of confluence of events that could only happen when there is some kind of shift in the equilibrium of life as we know it.

Early on, some guy walked into the restaurant with his baseball cap on backwards. I thought that this fashion statement had gone out a long time ago; but the hostess seated him right next to a table where a guy had his baseball cap pulled on sideways. It struck me as being weird.

That’s when I noticed the bald guy with his hair cut real, real short, you know what I mean, like the guard thing on the electric razor was set at "1." Now, this normally would not have caught my eye, except that the guy had a comb-over, about 12 hairs going over his bald spot from east to west. What in the world would possess a man in his right mind to do something like this? And what would possess any sane woman to sit with there with him … and not giggle the whole time?

Then the hostess ushered in a man of about 55-to-60 years of age with a woman, probably around the same age, and seated them at a table right behind the J-Dogg, who I was facing. The woman hadn’t changed her hair style since the 60’s – it was long and straight and down to her waist; and she might have used conditioner on it back before the turn of the century, but I doubt it. And his hair … he was bald, but he had poofy hair. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was not natural. He had spent much of his day with a blow dryer to get it that way, just the right amount of poofiness. It was like Wayne Newton’s hair, y’know, like poofy to the extreme. Picture Wayne Newton bald with that same poofy-to-the-extreme hair. I don't mean to say he looked like Wayne Newton, with the black hole color hair, skin eternally-dyed pigskin and stretched like a small latex glove on Muhammad Ali's fist, just that the guy's hair was way poofed up.

Now, also seated at that table was a guy about 30 years old with an annoying thin little moustache right above his top lip. There was a little kid, about 6 years old, but his back was to me, and a woman, maybe around 30, too. And what was worse than all this is that, except for the little kid (couldn’t see his face) they … all … talked … with … food … in … their … mouths. And you know how it is. I was telling myself not to look at them, but when I was talking to the J-Dogg, my eyes would involuntarily stray to those people. And then I would turn and talk to Stacey so I wouldn’t have to look at them with … the … food … in … their … mouths; and the guy with the comb-over was right in my line of vision behind Stacey; so, my eyes would automatically be drawn to him and his dumbass-looking hair.

Our food came. The J-Dogg ate a salad. Stacey had some kind of chili mac-and-cheese that I refused to look at further because it was something that Scout the Beagle threw up on Thursday that I thought I had cleaned up and thrown in the trash. But there it was … in a little ceramic crock, steamy hot … and squooshy, even when I picked it up with 35 layers of those lumberjack paper towels. And I had some kind of stuff they call gumbo, unknown in Louisiana though, and half a BBQ pork sandwich. The bill was just over 25 bucks. I put down a 50 dollar bill when the server brought the bill.

And the server asked me, "Can I get you some change, sir?" The only time I worked in a restaurant was as a porter-bus boy on the 11-p.m.-to-7-a.m shift of an all-night restaurant one summer, but the manager trained me how to mop the floor, run the dishwasher, drain the fryer, and clean the toilets. I assume that someone trained our server to ask me that question? And did she expect me to say, "Umm, no, you can keep the $25 change as a fucking tip!" Maybe she did, but I told her she could get me the change. And a few minutes later, I got my answer in the form of a 20 and four 1’s and some coinage. You can tell from the immediately preceding paragraph that I am no fucking genius … but I do know that 20% of $25 is five dollars. If I’m the waitress, I’m going to make damn sure that the old dumb fucker paying the bill is going to get a five-dollar bill in there somewhere, not a 20 and four 1’s and some coinage, to make life easier for him … y’know, like so he doesn’t have to work that petrified brain of his very hard on a cold Friday afternoon.

It’s a wonder I didn’t just go berserk …

Posted by Bill at January 22, 2005 09:54 AM