Two Random Silly Compliments Not Enough to Break Ugly Juice's Funk

My friends, I have been cranky lately. I thought I'd spare you all the trouble by just not posting.

But I thought I'd share the two funny compliments I got today. First I got random email from Angela's brother Danny, who just got hired at a restaurant and is in a training class taught by my old general manager, Michael. Apparently, Michael told two stories about me in Danny's training class. Weird. The first story was when one of my tables couldn't find anything on the menu that they liked, so I brought them two Happy Meals (Well, why not? There was a McDonald's across the street, and I aim to please). The second story was about a table that complained because they ordered the whole duck, and they got all weirded out when it arrived at the table with the head still on it. I got to the table and they were freaking out. Now this is something I really have no patience with. If you're a meat-eater, my friend, you have to deal with the fact that all the meat you eat once had a head. Chickens don't run around all shrinkwrapped (or boneless and covered in breadcrumbs). I understand that many carnivores try to ignore the fact that their meat once had a head, and I can respect that, but when you order something called a "whole duck," that's what you're going to get. Well, I did not actually give the table the all-meat-once-had-a-head lecture. I didn't say a word. I just snapped the head off the duck and walked away. (Later, the duck head would become a great source of amusement as a puppet or garnish for banana split.) Is this Michael's idea of model server behavior? Maybe they were examples of how NOT to be a good server. (By the way, -j., do you think he's still telling the story about when you didn't show up for your shift because you had high-tailed it for New Orleans?) Anyhoo, I guess meat is just not something I'm very squeamish about. My family butchers their own meat, and I've seen the killing of chickens and have had to pluck them. My family fishes all the time and, growing up, I'd help clean them. Now my folks have a little hobby farm and they have a few cows and pigs and whatnot. And we name these animals. And then we kill them and eat them. And then we have packages of meat in the freezer that say, "Lightning Burgers," "Snowball Steak," and "Ground Lovey." Also speaking of meat, I forgot to mention that I finished that cadaver book, Stiff, and thought it was awesome.

I digress...

The second thing happened when I was walking to my car after work. I was in the office until 10 p.m., so of course walking down Hennepin at night is always a treat. I was crossing the street, and heard a car honk, so I looked up and there were two guys driving by and waving at me. Nice. There was a guy standing at the other side of the street, who saw it happen and was now looking at me. So I gave him a little amused, raised-eyebrow-head-shake look (the look you would give your friend when the person in front of you at the store is paying in nickels). He smiled back. When I reached his side of the street, he said, "It's because you are attractive woman." He had a cute foreign accent and rolled his r's. OOOoooooh. Say it again, say it again.