Say Hello To Me!

Do you have unanswered life questions? Maybe you just want to say hello to me. Well, you're welcome to e-mail me at karahoag@yahoo.com. If nothing else it just makes me happy.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Brought To You By The Letter B

Yesterday I went in to Shmupplebees and convinced one of my co-workers that I needed money more than she did, so she went home and let me have her shift. My first few tables used credit cards to pay their bills, which is fine with me because it takes less time than if they were to use cash. I would really prefer it if everyone would pay with cards. That way I don't end up with hundreds of dollars in my apron by the end of the night. About my fifth table in, the guy pulls out a fifty and places it on his ticket. Reassuring him that I will be right back with his change, I go up to the bartender to have him break it for me. He is extremely busy and I can see that the managers are in the office doing nothing but looking at porn and texting on their phones, so I asked them for change instead.

"So you didn't bring a bank, then?" the female manager asks me.

"I can neither confirm nor deny that statement," I reply. When you're about to get in trouble, always try to make your boss laugh. Then whatever you have done wrong won't be as big of a deal.

For those of you who don't know, a bank is twenty dollars of your own money that you bring to work with you. It is supposed to be split up into fives, ones, and an assortment of coins. Now, I only go to Shmupplebees when I am poor. If I have a spare twenty dollars I'm going to talk myself into buying beer and enjoying a night off, so needless to say I did not bring a bank. I really don't see the point in it anyway. It doesn't make it more convenient for me. If someone pays with a fifty on a ten dollar check I'm going to need it broken anyway. If a six-top pays separately, each handing me a twenty on their seven dollar tickets, that twenty dollars is not going to help me at all.

No, Shmupplebees manager, I did not bring a bank. I never bring a bank, and I will continue not bringing a bank. To me the bank is beer money, and I'm just here to get some more of it.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Skateboards and Hot Dogs

A very late happy Fourth of July to you all. While I have been working my ass off lately, I was able to take the day off and travel to Kansas City to see my family. Would I have rather spent the day playing Mario Kart and drinking beer? Perhaps. Did the multiple guilt trips from various family members help persuade me to make a different decision? Definitely.

I'm happy that I went. Much like I've been doing with this blog, I've been putting family and friends on a bit of a back burner so that I can spend between fifty and sixty hours a week working at Shmupplebees and for the Mental Health Center. I haven't seen most of them since February, and I haven't spent time with my grandparents since Christmas.

The person that I was the most excited to see was my niece, and she was outside when my oldest sister and I pulled up to my aunt's house. I got out of the car and walked closer to see her holding her wrist with large silent tears running down her face. She had been riding a skateboard and fell off, breaking her wrist. She went with my sister and my mom to the emergency room where they had to perform surgery on her. The poor girl missed the whole day.

We continued to eat, drink, and be merry at my aunt's house, getting updates through snapchat and text messages about my niece's status. At one point my grandpa stated that he hoped the poor thing was doing okay.

"She's drugged out," I replied. "She's having a better time than the rest of us are."

Thanks to the miracle of medicine, my niece was asleep the entire time she was in the emergency room. When they returned to my aunt's home around eleven, she was, in fact, drugged out. And quite adorable I may add. My sister said that when she woke up she yawned, blinked a couple times, and lazily said, "How long was I sleeping?" as if she was just taking an afternoon nap.

We stopped setting off fireworks as soon as they let us know they were returning from the hospital, so even though she had missed the entire afternoon, my niece ended up getting her own personal fireworks show. Everyone signed her cast, and she was filled up with food and attention.

So happy Twelfth Fourth everybody, and to the kid with the skateboard who let my niece ride it; you're on our list.