Life Among Regulars

Life Among Regulars

A Slice of Life

ANCHORING THE GRID - FROM A WIFI HOT SPOT So, I went to McDonalds again Wednesday night. Because yesterday was supposed to be the warmest day all week, so that is why I went out. I have an aversion to freezing my ass off. They have this special WIFI link for my hand-held game system at McDonalds, so I can eat burgers and trade digital game goodies on the web at the same time. It’s totally awesome. And, I might add, it’s quite a tough, skillful, two-handed job,. . . but somebody’s got to do it, and I guess Wednesday, that somebody, – well it was me. Just widdle ol me, one step closer to saving the world, that’s all. Yep. And it must be quite a sight, bearded old guy sitting alone in a booth in a plush camo hoody jacket, poking at a hand-held gaming system, while munching on burgers and sipping soda, all the while listening to his Inner Goddess whine and moan. Yep. EATING AT McDONALDS - MADE ME REGULAR. The front line manager told me I’m a “regular” now because he recognizes my face, and he was extra nice to me, and called me “Sir.” I know this is weird, but that was uncomfortable. I think most people would warmly embrace that, you know? But I’m used to my anonymity, that it was sort of shocking. . . Shocking to be recognized, and shocking to be accepted and respected. Totally weird. Well, so much for being silent, invisible, and unnoticed. . . Not here, apparently. So, I knew already that fast food restaurants had gatherings of “regulars” in the morning for the breakfast rush, mostly retired senior citizens – but I never realized that the McDonalds near me had “regulars” for the weekday dinner rush too. . . But they do. I’m not used to seeing customers at a fast food restaurant greeting other customers by name and loudly joke around with each other like they were all family. I suppose it’s not a very large dining room, and so maybe the ‘regulars’ get acquainted with the employees and each other more easily here. At this McDonalds, almost all of the business comes through the drive-thru windows, and so there is not very much walk-in traffic. In fact, about half of the walk-ins are just drive-thru customers coming back to complain that they got the wrong stuff and not what they ordered. SPOOKY, HOW THEY CAME IN THREES . . . Three middle-aged guys piled into the booth next to me. Two of them were very intelligent, one was artsy and emotional, and the other guy was cool stoic and reserved. The third guy seemed dumb as a box of rocks, but he was very generous, he just appeared to be very mentally challenged. In fact, Cool Stoic Guy was constantly interpreting the meaning of what Third Guy was trying to say and did, for Emotional Guy’s benefit. . . Third guy got up and walked back to the front counter. Emotional guy turned to Stoic guy and asked "What is he doing?" "I think he's ordering us apple pies or something." was the answer. Third guy came back and handed out a second round of burgers, on him. "He's bought us each another burger" Stoic guy said to Emotional guy. If Third guy ever said anything, I didn't hear it.

They all seemed to work well together like a workable unit, like a platoon of three very different guys who all accepted one another, and each one knew what their job was, and together they functioned like one whole complete person. . . Apparently they were all three employed together somewhere. Government office jobs, I supposed, from their conversation. They wore lots of jewelry, for a group of guys. All three of them had big gaudy wizard rings on both hands, and Mr. Cool Stoic Guy had on a big beaded necklace like he was the tribal chief, or a Native American medicine man.. Then Three women piled into the corner booth across from me. Two of the women were older than the third, and had shiny old lady glasses, with droopy straps so they could wear their glasses like a necklace if they wanted. They wore their hair in some kind of piled, curled, and plasticized stack on top of their heads the way that older women seem to think is stylish and popular. Sort of like if a bird had landed on top of your head and formed your hair into some sort of nest in a bouncy bush. I bet with hair like that you could strip the paint right off of old cupboards, or scour pots and pans clean. And, of course, whenever you see hair like that, it always says to everyone – “Now there - is a woman who wants her hair up out of the way, so she can enjoy some kinky sex.” Yep. Anyway, the younger middle-aged woman had straight black hair and seemed to be mentally challenged. She unfolded her napkin into a huge bib and tucked it into the black collar of her red dress. Not something you see everyday around here. Nobody else does that. Maybe she was British Royalty out on holiday? She could be the Duchess of something-or-other. Who knows? I guess it protected her nice red dress when she ate. The other two older women had their cell phones all up in their faces the entire time. So, maybe the other woman was just wearing the bib to see if the other two would even notice. The ladies didn’t talk much, they were mostly staring into their phones and using the free WIFI hot spot to check on the internet. Actually, the group of three guys talked a lot more than the ladies did, which seemed odd. Maybe the guys just didn’t have cell phones they could squint into. The guy group seemed to have a much deeper relationship, like maybe they were together 24/7, all the time, and didn’t need cell phones to call each other or keep up on all their shallow contacts. At no time did I get the impression from the guy group that they might care very much about what someone might be posting up on Facebook right now. THE WILLFUL CHATTER The black guy in the booth directly across from me, had a glass of water, and a six pack of tacos from Taco Bell across the street. He bought a large coffee at McDonalds to occupy the booth, but he openly ate the tacos that he bought from the place across the street. He’s a “regular” because he hailed many of the customers and asked how they are. He was one happy guy, enjoying himself. Apparently after three months unemployed he finally got a job today substitute teaching. He used to work in the healthcare field, but the industry is in turmoil, and the turnover was just too much for him. He wanted something more regular, so he came to McDonalds, and now he is going to try substitute teaching. He told the whole restaurant several times, and some ‘brother’ on the other end of his phone. Then he called some girl and told her. He was explaining how he had been working for this temporary company where he and other unemployed temporary workers bid cash money on the available temporary jobs. He said you get 5 bids, and if you didn’t win any of them you had no job all week. But you could pay extra like $20 to have your bid sealed so others would not know how much you had bid on a job, and so there would be less likelihood of anyone outbidding you by some small amount. He said bidding like that cost him way too much money and he ended up working a lot for almost nothing, so he began looking for a regular job and now he’s going to be a substitute teacher! I thought that was a bit sinister; really, to make unemployed people bid on potential temporary jobs that the companies are surely going to reimburse the Temp company for. I didn’t know that things were so desperate that a temp company could get away with something like that. . . Sort of sick, I thought.. I would imagine the reputation of the workers from that temporary service has got to be rather poor, because their workers bid to get the jobs and probably arrive to work with a big sense of entitlement. After the dinner rush mostly cleared out and the dining room was pretty much empty, it was just me and Black Guy, so he started talking across the aisle to me. He can’t believe how bad the economy is. Worst he’s ever seen. He had no idea when they said it was bad, just how bad it was going to get like this. He’s so happy to have the new job. He said he lives in a one bedroom apartment, and he comes to McDonalds to drink coffee and socialize. (lol, the poor guy got stuck with me tonight, and I don’t know the meaning of the word ‘socialize.’ I’m not very conversational, but that didn’t stop him from talking. Nope.) He said we might get snow tomorrow night, and it has been so cold that it made things tight while he was unemployed for three months like he was. He said that his heating bill went from $80 a month to over $120 a month. Whew! So Black Guy across the aisle, is not looking forward to more cold weather, but he sure is looking forward to substitute teaching. He started telling me how grocery store prices are so high that it is much cheaper for us to eat out like we were. He really believed we were saving money by eating out at McDonalds. He was also proud of his flu shot. He managed to get one, he said. Lots of people told him not to, and he did know about this one woman who got one and then she had shock and renal failure and died from it, but he felt like he was totally different - and that he would probably be just the opposite and get the flu and die if he didn’t get the shot, so he got one. I knew you would want to know. He was pretty frustrated because I didn’t have anything opinionated that I felt like blurting out in return. I just nodded a lot and kept poking at my game machine making trades. But on my way out, I did congratulate him on his new job and wish him good luck. He really liked that. He started beaming this big huge smile at me and lit up like a Christmas Tree. THE MCDONALDS ‘RESCUE ME’ GIRL There was a girl that came into the restaurant right after I did, by herself. About 20 years old maybe.. She was shorter than me, younger, had long straight brown hair, a skin-tight sweater blouse, good figure, homely face though, wearing faded jeans with no belt, big sloppy red tennis shoes, and no panties. After I had grabbed a booth and sat down I noticed her walking around.. I was pretty much oblivious, listening to the banter of the “regulars,” eating my own food, and trading stuff online, when suddenly she walked over to me and sort of slinked into my booth across from me like a panther on the prowl. She made eye contact and spoke. She explained that her phone just died before she came in, and asked if I had a phone she could borrow to make a call for a ride. Actually I don’t. I was messing with a hand-held gaming device, not a smart phone. And she seemed shocked (I don’t blame her, I think I am the only person I know with no cell phone). She seemed to put a lot of effort into asking me though, so I felt bad for her. I know if I were asking the same question, I would have stood in the aisle and asked politely, though, instead of her prowling panther-like slinking into my booth, dramatically squaring up and then frontal posing before she asked. Wild. So, how did I know she was wearing no panties, you ask? Well, it’s like this. There was maybe some truth to her story, because the black guy across the aisle from me let her use his cell phone to call and she called “dad” and tried to describe just where the heck she was at, so that Dad, or somebody, could come pick her up. It didn’t work. She had to make a second call about an hour later with better directions I guess, but when she did, she bent over black guy’s table while talking, and enough of her bare butt popped out of her jeans to easily determine that she was clearly wearing no panties that amounted to anything. EATING OUT - IT”S ALL ABOUT THE DESERT Big whoop, right? So anyway, I found I was interested in the sociology of the small tribal groups, and the psychology of the lonely unemployed guy who buys a coffee every evening so he can escape his small apartment and sit and chat people up. And, actually, it all reminded me very much of Billy Joel’s song ‘Piano Man’ about the “regulars” at some bar. “Now Paul is a real estate novelist Who never had time for a wife And he's talking with Davy, who's still in the Navy And probably will be for life

And the waitress is practicing politics As the businessmen slowly get stoned Yes they're sharing a drink they call loneliness But it's better than drinking alone” la la la - la la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. So, with a little existential thought, I began to realize that this social web site that I frequent is sort of a bit like that. We have our “regulars” there. It is much easier there online to hide behind computers, and to pick and choose which conversations you involve yourself in. But, I don’t think we have the same acceptance and camaraderie there, although the topics are usually more cerebral.