All in all, the past month or so has been pretty sleepless for me to begin with, as Av is usually up with the sun and we live in the loudest neighborhood in America. I have gotten used to the early rising and the interrupted naps. I just drink a lot of Red Bull and do my best to find things for us to do that involve a lot of travel or movement, so I don't doze off standing up.
Today, however, was and still is the roughest day that I have had to encounter yet.
My bad luck actually started very early this morning, before I went to bed, at around midnight. I was scheduled to close the bar at work, which on the weekends usually keeps me out until 1:30-2, but on a regular week night I can usually be ready to close right when we do last call at 12. Most of the time there are one or two people left who leave right away, then I mop the floor and get the hell out. Last night was an added bonus because I had a trainee working with me, which means I do half the work and we finish up in half the time. Nice.
Things went awry right at midnight, after I did last call, when I was trying to get all of my customers to pay so I could have my register counted. One particularly hostile man was refusing to pay for his $6.25 tab (which I was going to have to pay if he didn't). In the grand scheme of things $6.25 is no big deal, but it wasn't like the guy walked out, he just straight up refused to pay. His reasoning? He paid his friend's tab instead (a claim that was later discovered to be untrue). So it was the principle of the matter, and I was determined to make him pay.
The conversation went something like this.
"Hey, man, are you taking off? You forgot to pay your tab."
"No way, I paid it, you liar."
"Nope. You didn't, its right here. $6.25."
"Fuck you, I just dropped $120 at this fucking place. I just gave my friend $120 for his tab!" (Untrue. His friend's tab was $18 and the girl he was with paid it).
"I didn't ask you to pay your friend's tab, I'm asking you to pay your tab. I don't care how much money you spent tonight, you owe me $6.25."
"Fuck you, you want this skateboard. How 'bout that. Take this skateboard. I'll leave that here 'cuz you aint getting any more of my money."
"I don't want your skatboard man, just pay your tab. That's all I'm asking. I don't think that is unreasonable."
"Fuck you." (At this point he walks out, while giving me the finger. Awesome.)
I knew I wasn't going to have to pay the tab because my manager watched the whole thing go down, so I wasn't that pissed, it was what my manager did next that ruined my chances of leaving early.
When the dude left his skateboard a kid across the bar asked if he could have it. I told him I'd sell it to him for $6.25. This was actually going to take place until the dude who walked out's friend came back in looking for his skateboard. yep. Dude not only walked out on his tab, but tried to sell his friend's skateboard. Nice.
Long story slightly less long, this somehow led to my manager, Robert, (who's creepiness and weirdness I can not even begin to describe here) in to a, no exaggeration, 45-minute conversation with the four remaining customers in the bar. The kid who was going to pay for the skateboard, his buddy and the two VERY scantily clad Asian girls they were there with. I mean VERY scantily clad, too. Like one of those deals where it is difficult to wait on them because all you see is boob flowing out all over the bar top.
Anyway, I paid little attention to the conversation, as I was irritated that it was happening and was preventing me from going home, but a few times I walked by to hear Robert talking about such enthralling topics as losing money in the stock market, investing in Green Mountain Coffee, living in California and employing Brandon Boyd, the lead singer of Incubus, in his coffee shop and at one point I honestly heard him ask the question, "Have you ever met anyone from Zimbabwe?" Of course the kids, who were pretty drunk, were loving the interaction. Even the Asian girls, whose skirts were even skimpier than their shirts, looked semi-interested in what Rob had to say.
(This would mark the first time ever anyone, Asian or not, gave a shit about what Rob had to say, by the way.)
This conversation irritated me on many levels, not the least of which was that it caused me to arrive home no earlier than 1:15. I hadn't eaten since about 4 p.m., so I had to eat before bed, which means I didn't get in between the sheets until almost 2. Which was seemingly the point in time where the party down the street just got going.
Along with the faint beat of music I could hear what I only imagine would have been the championship round in a game of flip cup, or beer pong, or some drinking game. There was cheering, yelling, good 'ol fashioned fun. A very high-stakes competition, indeed. If I were still 22 I would have been there. But I'm not. Instead I was in bed, counting the minutes until I had to wake up and take care of an infant. So I was pissed.
After the party wrapped up the idiot from across the street, who Monica calls Seth Rogan because they have the same laugh, came home from what I believe to be a separate, equally as raging party. Also drunk, he got out of his friend's car and decided he was going to continue their loud conversation about some chick named Stacy in the street. At this point, Monica was up feeding the baby, and I could actually hear the re-verb from the conversation in the baby monitor.
Sleep finally came around 3:30, but was short-lived as obese sweatpants family across the street decided to have a domestic squabble around 4:30-5. I never really catch what they are fighting about, but given their lack of personal hygiene and extreme weight problems across the board, I can imagine that tensions are pretty high in that house most of the time. If I were that huge, I'd be miserable, too.
In any event, the baby woke up at 6:30, probably tired herself from being woken up by all the noise. I sleep waked through the first segment of the morning, trying desperately to wake up. Around 8:30 I deided it was nap time.
I loaded Av in to the car and she fell asleep instantly. Yes. Awesome. Now we can both take a nice, long nap. No such luck.
First, we were both awoken by a field trip group of elementary school kids walking by the house on some sort of ghetto scavenger hunt. The teacher stood directly below my window and shouted at some kid named Kevin, and then spewed instructions for the kids to find a red fire alarm box. I didn't get a chance to hear what was next, but I'll bet it was to open a fire hydrant and let the water flow like a sprinkler, or count the stray cats, or follow the faint smell of weed to the nearest unemployed person. "Hey kids, welcome to the ghetto. Make sure you go to college and apply yourself or you could live here."
I thought we managed to avoid the kids ruining nap time, but if we did the asshole next door with the contracting business put the final nail in our coffin. Aside from having the loudest, most obnoxious dog ever, the proprietor of Goodwin General Contractors is also a huge dickhead who is always yelling at his employees on the phone and bribing Mexians with cash to help him finish projects.
He is based out of his white trash garage, so throughout the day I get to see and hear this happen right next to me. This morning he was yelling at somebody who apparently did something wrong, and it appeared that the punnishment for that was to mow his lawn, because that is what happened next. All but ending our nap.
"Nobody wants to work, they all want to get paid. Well, you want to get paid, you lazy fuck, your going to work." real quote.
The only positive about this situation is that Av is tired, too. So she has been pretty chill today. So far I have fallen asleep on the floor making sure she doesn't hurt herself when she crawls, on the couch watching Sesame Street, briefly in the kitchen standing up watching her walk in her little walker car and for about ten minutes on my own bed while she was still in the walker car.( I had initially sat down to put on socks and ended up falling asleep instead).
This afternoon we have a trip to the park planned, and maybe a stop at the library. Hopefully that will tire her out enough, and hopefully my ghetto neighbors will stay quiet and I can sneak in a nap before I have to go to the Lynn Item tonight.
Oh yeah, that was short lived, too. Turns out they really do need someone to help out with School Committee meetings. Dammit. I'm going to get drunk first...
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