misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

As an unintended benefit of my new job, I have the pleasure of working on the 23rd floor of a 32-story building on 40th and 3rd Avenue. This is officially the highest floor of a building I've ever worked in. It symbolizes the meteroic ascendancy of my career. During my days at M3iworks (relax, Linda, I'm not about to write anything you have to sue me over), I worked on the 8th floor of a 10-story building in the pulsing Mexican heart of San Jose, Calilfornia (for the record, San Jose officially has the worst skyline of any city in the United States .. or abroad, for that matter. I know all about the laws prohibiting any buildings over 12-stories because of the nearby airport, but that is little consolation. Their skyline consists of about seven buildings of 10-stories or less that jut into the air like the thick thumbs of obese, balding men. This accurately describes my five years spent there). Upon moving to New York, I began work on the 12th floor of a 12-story building. As I had gotten older and moved into a better career path, this elevation of working floors seemed fitting. And now, as my career surges forward with the power of a water-conserving toilet flush, I find myself on the 23rd floor. Yes, I know what you are thinking. It is the same number the immortal Michael Jordan once wore ... without the floor part, of course.

After my initial elation of having advanced so far in my life I could work on such a high floor, I quickly realized an immense drawback to the high-floor location. For the sake of your own personal experience, I shall create a scenario for you:

It is 1:24 PM. You decide it is time for lunch. Today, you are thinking you'll head over to Subway for the $5.48 Turkey Sandwich meal (6" Turkey on wheat, no cheese, green onions, peppers, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper with Baked Lays and 2-calorie lemonade). You head over to the elevator lobby and press down. You are expecting a wait, as it is lunch time and about 193,000 people are trying to use the same elevators. So you wait. And wait. Lucky day! You hear melodic chirp of the elevator. An elevator opens after only a wait of two minutes. You step in, where the elevator has only two other people in it. The Ground Floor button has already been pressed. The doors close, like steel curtains.

You begin moving down. You don't get very far - to floor 22, to be exact. The doors open, one person gets on, the doors close.

The elevator moves down again. To floor 21. The doors open, two people get on, the doors close. The elevator moves down. To floor 20.

I shall condense the remaining time with the following:

Floor 20. Stop. Doors open. People Enter. Doors close. Elevator goes down.

Floor 19. Stop. Doors open. People Enter. Doors close. Elevator goes down.

Floor 18. Stop. Doors open. People Enter. Doors close. Elevator goes down.

Floor 17. Stop. Doors open. People Enter. Doors close. Elevator goes down.

Floor 16. Stop. Doors open. People Enter. Doors close. Elevator goes down.

Floor 15. Stop. Doors open. People Enter. Doors close. Elevator goes down.

Floor 14. Stop. Doors open. People Enter. Doors close. Elevator goes down.

At this point, roughly an hour has passed, and my blood sugar is low enough I have trouble keeping consciousness. I'm shoved between a hairy Pakistani woman and some 83-year old man whose cane is pressing into my ass. To experience the scent, I recommend you go find a dead male otter and bury your nose in its ball sack. By the time the doors finally open onto the ground floor, and people spill forth like ink shot from an octopus' eyes, my lunch break is over. So I have to turn around and get back on the elevator. Of course, all the people waiting in the lobby to go up crowd in. Unsuprisingly, they all work on a different floor. So you can experience this with me, as well, I shall provide the sequence.

Floor 14. Doors open. People get off. Doors close. Elevator moves up.

Floor 15. Doors open. People get off. Doors close. Elevator moves up.

Floor 16. Doors open. People get off. Doors close. Elevator moves up.

Floor 17. Doors open. People get off. Doors close. Elevator moves up.

Floor 18. Doors open. People get off. Doors close. Elevator moves up.

Suffice to say, by the time I get back to floor 23, the work day is over. So i go get my bag, head to the elevator and ... I'm guessing you have the picture at this point.

This has definately put a thorn in my plans to one day work in the Penthouse floor of the Chrysler Building. Unless, of course, I am built a private express elevator.

In any event, it is about midday. Time for me to not go get lunch.

I just returned from the battle of my life.

Usually, if forced to take a crap (or what girls might refer to as "having a number 2") in a public place, I try to wait until the bathroom is totally empty. At various places of employment, I've gone so far as to go in the bathroom with every intention of launching a few butt missiles, only to find that somebody is in there, so I have to fake that I only have to take a piss or wash my hands, then go outside and wait for that person to leave. I'm not sure where this fear of pooing with people around comes from (probably some sort of combination of Catholic fear of dirty things with a splash of social disorder), but I do know it is a part of me. Any time I've tried to overcome this fear, I find myself trying to poo really quiet and noiselessly, which, given the amount of beer i drink, is quite challenging. And it interferes with the pleasure of taking a truly refreshing dump. So, I am resigned to my curse. The curse of having to investigate a bathroom before beginning launch sequence to ensure it is 100% empty.

However, earlier today, I was caught unaware. My new place of employment has a public bathroom with four stalls. As one can imagine, it can be quite a source of consternation to find the privacy I require for pooing (finding new ways to say "taking a shit" is one of the more enjoyable parts of writing this blog). So I was pleased when I entered the bathroom a few moments ago to find the bathroom was empty. After lining the toilet with two layers of toilet paper, I sit down and grab Volume 4 of Winston Churchill's "World War II" historical. Suddenly, I realize I am not alone. Someone, who clearly hid all sounds when I entered, had managed to trick me. He was in stall number 1, and I was in stall number 3. The battle had begun. Could I outwait him? Wait for him to leave before beginning my unloading?

While deep in thought, I unfortunately let slip a loud fart that I was unable to hold inside any longer. In other words, I rocked him. The sounds reverberated against the cheap, tan porcelain walls. I smiled knowingly. I had launched the first volley. A warning shot. My own personal Bunker Hill.

The battle had begun.

He was not bashful in his response. Clearly, I had an opponent of equal skill as myself. Within moments of my own mortar launch, he let go an artillery barrage that would have made General "Monty" Montgomery proud. War had been declared. He was not backing down from the challenge. The depth and power of his barrage stung my ears and my nose, yet I refused to be intimidated.

In good fortune, my diet of fried foods and beers gave me an ample ammunition dump within my descending intenstine. I decided to put forth a battery which he would not soon forget. I launched 88s, 112s, and some RPGs in a spectacular display of sounds and force. The shock waves alone caused immediate impact damage to the stall doors. My message had been sent.

Clearly stunned, my opponent was unable to reply. He came back with the small tinkle sound of urine, and a nearly impercetible sound of poop hitting the water. I literally had scared the crap out of him.

Pleased with my performance, I pulled up my pants, flushed and left. I hadn't even crapped. I guess it was just gas giving me the feeling that I had to crap. Either that, or my scared, cowering little poos were unwilling to come out in the presence of another human. Apparantly, my body has determined a privacy system. Farting in front of anyone and everyone is acceptable. Taking a dump in anything other than total privacy, however, is not.

I guess we all have our things, don't we.

A few weeks back, Jill and I had a craving for T.G.I Fridays.

All three of my readers are well aware I spent a majority of my early twenties at the T.G.I Fridays off of Wolfe Road in Cupertino, California (in the shitty Valco Mall, home to San Jose's one public ice rink). It is common knowledge that the strengths of a T.G.I Fridays are their appetizers and NTN Trivia games. Their spinach and artichoke dip, buffalo chicken tenders, and potato skins are among the best in the business. Washed down with a 22-ounce Widmer's Hefewiezen and kicking Lee's ass in a 15-question countdown, you have yourself a fine night. Now I've never argued their entrees were top-notch, though I used to make fine work of their cajun chicken tenders and spicy fries. In any event, those days provided me many warm memories, and I attempted to relive them for a night by attending my first T.G.I Fridays since I moved from California.

Of course, the wrinkle in my plan was New York. As good as my memories at T.G.I Fridays were, I was only there because there were NO other options in Cupertino (by the way, don't you hate fuckers that use ALL-CAPS to emphasize a word in an email or blog? what does the ALL-CAPS mean? is it like an alternative to an exclamation point? are you trying to say if you were talking, which you aren't, but if you were, you'd be yelling? and besides, my previous statement was full of shit. there are, in truth, other options to T.G.I Fridays in Cupertino. Like that English pub down the street. so I shouldn't have ALL-CAPPED the word NO .. anyway...) Manhattan is a tad different. Going to a T.G.I Fridays here is like going to McDonalds when you're in Prague (which incidentally, I did about every day when I lived there). Regardless, we selected the T.G.I Fridays (sorry for the 19th interruption here, but typing T.G.I Fridays fucking sucks, so I am going to use a nickname from here on out. T.G.I Fridays will herein be referred to as "Tiggys") on 34th and 8th Ave, very near Madison Square Garden. Yes, tourist trap, yes bad food, blah blah, but we did it anyway. We walked upstairs and were seated very promptly, surrounded by the requisite canadian, texan, dutch, ecudorian, and oklahomian tourists. I'm getting excited at this point imagining my order. I'm definately going to start with the Hefeweizen .. then maybe try this new sesame sauce chicken tender appetizer .. move on from there to the cajun chicken tenders, and wrap it up with the double oreo madness .. We are handed our menus, I open it excitedly and WHAT THE FUCK! Did I accidentally confuse a fine steakhouse for a tiggys? Has it been that long since I've been to a tiggys? At what point did they raise their prices three-fold? Spinach and artichoke dip $11.99 plux tax?? Cajun chicken tenders $16.99 ??? A cheeseburger $15.99 ??? The entire point of a tiggys is affordable food. The minute you charge $15.99 for a cheeseburger you are entering the upper echelon of Manhattan restaurants, and tiggys is as far from being a fine restaurant as I am from being a Haitain refugee. The fucking nerve of the tiggys owner of this restaurant for charging these kinds of prices for shitty food. Prices he knows the clueless tourists from around the earth will pay because a tiggys is special to them. Well, it isn't special to me. What makes a tiggys a tiggys is paying 4 dollars for the 22-ounce hefeweizen, and $3.99 for the appetizers (while kicking Lee's ass in trivia, of course). If you wanna charge the kinds of prices this place on 34th was trying to charge, you better change your name, your menu, your servers, your food, your drinks, your inside, your outside, your history, your purpose, your owners, your advertising, your bathrooms, your parking lots, and everything else that makes you a tiggys. It is like charging $45,000 for a Kia. It simply shouldn't happen.

Resultingly, I left a restaurant for the first time in my life. I put the menu down, took a good look around, and walked out (dragging Jill by the hair, which is how she likes me to move her). That is the last look I am ever going to get at the inside of a tiggys.

They just lost their biggest-ever fan.