tuckova

ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things

recent posts

about

Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O’Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

working on it

You're working in a restaurant that closes at midnight, and at 11 a bunch of people arrive and want a table. And you say: We close at midnight, so you can obviously sit down now but I want to be clear that I would like you to be gone at closing time. They act offended that you would even imply that they might be planning to take advantage of you, like of course not, they're going to leave at midnight, they really mean it. Midnight strikes, 12:30, 1 a.m. and you're standing near the table with your eyebrows basically rolling off the top of your head and they're still there, ignoring you, nursing their last beers, laughing at their own witticisms. When they finally leave, they don't tip. 

How many times do you let this happen with that group before you stop trusting them? How does it affect your attitude toward another group? At what point in your story do you refuse to let people drive over you? What if they personally haven't done anything to you yet? Why, in this story, does it feel to you like telling them to leave makes you the bad guy? Why, when telling this  story, do people act like if you fail to fight back there's something wrong with you? What about if this is not a job at a restaurant and customers and closing time, but your house, your friends, your bedtime? What if it's mine?

Posted in

Leave a comment