#57 "Happy Hour at the Cafe Loup" May 8, 2013

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There are no real Cafe Loup patrons in this picture. There is one person who is based on a real person, but not a customer. The rest of these characters are from our collective imagination. However, when I posted this on Bookface on May 8, 2013, all of my Loup friends thought they had figured out who was who. I guess on the one hand, you could find similarities to a couple of our customers in some of these fellows, but they just happen to be at the bar. In fact, this one wasn't even located at the Loup until the very end, when I put in the coat room and the clock over there on the far left of the picture. Before that, it was just some random bar in Anytown, U.S.A, although with all those shot glasses littering the bar, it could be anywhere in the world. We always joke about Happy Hour, saying that it's always Happy Hour when someone inquires if we have any specials. I worked in Massachusetts for a long time and you aren't allowed to have happy hours there at all. You can't have happy hours, drink specials, or sell beer in gas stations or after 11 pm or on Sundays (actually, that one got changed) and last call at the bars is at 1am.  It's all from what they call the Blue Laws, which is a fancy name for antiquated Puritanical nonsense. There are Blue Laws in many states and countries that basically force businesses to stay closed on Sunday to observe the sabbath; Massachusetts dates back to the 17th century. You can imagine my surprise when I went to college in New York and found out the bars are open until 4am and you can buy beer pretty much anywhere. I was born in Massachusetts and I have a lot of family from that part of the world, but there are some things about that state that baffle me. I understand that you want to control the amount of alcohol people consume before they do something stupid. I even understand that people in bars at 4am are certainly up to no good. But, if there is one thing I've learned about people and drugs (and alcohol is one of those weirdly and widely accepted drugs), it's that if you want some, you can figure out a way to get it. I learned this in High School, when drinking was taboo, but very common. I learned from a early age that the cool kids went to places like The Field and had parties with beer! This story is as old as teenagers, I'm sure. These kids would find a way to get booze, any kind of booze,and 9 times out of 10 they would succeed. My buddies knew a guy named Basil who would sell them Milwaukee Best cases when they were 16. Kids would lift their parents bottles of booze (which I previously mentioned led to my never drinking of Johnnie Walker Red again). You could always get something if you really wanted it and were determined. It's like that old Chris Rock joke where he says that junkies are the most industrious Americans because they wake up in the gutter and they are high as a Georgia pine by the time they go to sleep.

 Drinking is such an ingrained part of the American Culture. The advertisements for booze come into our homes right through the television. Every magazine has ads for beer and wine and even hard liquor these days. On top of that, people are always discovering new ways to get a buzz. In my lifetime, dozens of new designer drugs have been invented for people to get high from. I know that these are very different from alcohol, but in some ways they are exactly the same. From these designer drugs, all the way down to the caffeine in your daily cup of coffee, drugs are a part of daily American life. You ingest  them in order to change your chemical composition in your brain to feel good and feel different from how you feel without ingesting these things. You take these things to feel happier. You take them at your own Happy Hour. By that logic, when I wake up in morning and have a cup of coffee, that's Happy Hour. When I get off work and have a beer, that's Happy Hour. I guess we were right in our assessment: it really is always Happy Hour at the Cafe Loup.

#54 "The Ones That Mother Gives You" In Color! April 11, 2013

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Speaking of drugs, let's talk about coffee. Most of my life would not be possible without coffee. I feel like a lot of Americans share my love of coffee and would agree that caffeine is hands-down the best drug around. It's legal, accepted, and you can get it almost everywhere. Now, what bugs me is decaffeinated coffee, but we'll get to that in a minute.
As a waiter, I like to have a nice double Americano before I start working. I used to drink a double iced latte to start the evening's shift, but then I decided I was lactose intolerant and I had to cut the milk out of the equation. That was bothersome for a while, but now I have learned to like black coffee and black double Americanos. I will agree with true coffee purists that all of these names, Americano, Macchiato, Cappuccino, are supremely annoying. Then, put Starbucks lingo on top of that and you have reached the pinnacle of obnoxiousness. However, I don't work at a Starbuck's and I rarely go into one, so I am relatively safe from them. But not really, because they have infected the minds of the American Consumer, and that affects me directly as a waiter. When I first started waiting tables, there were two options for coffee; regular and decaf. Now there are seemingly endless combinations. And none of them irk me more than decaffeinated cappuccino. I get one or two of these orders during a shift, if not more. It used to make me physically upset. I would grit my teeth and be so mad at the person who ordered it from me. I would think that they were doing it to spite me, like they knew how much I hated hearing those two words and they were getting joy out of my misery. Not only are they a pain in the butt to make, they are time consuming and when I have a full section on a Friday night and I have to stop and make a couple of these drinks, it can send me directly into the weeds; do not pass Go, do not collect $200. I realized one night after someone ordered a decaf cappuccino that it was affecting me so much and I thought that was a bad thing because people are not going to stop ordering the darn things, so I had to stop being such a baby about them and deal with it. I didn't know how to deal with it at first, because it was and still is an annoying beverage. I realize that people don't always want the delicious buzz that regular coffee gives you. I realize that some old people can't drink regular coffee any more and that after a lifetime of drinking it, they still get the pleasure out of decaf, because it actually tastes like coffee. I get this. I realize that some people don't drink coffee at night because they'll stay up looking at the ceiling in the dark and think of things like last years taxes and did they say the wrong thing at that party last week? I understand all of this. But I don't have to like it.
I finally figured out how to deal with the situation using reverse psychology. I now offer people decaf cappuccinos. That's right, I beat them to the punch. How can I be angry at them if I am the one who brought it up. By that logic, I should be angry with myself for even broaching the subject, but I like myself so I am not going to be mad at myself for something so trivial. I have much bigger issues to be mad at myself for, so offering a sweet old lady a decaf cappuccino is really low on that list. I have even been stepping it up a notch by offering decaf macchiatos, the crowned champion of obnoxious coffee beverages. I mean, really people, a miniature cappuccino? Get a life! I find that using this technique truly works, and I am no longer physically angered by orders of decaf anything. I may still find it annoying and time consuming on a busy night, but I am no longer shaking with rage when I hear those two bitter words. There are so many annoying orders that people come up with, and so many annoying people in the world, it's best to just accept this fact and try not to get so upset by these people. I mean, they have to deal with themselves, which must not be fun, so why let it affect you adversely? I understand that this is sometimes easier said than done, especially in the heat of the moment, but it's good to step outside yourself every once and a while and remind yourself that eventually, everyone will eventually go home.
But you order a "hot water with lemon" and so help me....