*An Imaginary letter I wrote to our Tree Audio client (we design and hand-build tube recording consoles), Pete Townshend of The Who, about My Generation.
Dear Pete Townshend,
As I made and soldered the cables for your Tree Audio recording equipment we just sent off to you, I thought about how I spent my early teen years listening to “My Generation” until I wore down the grooves in my album, while sulking, thinking about how misunderstood I was, how The Who really understood me and my generation, all of us raised in the shadow of the Flower Children with our own issues. Unlike the Woodstock crowd, the media didn’t care much about what my peers and I did or what we thought, didn’t follow our every movement, or put down our every waking moment in documentary film–only stopped to warn us that the free love-era had come to a scary halt with AIDS.
You got me, I thought. Then I realized The Who song was written for YOUR generation, my parents’ generation.
Whatever.
My generation, your generation, my kid’s generation… I think we can all relate to being misunderstood. So thanks for getting my anger. Every time you smashed your guitar, I knew you felt what I felt. Or I liked to think so.
Thanks,
Michele,
Your Tree Audio cable maker
1960s: Free Love!1980s: Halt! Love is NOT Free. It’ll kill you. Play hide ‘n’ seek, instead.
I’m at my computer, fingers flying on the keyboard. It’s a good writing day. I’m in the zone–the writing zone.
What’s that? Oh crap! I hear a light tap at my door. I stiffen, sit up-right, tip-toe away from my window and plan to wait out the knocker until they walk away.
But wait!What if it’s someone important? I don’t know, like someone wanting to give me a big check or maybe it’s UPS delivering a really late birthday present.
Or it could be someone coming to tell me my roof is on fire. I don’t know. So, damn it, I open the door.
Argh. Just as I feared. A sales guy. Yeah, I’m interested in solar, but I’ll do my own research. Plus, I’m in a great writing groove. I’m in the zone.Doesn’t this guy know about the zone?
Me: Well, I’m in the middle of writing. Just give me a card, literature, or a website (Dude, I want you to go away and now). Okay?
Solar sales guy: Okay, I’ll walk around the neighborhood and come back.
Me: (As I’m closing the door). Sure, fine. (I realize he said he’ll come back) No! No! (holding up my pen and waving it at him). Not today. I’m writing.
He backs away, like: Okay, crazy lady with the pen. Just don’t hurt me.
And now for an educational “How to Deal with Door Sales” video:
There were days that made me wonder if I was cut out for movies at all, considering background work was hardly a challenge. Though, for me, it often seemed to be. One of those questionable moments happened while working on a television movie of the week called When the Bough Breaks, starring Ted Danson. During a scene filmed in a Studio City bar called Residuals, the director yelled to me, “Hey, you. What’s your name?”
“Michele.”
“Okay, Melissa.”
Actor Richard Masur was sitting at the bar, and in a slow, calm manner, corrected the director. “Her name is Michele, not Melissa.”
“Whatever!” The director continued pointing at me. “I want you to play a cocktail waitress.”
Someone handed me a tray of highball glasses filled with amber-colored drinks and ice.
“Okay,” the director continued. “Ted is going to storm out in a rage, and while he’s leaving, he’ll bump into you.”
I nodded and didn’t move until I heard, “Background! And action!”
Ted Danson stormed my way. Trying to be helpful, I threw a bit of my shoulder in as he swiped me, causing the entire tray of drinks I held to tip and spill all over the front of his shirt.
Dripping wet, Ted apologized to me—not just once, but twice. “Oh wow, I’m sorry. So sorry,” he said, patting me on the back.
But why? It was my fault. My shoulder move caused the accident.
I didn’t say a thing because the director wasn’t pleased. I knew he wouldn’t yell at Ted Danson, but I was sure he would yell at a lowly extra named Melissa.
That damned Melissa. What a klutz!
***
Turns out, Ted Danson is truly a good guy. In retrospect, considering Ted’s drink handling skills, he must’ve pitied me.
While Googling the Director, Waris Hussein, of “When the Bough Breaks,” (the one who yelled at me, constantly calling me Melissa rather than Michele) I found this photo of him fixing actor Richard Burton’s tie. I guess if you’re Richard Burton the director won’t yell at you and call you by the wrong name. Photo from this link.
Last night, time warped and the earth tilted the second Marv didn’t heed Ian’s advice. It was the point of no return, when Rod Serling should’ve stepped in to warn us:
“You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”
As Marv drives from the Valley on the 101, Ian says, “Whatever you do, Marv, don’t take the Highland exit.” Everyone knows the evening Hollywood Bowl traffic will suck you in, keep you trapped until it spits you out into Hollywood, forever altered – and not in a good way. But Marv doesn’t listen. He ignores Ian’s sage advice, drives onto the Highland exit and plunges us into the hellish pit of metal, glaring headlights and helpless drivers sitting in a mass-stupor.
But we don’t realize things are askew just yet.
“Doe a deer, a female deer…” Marv’s girlfriend, Lisa, and I, both sitting in the back seat, begin singing (after seeing the Hollywood Bowl billboard’s announcement of a Sound of Music sing-a-long), completely unaware we’re hurtling into another dimension, we naively continue singing more songs from Sound of Music, “High on a hill was a lonely goat herd… Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo…”
After an inconceivable amount of time–minutes? Hours? A few decades? Lisa’s car is spit from Highland out onto Sunset Boulevard. Craving Mexican food and thirsting for margaritas, we drive toward El Compadre. We pass the purple neon, blinking lights of the Seventh Veil and its “Live Nude Girls” and the Saharan motel.
Our starving foursome enters El Compadre. Musicians are playing mariachi music. People are smiling. They’re laughing and dipping crispy tortilla chips into chunky red salsa and swigging margaritas into their happy faces. We push through the joyous crowd. They all look so happy, with their chip-eating and margarita-swigging, we want to join them. But we’re told the wait could be an hour, so we decide to drive somewhere else.
It’s then we fall deeper into a dimension I never imagined would be possible to re-visit.
Like zombies, we drive down Melrose toward our destination. As if we don’t live in a city with a wide array of Mexican restaurants, as if we don’t have the power to make choices, we drive on. Nearing Paramount Studios, Marv tells stories of recording at Studio 55. We park across from where Studio 55 once existed. Closed for years now, it’s the reason we drove to Lucy’s El Adobe. It’s where Marv, Ian and lots of recording artists would go to grab a meal.
But that was back in the ‘70s.
“This is where Jerry Brown and Linda Ronstadt would have their tryst,” Marv says as he opens the door to Lucy’s.
We then walk into a room with gloppy amber colored lights stuck to dingy walls, walls littered with bad Mexican motif. On every other inch of the dingy walls are photos of celebrities in frames. I do a double-take. Is that Suzanne Sommers, as Chrissy Snow from Three’s Company, smiling down at me with a pony tail stuck to one side of her head?
While none of us seem impressed with the dated and slightly decrepit atmosphere, we try to find a table. One side of the room’s too dark. The other side’s glaring with light in one corner and dim in another. Unlike El Compadre, there’s no music, no joyous laughter. Some people are seated, but they don’t seem all that happy about it.
Yet we stay.
We’re seated in a room with a too bright TV in the corner, and a very long table of people who seem to have no where better to go. So we join them in their misery, and take our place at a faux-wood, Formica-topped table.
To my right, over Marv’s shoulder, I can’t take my eyes off the bad painting of former California Governor Jerry Brown, circa 1978. He’s in profile, and seems to have an eagle flying out of his nose. But I’m starving and thirsty, so I do my best to ignore it.
Marv mentions again, “Yeah, this is where Jerry Brown and Linda Ronstadt would have their tryst.”
“Marv, do you have some sort of quota to say the word tryst, tonight?” I ask.
Starving and thirsty, we still all manage to laugh.
Finally, a busboy brings us chips and salsa. The watery red salsa is accompanied by a sorry little wooden bowl (the size of a baby’s palm) with about sixteen chips sitting in it. Not great at math, even I calculated that’s only four chips per person.
We each take turns grabbing our first chip. I bite into mine. “Ewww. It’s cold and stale. And what’s with serving them in such a puny bowl? Haven’t they updated since the ‘70s? Don’t they know we now expect bucket sized drinks and huge baskets of chips?”
Lisa nods. Ian rolls his eyes. Marv quotes Woody Allen from Annie Hall: “Two elderly women are at a Catskill’s mountain resort, and one of ’em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.”
With scenes from Annie Hall drifting through my mind, I zone in on the teeny tortilla chip bowl and realize that the bowl is exactly the same type my mom had back when I was a kid… in the 1970s. I look up and stare at Jerry Brown and the eagle flying out of his nose. I shake my head. What decade are we in?
Now Lisa looks frustrated, staring at the tiny wooden bowl. “This isn’t right. The chips are gone, but we still have lots of salsa.”
We all nod. It’s wrong. But I think our waiter won’t be bringing us chips very soon, because he’s probably thinking “Hey, why should I give these people decent service? I cater to the hoity-toity elite, like Jerry Brown, Linda Ronstadt, Chrissy from Three’s Company, the kid from HR Puff-n-Stuff, the Breck Girl, Mr. Whipple from the Charmin toilet paper commercial…”
Finally, we get more stale chips. But now we’re out of salsa. It must’ve evaporated since the time the waiter last visited.
Lisa’s not happy. “Now we have chips, but no salsa.”
We all nod. This is very, very wrong. The chip to salsa ratio is completely askew. We’re in a bad cycle. The waiter may bring salsa, but then we’ll have no chips; then he might find time to bring chips, but then we’ll have no salsa. Lisa’s exactly right.
That’s when I have my epiphany: Of course the chip to salsa ratio is out of whack. The entire night is off-kilter!
Doesn’t everyone see? We’ve been plummeted back into 1978, when Jerry Brown was Governor! That explains the artwork and dated Hollywood “celebrities” on the walls.
We finally get our small (which are supposed to be large, but only according to a long gone era’s measurement), strangely perfumey margaritas. The below average tasting drinks just confirm my discovery of our time travel error. The only way this restaurant could still be opened in the present era of bigger, better, more choices and online restaurant review sites – it’s still 1978. There’s no other explanation for how this place could survive.
The waiter never brings the guacamole Marv ordered and my chicken mole enchiladas taste like they’re drenched in Nestle’s chocolate syrup.
Who else would accept food and service this bad? The only people who would return again and again to this place are people who’ve sat in gas lines due to the oil crisis, people who’ve worn polyester pant suits on a hot LA day, people who’ve hustled to disco music, people who laugh at Three’s Company and listen to their eight-track tapes of Abba and Captain and Tennille. These are the people who don’t complain when served sixteen stale tortillas chips. They don’t know any better. They don’t have online review sites like Yelp. Heck, the personal computer, for them, doesn’t even exist yet.
I keep this information to myself, that we’ve been hurled deep into the darkness of the disco-era doldrums.
Lisa thinks the only thing off-kilter is the chip to salsa ratio. I don’t want to panic her any further. Ian, Lisa and Marv only know the night is out of balance, and it all just feels wrong, as if something’s amiss… but they can’t figure out what.
We can’t wait to get out of this place. We debate what sort of tip to leave and then scamper out as quickly as possible.
As we drive back to the Valley, on the 101, Ian talks about the horrid service. Marv says, “Yeah, we only tipped them fifteen percent. Ha!”
“Yeah,” I say, “And when we tipped them we didn’t really feel like doing it. That’ll show ‘em!”
I laugh to cover my fear that we may never return to the year 2010, where people are served large baskets of tortilla chips, where little joyless crap-hole restaurants could never survive on their reputation from over thirty years ago.
I start to worry: will I go home and find someone’s Ford Pinto parked in my driveway? Will it be my home at all? Or will I have to revisit 8th grade in Northern California, wearing Ditto Jeans and smearing my lips with Bonne Bell strawberry gloss as I hum “Dream Weaver” to myself on my way to school… dreaming about my future? Please, no!!
As we hurtle toward the Valley on the 101, the four of us – as if one – begin chanting nonsense like we’re Yoko Ono quadrupled: Yoko Ono Ono Yoko…aaaaaaaahhhhh…. Uhhhhhhh…. It’s fun. It’s goofy. What are we doing? Are we purging the seventies from our systems?
Few people in the seventies would dare give Yoko the time of day after she (or so she was blamed) tore apart the Beatles. Maybe our homage to Yoko is re-altering the time warp continuum… getting us back into balance. We weren’t supposed to return to 1978. Just as we’re now not supposed to howl and squawk like Yoko. What sane people would want to do either? Are we sane? Well, that’s up for debate, but…
We drive up to Marv and Lisa’s house. Marv’s car is in his driveway, and it’s not an AMC Pacer! We’ve done it. We’ve come back to the future–to the present. Never again will Lisa have to suffer the outrage of chips without salsa, because we, the people of today, have learned to put chips in large baskets. We’re back to where computers have come far beyond Pong! Never again will I take our present day for granted. I’m done dabbling in time travel even if there was some great music back then and Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey, John Travolta, and Linda Ronstadt were all hot.
Who knows, maybe I just hallucinated the entire time warp thing, got carried away with all the Jerry Brown art and musty Mexican motif.
Ian and I say goodbye to Lisa and Marv. We get in our car (What a relief! It’s not a Pinto!), and drive home. Excited to be back in my very own place, I run to my computer and get online to post a review of Lucy’s El Adobe. It’s succinct: “Just don’t!”
Standing behind me, as I type my last “!” is Rod Serling:
“If you think it’s possible to return to the past without any consequences, think again. Once it’s done, everything you know will go out of balance. This is the Twilight Zone.”
I gave myself the word prompt “pickle” and wrote this wacky, fictional thing: “That damned Peaches!”
I blame Peaches. If only Mom didn’t have to leave town for an emergency business trip. Because Dad–or as Mom called him, “That Damned Man!”–wasn’t around, Mom asked Uncle Dwayne if he could watch me. Her name for her brother Dwayne, “Drunken loser.” I was ten, so I told Mom I could take care of myself. I’d just heat up a Swanson frozen dinner, crawl in her warm waterbed and watch my favorite shows: “The Brady Bunch,” “The Partridge Family,” and even the show Mom hated, “Love, American Style.”
Mom rolled her eyes at me and dialed Uncle Dwayne.
A woman with a bubble of red hair opened Uncle Dwayne’s door. “You’re just darling! I’m Peaches!”
She pulled me so close I had to struggle to find air in her Jean Naté-doused cleavage. I knew that smell well from trying it at Woolworth’s and accidentally spilling the entire bottle. The stink made me gag. But I tried not to gag because that would be rude. She seemed nice.
Uncle Dwayne ignored me all night. But I liked Peaches. She taught me how to tease my hair the way she learned when she danced in Vegas. She agreed David Cassidy had amazing dimples and that it really would be great to ride in his colorful bus–but only with him and not with those other Partridges.
“If the bus is rockin’…” Peaches elbowed me and wiggled her eyebrows. “Know what I mean?”
I laughed. No, I didn’t.
In the morning, Peaches let me watch “Soul Train” on Uncle Dwayne’s TV, and she even poured me some coffee. I pretended I liked it, even if I didn’t. But I did like being treated like a grown-up. Mom always acted as if I would become crazed if I had a few sips of caffeine. How silly, I thought, as I drummed my fingers on the breakfast table and tried to stop my knees from shaking.
I needed something in my stomach. Peaches scoured Uncle Dwayne’s fridge to find something that resembled breakfast.
“Dwayne? Doncha got nothin’ in this ice box for the kid?” Peaches yelled, and then reached deep inside the refrigerator. Her butt, in pink polyester slacks, wriggled around as she dug inside. “Sardines, mustard, something green that shouldn’t be–I mean, really! What’re you a cave man?”
Peaches finally managed to scrape together my breakfast: a bowl of tutti-frutti ice cream. She said, “At least it’s got fruit.” So I ate that with some slices of pimento loaf on rye crackers and pickles. She also gave me Uncle Dwayne’s beer stein, his special engraved one that said “Brewski,” full of orange juice.
I lapped up a few spoonfuls of the tutti-frutti ice cream and nibbled a bit of pimento loaf. But those rye crackers smelled weird, sort of like the old guy in my apartment building who smokes a pipe and stares at me when I ride alone with him in the elevator.
Lucky for me, I liked pickles a lot. And I liked orange juice, too. Plus, I was super hungry. Crunch. Gulp. Crunch. Gulp. I alternated between the pickles and the juice. Until, suddenly, I felt the combination of orange juice acids and bitter coffee colliding and then revolting against the pickles I’d consumed. It was war–and my stomach was the battlefield. My insides churned and groaned. I tried for the bathroom, but…
“Damned kid!” is all Uncle Dwayne said to me the entire time I was there. And he only said that because I threw up all over the new orange shag rug in his den–the place he called his “magic spot,” where he spent his time watching football games, and where he hid out the whole time I stayed over. Now he was on his hands and knees picking out partial bits of pimentos, pickles, and tutti-frutti candied cherries from his luxurious deep shag.
Now, decades later, if I smell pickles I have to cover my mouth and run. And I always think about Peaches. Every time I go to the deli and make a big fuss about my sub sandwich, as in: “Excuse me! I told you I can’t have pickles!” I think of Peaches. Every time I get a burger and have to hold my breath as I return the tainted fast food, I think of Peaches. Every time I walk down the aisle in the grocery store that has pickles or pass the grocery deli and smell them, I think of Peaches.
It’s a tough life. Those cruel neighborhood deli employees avoid helping me and talk behind my back whenever I go to pick up a pound of turkey. It’s probably because I’m wearing noseplugs, but so what! Didn’t they see Elephant Man or Sybil? We’ve all got problems. Where’s their compassion?
Worst of all, it’s been nearly impossible to find a guy who will vow to never eat pickles. It’s a dating scenario I never saw portrayed on “Love, American Style”: My pickle problem. What I wouldn’t give to have normal dating issues–a date too talkative, too boring, too cheap. I don’t care, as long as he hates pickles.
My future husband can’t even eat them when I’m not around because I’ll smell them on his clothes, on his breath, from hundreds of feet away. Yes, I’ve tried every kind of therapy–hypno, group, and primal scream, just to name a few. Nothing works. I’ve even tried blinders like horses wear along with my nose plugs. But I can smell pickles from ten feet under chlorinated water. I swear, I smelled them while diving in the deep end at a pool party. A party I was invited to simply because the people didn’t know me well. If they only knew…my life is pickle hell!
That damned Peaches!
*I actually LOVE pickles. I have no idea where this came from. But this dancing lady looks pretty happy with her pickle-like dress.
This is something I wrote many years ago. I realized all the time I spent watching travel and food TV shows, I could be going somewhere or creating something. Writing this piece helped motivate me to get up and write my book, Craving Normal. Not only did I finish my book, but I also haven’t watched TV (except for streaming movies and comedy) since.
I prefer to be living life instead of watching others live.
***
In the green room of my brain, just off the frontal lobe, pull back the curtain, and you’ll see two impatient players waiting for their cues: Imagination and Adventure.
Imagination is off in the corner of the green room drinking a glass of Cabernet while drawing on a sketch pad. She’s fidgety, doesn’t like what she’s drawn–tears it up.
Meanwhile, Adventure is huffing and puffing on exercise machines, keeping flexible. She’s got her muscles warm and passport ready.
“Holy crap!” snarls Imagination. “What the hell is she doing now?”
Adventure nods while sweating on the treadmill. “I know. It’s ridiculous! Why is she watching the Food Network again? I mean, come on! Who needs to watch Giada De Laurentiis eating tiramisu in Rome when she could be getting off her ass and traveling to Italy herself? Okay, she can’t afford it. But dream, baby! Make it happen.”
“It’s not as if she can taste the damn food, anyway,” Imagination agrees. “I mean, I’m good, but not that good. Doesn’t she realize if she just used the two of us she could do some of these things herself–make a tiramisu, travel to Rome… something, anything? Yet, here we wait while she watches TV.”
The Conscience, holding a clipboard while wearing a headset, pulls back the curtain to the Green Room. “Five minutes, you two–be ready. I’m trying to get her off the couch. Just stand by.”
Imagination takes a big swig of wine and a long drag on her Gauloises cigarette. “Yeah, right. I heard that an hour ago.”
“Well, I’m burning calories but going nowhere fast,” Adventure huffs.
“Hey, don’t be so hard on her,” Imagination says to Adventure. “At least she’s not watching re-runs of Sex and the City. You can thank me for that. At least I’ve got her imagining things beyond designer shoes and trendy cocktails. Sure, she watches travel and food programs, but that’s because she imagines the places she wants to go and recipes she wants to create.”
“Great. Her passport’s expired and her cookbooks are getting dusty on her bookshelves. Thanks for nothing.” Adventure says, wiping sweat from her brow.
“Please!” Imagination is now seeing red, more than the Cabernet in her glass. “At least I’ve motivated her that far. What about you? Aren’t you the one to blame for her not even exploring as far as her own bookshelf? I’m only as good as the motivation to go along with it.”
The Conscience pops back in. “Okay, Adventure, you’re on in one minute!”
Adventure runs to the sink to wash her face, takes a big gulp of cold water, and stands by the Green Room door for her cue.
“Hey! What about me?!” Imagination asks the Conscience.
“Oh, you’re not needed yet, so keep drawing. But watch the wine drinking. Her thoughts are getting a little loopy.”
“Thoughts? What’s she thinking about? She’s been watching TV for an hour.”
The Conscience answers: “She’s thinking about her grocery list. It’s getting weird. Already, her list includes corned beef hash for shit-on-a-shingle, saltines, and sardines–foods from her childhood, specifically things her dad ate in the Navy. So cool it with the wine, OK?”
Conscience nods over to Adventure. “Okay, go! You’re on!”
As The Conscience and Adventure run down the grooves of the brain, Imagination calls out, “Where’s Adventure going?
Conscience calls back over her shoulder, “Her cats are out of food. I told her it’s time to go to the grocery store!”
Imagination stares at her empty wine glass. Gawd! I’ve got a lot of work to do.
One of my dreams: to have a sandwich named after me. I know–dream big, Michele!
Ian and I were drooling over the potential ingredients of our namesake sandwiches, recently. That’s when I remembered the summer, after high school, when I worked at The Rockaway Beach Deli on Highway 1 in Pacifica (About 10 miles south of San Francisco, on the coast). A man came in and said to me, “Make me any sandwich you want. Your favorite.”
I pulled out one of our freshly baked sourdough rolls, sliced it open, slathered the roll with Russian dressing, topped it with big pieces of our fresh, sweet crab meat, added some diced onions, and big slices of Gruyère cheese. Then I put the open sandwich under the oven broiler until bubbly and browned, and topped it with the Rockaway Beach Deli’s delicious homemade (made there) cole slaw. The guy loved it.
If THAT’s going to be The Michele Sandwich, I might have to add some hot sauce to give it some spice.
Here I am at 18 years old, posing outside of The Rockaway Beach Deli, during work. You know, doesn’t everyone pose like this while working? *Notice I’m wearing a sweater… it was SUMMER in Pacifica.Photo of the old Rockaway Beach Deli building. I took this on a road trip in 2011.
I can relate to Jennifer Aniston. Not because of her beauty, fame or wealth. Because I lacked flair–TGI Friday flair.
In order to save money so I could move to LA from the Bay Area, back in the mid-1980s, I worked two jobs while going to school: weekends I worked at Mills Memorial Hospital in San Mateo as a Radiology Assistant, and at night I worked as a waitress (If that’s what you can call screwing up orders, upsetting old women, and shattering glasses) at TGI Friday’s in San Bruno.
What I remember:
*One night a drunk guy, while outside TGI Fridays, took out his penis and rubbed it along the length of the long, front window. For weeks my friends and I would point out the thirty foot, snake-like smear to people. For weeks! How were those windows not washed before then? (Photo #1, window on left is where the penis smear stayed for weeks.)
Photo #1: San Bruno, CA TGI Fridays
*We were trained on the menu (basically, stuffed potato skins and fruity cocktails) for two weeks, until we could spew the fried food fare we offered at bullet speed.
*If, while training, we didn’t call out our bar orders correctly (the most time consuming cocktails first, i.e., daiquiris, etc.,), the bartender would pour bottles of booze and mixers directly onto the bar and bark out, “What was that again?” What a waste!
*Before our shifts we would have to line up for inspection. My big-haired manager, Julie, would tap my exposed upper thighs with a ruler. “Your skirts are always too short!”
*People used to make out in the phone booth near the bar. (Photo #2)
Photo #2: San Bruno, CA TGI Fridays
*(See photo #3) That last table, farthest away, is where I upset a group of senior women I was serving because I forgot to bring the birthday “girl” some balloons. That’s also the same table a bunch of twenty-something guys sat at for hours one Saturday, while I ran back and forth serving them, running a tab of a couple hundred dollars. They didn’t tip me. Maybe one of them was that birthday girl’s grandson. Pay back!
*Any time glasses shattered, the entire TGIF staff would call out, “Michele!”
*This is where I served a woman and her boyfriend. From the death grip which she held on to her boyfriend’s hand and the sneer she gave me, I don’t think that woman liked me. Plus, she left me a penny tip on her credit card print out. Sweet!
*TGIF is where I was working when my doppelganger, Rita, (a girl from college I was always mixed up with), sat drinking cocktails with her friends, confusing my TGIF waiter friend. Who said to me, “Michele? I thought I saw you in a booth, having drinks?” Nah, as Rita laughed, I wore my silly, stained white and red striped shirt, covered in sticky cocktails and oil from potato skins, trying to act cheery while being absolutely miserable.
After only a few months, I quit and moved to LA.
In the video clip of Jennifer Aniston from “Office Space,” not only can I relate to her flair flare-up (I didn’t wear kooky buttons or suspenders), but I did leave my answering service job this exact same way–middle finger waving.
Lesson From Last Night: An American Woman (a bit of a hint from last night’s show) canNOT out sorry a Canadian. Any American canNOT out sorry a Canadian. Believe me, I tried. I lost that Sorry Off in a big way.
Backstage (or whatever you call that narrow room with a window looking onto the floor below) at The Troubadour, last night.
Talented Musician Who Happens to be Canadian (extending his hand toward me): I’m sorry, have we met?
Me (extending my hand toward TMWHTBC): Ah yeah, millions of times. (Okay, that may have been a slight exaggeration. About five times, quite a few years ago.)
TMWHTBC: I’m sorry? We have?
Me (seeing he felt awful for not remembering): Oh yeah, but don’t worry.
TMWHTBC: Really, we have? I’m so sorry.
Me: No, I’m sorry for saying that. I didn’t mean to… uh haaa, you know… make you feel badly for not…
TMWHTBC: I’m sorry.
Me: No. No. I.. I’m sorry.
TMWHTBC (with his right hand on his chest to convey his deepest apologies): Really, I am. So sorry.
I couldn’t top the sincerity of his sorry, so I just grabbed my foot and began lifting it toward my mouth. Then I slunked down The Troubadour’s kooky carnival stairs, feeling really, really sorry.
If you ever need to apologize to a Canadian just know you’re going to lose. Simply stick your foot in your mouth and skulk away, admitting defeat. Much quicker.
*As I often say, I make mistakes so you don’t have to.
Formula: 1 sorry Canadian + 1 sorry American = American skulking away in defeat.
(Note: My husband’s Canadian, so I poke fun with love. He used to play bass with Burton Cummings of the Guess Who. I took the below video of Randy Bachman–an old friend of my husband’s–and his band, last night after the sorry off.)
UPDATE! Well, the planets must be aligned in some kooky new way, because this Canadian “Apology Act” just came to me via Instagram (I wasn’t even looking). Read it here: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/09a03
Excerpted from the Ontario law site:
Apology Act, 2009
S.O. 2009, CHAPTER 3
Consolidation Period: From April 23, 2009 to the e-Laws currency date.
No Amendments.
Definition
1. In this Act,
“apology” means an expression of sympathy or regret, a statement that a person is sorry or any other words or actions indicating contrition or commiseration, whether or not the words or actions admit fault or liability or imply an admission of fault or liability in connection with the matter to which the words or actions relate. 2009, c. 3, s. 1.
Effect of apology on liability
2. (1) An apology made by or on behalf of a person in connection with any matter,
(a) does not, in law, constitute an express or implied admission of fault or liability by the person in connection with that matter;
Here’s an excerpt from my book 
