Corndog Anyone?

You guys have some idea how often I visit truck stops. I've talked about the joy of finding yourself in a South of the Border truckstop after midnight, searching for directions because someone doesn't trust his state of the art satellite navigational device. When you travel in a motor home, truck stops are a required short little spin through hell. You can't just yank that land yacht into any little mom and pop gas station and hope to ever get back out again, so we tend to frequent truck stops when we travel because we know we have room to maneuver, the fuel tends to be cheaper there and you can't buy entertainment like you find at a Route 95 South truckstop for any price. And if you get lucky, sometimes they have a Burger King.

But there's another price to pay for everything that's good.

I was standing in the check out line, my "Bubba" radar on full alert, having given the clerk my credit card, and was waiting for the fuel pump to for the love of God STOP already, when a little fella with a shock of greasy black hair, big fat belly, and the most impish expression you ever saw on his face, came sidling up to me. He grinned. I cringed. He looked at the clerk, grinned a little wider, scooched over a little more my way, and said (get ready, here it comes):

"Gimme one of them there corndogs to go and hey little lady, you wanna come join me while I burp this thing up for an hour or two?"

I stopped cold.

I looked down at him.

He grinned back.

I thought, possibly out loud, but I'm not sure, "Jesus Christ on a cracker."

Then my traitorous lip twitched.

And I friggin cracked up.

Then we proceeded to get into an argument over whether "I'm the Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" was performed by Donna Summer.

I won.

Last Call, Asshole

I have this great friend. Her name is Julie, but for reasons I won't get into, I refer to her as Flipper. She recently started a part time job bartending at her local American Legion. Because she has the same warped sense of humor as me, and in large part due to her scathing wit that she likes to claim is "in direct proportion to her bra size" and to which I replied, "Thank God mine's not because you can't friggin buy wit", I decided to ask, and she graciously agreed, that we post some of her better . . . encounters . . . . behind the bar here on the blog.

So whenever you see an entry with this title, you'll know that Flipper has had another busy week.

Names have been changed to protect the drunk as I can pretty much guarantee you that innocence has no place here.

AAAAAAAAAND, she's OFF!

Take it Flipper.

Things I Learned on my First Night Bartending:

“Hey honey, shake those up for me so I can hit the jackpot” - doesn’t necessarily mean they’re talking about pull-tab lottery tickets.

Bengals vs. Packers on Monday Night Football means some guy thinks he can say to me I’ll bet I can “Pack” your “Kitty”, but it also means I can reply, "honey I’ve coughed up hair balls bigger than you…".

Last call normally means one more drink and ya gotta go – not that you can be my last call of the night.

Things They Learned on my First Night Bartending:

If you’re gonna tell me your name is Donnie, don’t come in wearing a shirt with the name "Troy" scrawled across it, 'cause: a) I’ll assume you can’t read or b) ask you if you grabbed your boyfriend’s shirt off the floor instead of your own.

When I ask what you want, don’t think asking for my number will result in you receiving the number you’re looking for – what he got was one number that I happened to show him using my middle finger.

Just cause I’m new to you doesn’t mean I’m new…these boys have no idea who they’re dealing with…


Thus endeth the first installation of the Flipper Chronicals.