It's almost here. The best day of the year. Many wait for this day all year long. The typical reaction when the day actually comes and goes is, "Well, only 364 more days until it's here again." It's like counting down to St. Patricks' Day, except opening day has so much more meaning to it. The history that people make out of tradition, and not based on some assclown who has a day named after him even though his ass isn't even Irish. I wish I could have a day named after me that had nothing to do with my background. It would be called, "St Jimmy Cababa's Day", and represent my contributions to the world for being awesome. So I guess it would sort of be like an Earth day, where people think globally and act locally. And by act locally I mean give me large sums of money and gifts to continue "tradition." What a bunch of hooey. 

We have all have that friend, that companion, that acquaintance, who despises the idea of working out. The idea alone gives them ghost adventure chills, the goose bumps that look like meteors on your arms and can be jointly used as scrubbing devices for stained laundry. An idea developed in their brain in a negative way, increasing their desire to stay not thin and watch more cooking shows, because watching cooking shows really doesn't make people hungry. No, they really don't. I swear. I hate watching amazing food being created by some of the world's greatest chefs. I know they are not enjoying those pieces of pork sliced heaven doused in succulent sauce. It's all for show. Those chefs. Such great actors.

With mentally unstable people like these, it may difficult to lure them into the gym. Whether using donuts or guaranteeing future conjugal visits, any method to get them simply in the lobby of a workout facility is challenging. Once inside though, there are some guidelines that you must abide by. Follow every single one, or you will find yourself in a world of fat spew and the uncomfortable stench of sweat from beneath layers of stomach rolls.

1) When running on a track, run at your own pace. You need to get your workout in too. Because they run slower than fast mall walkers doesn't mean you need to keep them company. Lap them 10 times and talk shit every time you pass by. Make them feel inferior. Make them pay for you having to watch such laziness. You owe it to yourself.

2) Find some of the lazy partner's attributes and destroy them. There are people out there that liked to be pushed, and there are others that get pushed away. I like to push people, period. Tell them they read too much about Richard Simmon's tips on working out and need to start listening to you instead. Tell them your 12 year old niece can lift more than them. Let them know that they smell terrible and that showers are NOT optional. Give them advice on who to go to to get facial plastic surgery for a "fresh start." Point out that you haven't seen workout gear like that since the Saved By The Bell singing group Hot Sundae. I'm so excited! I'm so, so scared! (If you don't get this reference, you mean absolutely nothing to me. Go eat some caffeine pills before a geometry exam and then we can talk).

3) Make yourself look better because of your lazy counterpart. You obviously look better than the lazy asshole your working out with. Make it apparent that they're your bitch, and they will do what you say. Trust me, it turns other people on.

4) Let them learn the hard way. Oh, you put too much weight on that bench bar and now you're stuck underneath it? Gosh I'm thirsty. I'm gonna go get some water and be right back. You're cool? Ok then. Don't talk to me. Just keep that bar up against your throat. See if I care. Jerk.

5) Collect money for complaining. I have found this to be one of the most important rules. With lazy fuckers in the gym, they have a tendency to complain, whine, stamp their feet, roll their eyes, give excuses of why they can't lift that 2.5 pound weight, and wander into the locker room after being at the gym for five minutes saying, 'Oh, I thought we were done." Charge $1 for each complaint, having no sympathy and making up more rules as you go. Oh, you have a complaining look on your face. That's a dollar. Long sighs? Dollar. Looking down? Dollar. Being ugly as fucking hell? DOLLAR. Actually 2 for that one.

6) Compliment on a job well done every month. That's right, once a month. If your workout everyday for a month, give a job well done pat on the butt at the end of the month. You don't want to tell them they're doing a good job, because we all know they really, REALLY suck at everything. If you start praising them with gift wrapped compliments, they get this notion that you like them and that you want to be friends. We all know this is extremely far from the truth, and feelings of shame and misguidance have a good chance of settling in if you experience this sort of nonsense. Give it once a month. Plain and simple. Remember, they are inferior, and should feel as such at all times.

7) Outdo them with everything you do. It's inevitable that this will happen anyways, so it's just a friendly reminder. You're awesome.

Make the gym into your own personal Ronald McDonald house. Helping you help others. You can even call it "Ronald's Ugly McLazy house for little bitches, men and women welcome." They will flock in populations to get in the doors.

Not groups, POPULATIONS. That's how many will want your expert workout advice and services. You know that road to success? It's after following these rules. Just fucking do it you lazy piece of asshole ass.

Welcome everyone to another KQU Corp seminar! Our motto is, "Find Taupe Dope!" I am so energized that KHAKIS QUALITY US! has brought together so many great minds, searching for opportunities and attaining goals! We have accumulated 3.4 Hundred Thousand Dollars in the last year with sales, poaching ideas, and getting the best scoop on those darned jeans makers. How do they know what quality slacks are made of? How do they figure that they can break out of the pants industry and open in the jacket industry? DOES anyone even LIKE JEAN JACKETS? Hell no! No hell! We have the honor of working with such fine products made by quality companies that use NOT BLUE thread and develop ideas on how to make khakis, simply put, a better tomorrow. There is so much to talk about today that I don't want to get ahead of myself and give away the surprise! Should I give it away? Should I? Should I? Ok I will! Haha! You're all so eager!! I LOVE THE SYNERGY!!!!!

There is a ritual in any industry in the world: the after work drink. Promoting camaraderie, inducing eachother with liquid poison only to feel like the inside of an ass the next day, rubbing on any human and/or piece of furniture that is nearby, licking substances off surfaces with the likes of port-o-john's, sticking tongues out and murmuring "BLAAAAAHHHHH" instead of complete sentences or words for that matter, and encouraging liquid courage acts of normally taboo situations like calling a woman ugly to her face or staring at body parts with great attention comparative to jet plane detailers. These are prominent in all industries, but magnified times 1 million in the restaurant industry. You don't drink and you work in a restaurant? You don't do harmful drugs and participate in illegal operations at least once a week? Well, my friend, get ready to be the absolute WEIRDO in the establishment. Shunned like Amish tradition, you WILL be muscled out in several ways with no mercy for your well being.

If you do end up meeting the qualifications of having an altered state of mind at LEAST once a day, the ability to identify shortcuts and how to get one step ahead of your teammate by immoral actions, the desire to get boldly fucked up after work and the audacity to tell the story with great inaccuracy when sober (whenever that is), and the drive to make a new employee feel less qualified than yourself, then you will have an easy time getting along after work.

The festivities are either planned statically, the same bar at the same time everyday. These are the bars that happen to be 10 feet away, have owners that are incoherent themselves most of the time, and carry the cheapest drinks in town. I feel that restaurants are sometimes set up in proximity of dive bars, the owner of the restaurant getting a cut from the bar because the bar's business WILL increase it's current business by double with the presence of kitchen beer guzzlers, martini sipping cute servers, and shot pounding bartenders.

These same rules apply to the executive chefs and the sous chefs. They endure the longest hours, deal with all the unruliness of "I need today off" and "I don't want to work with stinky-man over there anymore" demands, and have to answer to "The Man" at all times of the day. This type of stress can  only lead to one thing: heavy drinking. They make their way into the bar, arriving hours after hourly employees got there, ready with the T-Rex mentality to get rip-roaring wasted in no time flat. You think Nascar drivers have fast times around a track? Watch a chef order drinks. It's like THIS FAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They order the finer drinks as a show drink, like Chartreuse or Patron on the rocks with a little bit of lime. These drinks are never finished by the end of the night, and only show the lowly employees that they have some class and DO know what good drinks are made of. This is only followed but numerous shots of rail tequila, that the chef and the bartender call "The Stuff", code for the cheap stuff and the employees are none the wiser. These shots are all doubles, and the hourlys look on as the chefs guzzle down 3 or 4 at a time, like a sniper firing line at target practice. They try to do the same, looking up to the chef as a role model for belligerency, but fail miserably, only to be found crapping in their pants and puking in a toilet simultaneously (yes, you have done it also. Don't lie. Seriously. Don't lie). After these so-called attempts, the chefs are praised once again in a "SALUD!" manner with drinks purchased by the lowly busser who is so high off the detergent the sous chef sold him earlier that he doesn't realize he is spending his entire paycheck.

Once the head chefs are good and toasty, the truth on how they REALLY feel about employees comes out. Who is a hard worker, who they want to strangle with an empty bag of Romano cheese, and how much they love to cook, but just not for the fuckers that actually eat at the restaurant. This leads to stories from the past about kitchen horror stories, only revealed to the innocent server or new line cook who is too nice to simply walk away or get a word in to change the subject. The chefs find these people like mice find warm places to live in the cold winters of Wisconsin. They find them, hone in on them with their drunk tractor beam of authoritativeness, and latch on like parachute hooks. Words get fumbled, random laughing from a short thought in their brain which they don't relay to the listener, arms around necks with comments like "You're REALLY HOT" or "I LOVE YOUR YOU. YEAH. YOUR YOU. I LOVE", and wrestling challenges on the open floor after moving some tables out of the way.

They then sit at the bar, looking off into space and talking to nobody in particular. This is the time when the poor employee that was tortured for the last two hours by asinine stories has to pick the chef up off the bar stool and drive him home. The rest of the employees in the bar are still going full force, grabbing eachother in all ways, the rookie's pretending water is vodka because they want to stay on everyone's "cool side" while fearing for their life at the same time, and loud bitching about guest's that come in and have this and that problem day in and day out.

The next day is mellow in the morning, everyone taking aspirin from the commercial size bin that's full of it, drinking water like it's going out of stock, and praying and hoping that nobody brings up that "thing" that you did at the bar last night. The chefs arrive late, looking like they participated in a flatliners experiment the night before and immediately yell, "WHERE THE FUCK IS THE COFFEE, YOU LOWLY FUCK FUCKS???" It continues with the weirdos asking what happened last night, not having any regard for the mack truck headaches that everyone has.

When the guest's arrive, the day turns from grey to sunny. The staff is revived, the acts and regrets from the night before stowed away in a rather large filing cabinet, and it simply becomes business as usual. Until the planning begins for the night again.

Clockwork, baby. i love this fucking industry.

The week of veggies was relaxing. We only had to work with a few veggies per day, the recipes were easy, the Legion of Slack was a bit more productive, the amount of veggies we had to work with were not ALL phallic-shaped, and I located the secret society of 'The Free Coffee Searchers' to obtain all my coffee for free from an indiscreet brew station behind the kitchen. It served to save me a dollar a day, stuffing those sacred singles away for a trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to visit that loving hangout, The Lumberyard. 

OH, THERE'S A WATCH TOO?

Growing up, I have always had an obsession with packages. I would be waiting at Christmas evening, or eve, whatever the "PC" term of calling it is. I'd wait for everyone to open their gifts so I could climb in the empty boxes and act like I was invisible. Well, not invisible, but just unseen. Yeah, that was it. They would tell me to stop farting around and clean up the boxes, so I would, but I'd store them in my secret hiding place in the basement along with my toenail clippings and grocery receipts my Mom gave me to "learn responsibilty." It was a small corner, but my hours spent playing Tetris gave me insight on how to fit everything everywhere.

So, 17 years later, my Mom finally found my stash of goodies in the basement and took it upon herself to dispose of everything! Can you imagine the devastation that I was experiencing? 17 years of storing the most important things in my life, GONE. I didn't speak to her for a month after that tragic incident, paintballing her house with bicycle drive-bys in my ski mask and mittens and prank phone calling from random pay phones in the city. I tried to rotate the phones so the same number wouldn't come up twice in one week, and pretty soon she changed her number. You think that stopped me? H to the ELL no! I started working for a telemarketing company that sold "end of the world" insurance to people on unemployment. The deal would secure them in the alternate universe that NASA was currently "researching." I found her new number, called her frequently, and convinced her to get the Simmons package, which included a free flight to Neptune for facials and the freedom to choose from 3 different color space boots. The Muska option only gave you grey boots. She made the right choice.

So, after the stalking scenario, I came across something that occupied my time to the fullest. It was the Flud Turtable Watch, in all it's glory, staring me right in the face with glimmering corners and a gripping band. My attention was focused, but not on the shiny watch. It was the sexy packaging that it came in. The little mini flight case was giving me feelings of intimacy, like how people feel when they got to Sybaris resorts, blocking out the fact that jiz and human excretions are literally EVERYWHERE. I felt a tingly feeling DOWN THERE, where Sargent Shaft is in charge of the entire nether region.

The shiny window showcasing the watch was so clear, like a small little window washer lived inside the case to actively seek water spots or fingerprints. A 24/7 window washer? A motivated one at that? What more could you ask for?

I gave the watch all the attention I could, but the case was the selling point for my very important purchase. Now I had a new place to keep my secret stash of newly collected clippings and receipts. I suppose everything DOES happen for a reason.

Hey, why do these telemarketers keep calling me? OH MY GOD! MY HOUSE IS BEING AMBUSHED! GET DOWN! GET DOWN!

What?? They're paintballs? Shit.

Karma is a bitch. Sorry Mom