..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Sunday, October 31, 2004

"Step into my office...you're fuckin' fired!"
- There's Something About Mary


THE TACO BELL CHRONICLES

Chapter Four:

"When do you work next?"


all i wanted was a taco.

the last three times i've asked my partner in crime (at the time) to pick me up some Taco Bell, something has happened where i ended up not getting any. it was getting to be a running joke and the night of the Presidential Debate was no exception:

the evening started out innocent enough. i was having some people over to laugh and watch the 2002 Bush/Kerry debates. i figured if we had to drink a beer every time Bush fumbled and fucked up English like it was his second language, we'd be drunk enough not to care who actually won.

anyhow, my friend Nate was already at my apartment and we're waiting for KT to come back from campus with her friend Dana. I sent KT out on Taco duty. now, it’s been years since the undergraduate Taco Bell incidents, so i’m almost ready to think of it as just another fast-food restaurant. but they’re running awful late. i decide to call them and ask them to pleeeeeeze hook me up with some tacos on their way over, in case they forgot.

i should have known i'd never get to have one.

sure enough, a half hour later, in walks two girls empty-handed and visibly shaken from their trauma at the Taco Bell drive-thru. their story goes like this:

they pulled up to the speaker to order the food (MY food. sniff.) and the girl inside was having trouble hearing them. so Dana says, "no, not bean burrito, beeeeFFFFF burrito" and apparently by exaggerating the letter "F" she sent the girl at the drive-thu window into a downward spiral of madness. they pull forward to pay, and the girl takes the money and then says, "by the way, don't ever get smart with me again." the girls in the car are like, "what did you just say?" and she just slams shut the window and walks over to another employee to rant about it, waving her arms around like (KT’s words) she's being attacked by bees. then they're taking too long with the food and Dana decides to ask for the money back because now she's thinking someone's going to spit in the beeeeFFFFF burrito (MY burrito. sigh.) or worse. the crazy bitch (now they can see that her nametag says "Kim") throws the money at them and says, "you're lucky i'm in here or i'd come out there and kick your fucking ass." so now Dana and KT are getting loud too, and some other employee comes over to calm down Krazy Kim. she just shoves this girl away (who it turns out later is actually the store manager???) and says, "don't tell me to relax, i'm the shift supervisor." by this time, everyone is swearing, and Kim is making these moves like she's really going to come outside and attack the car, so Dana starts pulling away. she says that she's going to call the 1-800 number on the window and the nut yells, "go ahead, i don't give a shit, they're not going to fucking fire me." KT shouts a final, "what the hell is your problem?" and Kim answers back with "your mother!" which is ridiculous since her mother was at home watching Court TV at the time. Dana ends the debate with a line from “Clerks:” "this is why you're jockeying a register at Taco Bell, you dumb cunt" and off they go to NOT bring me food again.

so they're telling me this story, and i'm getting all worked up. of course it doesn't help that i'm faint from malnutrition and lack of Taco Bell love and everyone and everything looks like a giant taco to me right now. it's like the cartoon with the guy seeing his buddy as a huge steaming chicken on the desert island. but i've got a dilemma here. if it had been a guy that was threatening people at some drive-thru, i would just go over there and pull the little bastard out of the window by his head, his crooked but carefully arranged baseball cap falling slow-motion to the pavement as he yelps. but here we got this girl-on-girl madness. and we've only got about 15 minutes until the debate starts. nevertheless, me and Nate get working on Plan A. or, should i say, Plan "Egg." this scheme involves taking two raw eggs to the drive-thru (i know, two raw eggs is kinda weak but that's all that was in the fridge) and pelting the bitch when she opens the window to take our money. but then i'm trying to think of a way to do this so that i can still get my goddamn taco (mmmmmm), but i stop dwelling on it and i put two eggs in a plastic bag and we're getting ready to roll. then i start to worry that Kim might not be at the drive-thru after all the excitement she just had. and i don't want to bean some innocent waterhead who's just working there one day a week for beer money. so i decide to call the store real quick and see what's up. i ask for whoever is working the drive-thru (claiming someone forgot my food) and she gets on the phone.

i ask her: "did you just have an altercation with two girls about 10 minutes ago?"

she goes: "listen sir, that's not what happened..." and she starts to go into this alternate reality version of events where she is just a victim who wants nothing more that to happily take money and hand out tacos and smiles forever. i'm confused and then it hits me. all her "sirs" and her tone of voice right now? this dunce thinks that i'm calling from that 1-800 number. she thinks i'm some sort of authority figure. i clear my throat and now i'm suddenly working for Taco Bell and shit gets real funny:

me: "well, i heard that you were physically threatening customers and swearing and..."

her: "that's not what happened sir. they were causing trouble and i was just reacting to them and..."

me: "i'm hearing a different version from what you're telling me." (i’m trying to imitate every similar conversation i’ve gotten from a boss)

her: "who is this?"

me: "your District Manager."

(this is where i figure the jig is up and she's going to say "fuck off" and hang up because she's gotta know who her DM is right? right? wrong.)

her: "listen sir, they were making fun of me at the drive-thru and i can't believe that i would get in trouble over this when it's just my word against hers and-"

me: "well, it's not just your word against them (watch this, i'm really proud of how fast i pull this out of my ass) because there was a vehicle behind them and someone from that car also called the 1-800 number to complain about your behavior."

(oh yeah, i should mention at this point that me, her District Manager, is standing there wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off, holding two eggs in a baggy, while three giggling heads lean in to listen)

her: (scared now and folding faster than Superman on laundry day) "hey, they started it."

me: "so you were threatening and cursing at customers because you thought they were being rude to you? that's unacceptable. why do you think you can threaten someone when..."

her: "they started harassing me first, it's not fair that i should get in trouble for this and-"

me: "okay, when is your next day off?"

her: "tomorrow."

me: "i'm going to need you to come in so that we can sit down and talk about this to figure out what should be done."

her: "oh no, it's not fair that i should have to come in on my day off when i've already rearranged my schedule this week once and it's my only day off and it's not fair that i should be the one to..." and blah blah fuckin 'blah (bitch is big on this "not fair" concept).

(i hold out the phone in disbelief at this point. i don't know what's funnier, the fact that this idiot thinks i'm her District Manager, or the fact that me, as her DM, can't get her to come in on her day off to save her job. after a couple minutes more of "not fair" i finally give up trying to trick her into coming in on her day off and i switch tactics)

me: "when do you work next?"

her: "Sunday. i open."

(time out. this is where some people that i've told this story to start to turn on me and give me a disapproving "you've gone too far" kinda look. after i told the story at work, my boss actually walked away in disgust and i had to call after her, "hey, i've only been a District Manager for 24 hours, i'm going to make some mistakes!")

me: "okay, don't worry about opening the store. we'll take care of that. you come in later. i need you to come in at noon so we can sit down and figure out what we're going to do."

her: "fine."

(apparently it's infinitely easier to convince someone to stay home instead of coming in. it's the lesson we remember from high school where kids would rather get suspended ten days instead of detention for one day)

so i hang up, and we're all laughing our asses off hoping that she actually gets in trouble for coming in late on Sunday. we talk a lot about it, practically ignoring the Presidential debates. On the TV, one of the candidates says something about “judging people by...” something. that’s all i remember because i spend most of my time fantasizing about being behind one of those podiums next to the actual District Manager of Taco Bell, carefully explaining our parities platform with hand gestures and reassuring nods.

i would declare “you must judge people by how fast they yank clothes out from under a sleeping cat! you must judge people by how rude they are in traffic or on the phone!"

you know, when i thought about it later, i think that this drive-thru nut said all that stuff because of the crazy nature of the drive-thru itself. it’s kind of like a phone call where the person you’re talking to pops their head in the window of your house as soon as you hang up. so, if even if you’re the kind of person that's rude to strangers on the phone, you’d be like, “oh shit, how are ya?” all nice if their head popped out of your refrigerator. instantly confronting someone at the drive thru-window is a strange awkward ending to what’s basically a garbled angry phone call. does that make any sense? so, to be fair, Kim probably didn’t know how to handle it. It’s kind of like when you’re in traffic and you’re yelling at the car next to you for whatever infraction, then, three miles later, you’re both idling at a red light together. do you look over? you have to look over. a friend of mine used to be prepared for just that kind of situation. if someone was glaring at a red light, he’d slowly put on his winter gloves, sunglasses, and the motorcycle helmet that he kept on his passenger seat. this is while sitting in a '92 Ford Escort. no one ever raced him.

And, you know, it sucks that the debate party was full of such distractions because there were more people over than usual. although i suspect that all the guests were invited by KT just to make it less likely that i'd drop my pants and press my groin up against the TV whenever the President is talking. i've been known to do this after exactly half a beer. one day she'll understand what i'm talking about when i exclaim:

“hey! if someone would just take a picture right now, it would look like President is suckin my dick! we could make T-shirts! where's everybody going?"

Anyway, no one even remembers what the candidates said because of our careful dissection of the drive-thru incident that lasted like eight hours. and by the time i've told everyone about my taco hijinx all weekend, i'm getting tired of the story and also doubting that Krazy Kim would really NOT figure that shit out in two days and not show up to work. one girl at my job says that the only way she'd be screwed is if she decides to keep the phone call and meeting secret from her store manager, maybe hoping that it'll blow over after the fake "meeting" and the less people that know the better it would be for her. she has a point. i mean, as soon as she would mention anything to her store manager or fellow employees, they would call the real DM and the cat's out of the bag. so i'm shocked as you are by the happy ending to the story:

KT works at Starbucks near the Taco Hell in question, and Sunday afternoon she's telling her co-workers all about the incident. at about 11:00 a couple of them go across the street to get some tacos (damn, i miss tacos) and then they run back to tell her the news:

there's a sign on the door that says:

"Will not open until 1:00. Sorry for any inconvenience."

true story. no bullshit. i got five witnesses who saw the sign.

EPILOGUE::

days later, Dana and KT actually call the 1-800 number to complain about Kim and they are given the phone number of the store manager. this woman then proceeds to tell them that she knows all about the situation and that the District Manager is handling it. of course the question is, are they talking about the real one or are they talking about me? because i'm not handling shit. i'm not rearranging my schedule again to meet with that girl. it's "not fair." i got too many new responsibilities that come with my new job title. the other day Burger King put too much salt on their fries, kid at KFC shorted me on change, 7-11 has a clerk who stares too much. sorry, there's just too many other stores in my district that need my attention so my work here is done.

2nd EPILOGUE:

This is where no moral to this story emerges because it’s true. Those two eggs? I noticed them on the windowsill, next to the phone charger, still in the plastic bag after about a week, fermenting to perfection. I’d like to say I used them to make a Mexican-style omelet, i’d like to say that I forced myself to eat a rotten omelet on the day of the Presidential election. I’d like to say that something meaningful happened to those two eggs, since the story introduced and then forgot about them completely, kind of like having a gun hanging over the fireplace in a movie that’s never used. I’d like to say that they did, indeed, smack somebody in the head that deserved it instead of just getting dropped into the trash without any ceremony.

but they didn’t.

::: david - 2:28 PM [+] :::
...

"Christmas came early this year!"
- wasn't that from a James Bond movie?
guess what the chick's name was.



sorry, the first installment of the Taco Bell Chronicles has been delayed by something that'll be more fun and won't take too long. i know it's Halloween but this shit is like Merry Christmas because i enjoy it so much:

i think "?" in the comments back there was trying to anger me. that's pretty funny. luckily i have several things on this site to track nameless pussies like this. since i'm nuts and i follow all those little numbers that identify you, and since i keep track of when i know some might be on here with that sitemeter to match up those little numbers i've written all over my desk, and since these comments also track your computer's address n' shit, and since there's another tracking thing down there you can't even see (spoooooky ain't it?)...i'll be able to turn that question mark into a real name soon enough. now, if it's someone who i've punched in the face for some reason, i hope you're ready to enjoy more of the same (thank christ i got someone talking shit on here, i was starting to get bored, finally get to use some of these toys i paid for. you see, a blocked IP address or referrer won't save you. ain't technology great?) however, if it's someone i've only hurt emotionally, then all i can offer is some very personal verbal abuse that might make you put a gun in your mouth on Valentine's Day. or maybe i don't know you yet. if that's the case i hope you're only one day's drive from here. doesn't matter, i'll be talkin' to you soon! you gutless annonymous (not for long) new best friend!

i really can't tell you people how much i anjoy making someone my new little project. it's been awhile and i start to lose hope then...POW! someone comes along and says something that changes the course of their life forever. hey you up there, you ever wonder why i have to keep moving to different states? that's what the papers call a "spree."

okay, let's check the easy stuff right now. god i love this shit. hmmm, 11:52 yesterday? IP number 68.253.39.1? and you use Ameritech.net? not a lot of those. oh, look at this, you typed "spiderbites" and "keaton" into google to find me. only seen that a couple times. let's trace this and see if you're in Pittsburgh. interesting, you didn't protect yourself at all. hey, it would be great if i could make another road trip to somewhere around Meridian Hills, Indiana, i can do another James Dead grave rubbing out there! two grave rubbings for the price of one!

okay, gotta go see if and when you stopped by before. that'll make this shit real easy. then i'll get on my creepy, borderline illegal, trace arsenal. damn, i'll have everything but the last time you took a shit by the time it gets dark out.

Happy Halloween! got a full tank of gas! see ya soon!

::: david - 2:21 PM [+] :::
...

“Yo quiero Taco Bell?”
- cute little racist doggie dog

“Is that a secret symbol for the Secret Service?”
- Henry Krinkle
aka Travis Bickle
aka Robert DeNiro


just involved in a hilarious incident with Taco Bell the other day. i’m going to type it up but first i should say that this is the fourth or fifth time i’ve been involved in some sort of confrontation at that place and i’ve decided to hammer out “The Taco Bell Chronicles” in the next week or so, starting with the thing that just happened. hope some people get some laughs out of it, i know i did. and i definitely has a happy ending. at least for me.

went to the John Kerry rally on campus here in Pittsburgh. it was nothing i hadn’t heard before but it still gave me some hope that the ‘loids don’t take over. there were tickets you could get on the internet but it turned out there was some Willy Wonka-style gold and blue tickets that got you up closer. sadly i had a red one and was resigning myself to a view behind the fence when my partner in crime took a blue one out of some unsuspecting girl’s hand (probably by jamming a stick in her wheelchair so she couldn’t give chase) then went into the restricted area (i gallantly told her to go on up there without me, then sulked by the fence like i was in Auschwitz) and then she asked some dude if she could have his blue ticket since he wasn’t going to be leaving any time soon. she came back and found me curled up on the sidewalk where i was writing a goodbye letter to leave to her under a rock (“by the time you find this message i will be dead...) and nudged me back into action. it was cool though, the blue tickets got us like fifty feet away from the dude so we were ringside when (added bonus!) Bon Jovi came out to sing a Springsteen song. what’s up with that? he doesn’t have any songs that could be mistaken for political rallying cries? guess not. fucker's short as hell too. anyway, i guess that “No Surrender” song is Kerry’s song, like that “Don’t Stop” song was Clinton’s. anyone remember when dumb fuck turned dead icon Ronald Reagan used Bruce’s “Born In the USA” without listening to the lyrics first? what a fucking moron. the other day i was listening to right wing talk radio (gotta know what the enemy is saying) and they led in from a commercial with the same song...right before they started babbling about the Iraq invasion being a good thing. goddamn i hate people who are stupid. no one at that station noticed that “Born in the USA” is an anti-war, anti-Vietnam, anti flag-fucking song?

and check out this dude. think he would have gotten in at the Bush rally?

anyway, the most fun i had at the rally was picking out the Secret Service to take pictures of them, which probably insured that they were taking pictures of me. found three total.

there was one right behind the podium, hiding by the edge of a balcony, just a tiny half-a-head (there were also all sort of college types milling around that looked too old for college, reminded me of 21 Jump Street) playing peek-a-boo.

on the roof of the building behind us was another one, peering up with some binoculars.

but the best one was the dude standing behind a Kerry banner hanging down the side of the library. he would pop out, look around, then jump back behind the banner. i kept trying to get a picture of him when he sneaked and eventually i did. sometimes he would only have his head and half his body behind the banner, as if he thought that, if he couldn’t see anyone, no one could see him.

wait, isn’t that what happens when babies play peek-a-boo? when they cover their eyes, they think that you’ve disappeared? poor bastard should learn more about the art of camouflage. since he was up on the library, maybe he should have taped a bunch of books to his shoulders or something. yeah, that could work! see, if the feds are reading my website because of the Patriot Act may be they’ll realize i have all sorts of ideas that could be working for them. here’s another one...no more cardboard cd cases! i refuse to buy them, which is why i am three cds behind with the Beastie Boys.

oh yeah, i got a new Fisher’s Space Pen! and i almost had it taken away from me going through the security at the rally. they were like “what the fuck is this thing” since it looks like a bullet. i was all excited (i look for any window of opportunity to talk about my new Space Pen) and i go, “it like, writes underwater, upside down, in outer space. hell, you could leave messages on ice cubes if you wanted to...” and the guy was like, “just go.” good thing it wasn’t a bullet. nice work, our government’s finest in action. he was just jealous because he didn’t have one.

::: david - 1:25 PM [+] :::
...

"You're a mumbling stuttering prick, you know that Spider?"
- Joe Pesci in Goodfellas

damn did Kerry ever spank Bush last night. Bush looked, sounded and acted like such a goddamn loid (short for mongo) that if he gets re-elected i'm going to have to go on a Grand Theft Auto-type rampage. the ones where they call out the National Guard and i'm riding around on the hood of some car lobbing grenades like Christmas Presents. One for you...BOOM. Here kids...BOOM. did anybody else hear him babble on with vague "freedom, hope, hugs, ballsacks, democracy, evil-doers" talk? he sounded like a fucking knob. do we (you) deserve this waterhead for a leader? that's a good question. this country is being punished for not demanding more and being too stupid. However, can idiots really be punished for their sins if they're too fucking stupid to realize it?


so i discovered thrift stores recently. why didn’t someone tell me about these things? my problem was, i have no shirts with collars and, for some reason, that’s part of the dress-code at work. don’t get me started on my “collars are medieval, like the rivets on our jeans” nonsense again. i just never buy anything with a collar. i don’t like ‘em. sometimes my shirts will have buttons and they look like they started to grow a collar but didn’t. that’s about as close as i get. they just annoy me. the look, the feel, so i never got any unless i had to. but now i got a solution! at a thrift store, i get collared shirts for like two bucks. got an orange one, a green one and 3 gray ones. it was going to be one gray one but i got so excited i decided why not get all the gray collared shirts they have? mine! all mine! corner the market! see, now we’ve just discovered the dangers of the thrift store.

so anyway, i was in there and i wanted to find a tiny hat to put on a stuffed animal at home (it all makes sense i swear) and i found this stuffed duck with the perfect size hat sewn onto it’s head. score! so i figured i’d buy the duck, cut off the hat, and just throw the duck away! it seemed like the perfect crime until i got up to the register to pay for it and started to feel guilty. i started thinking that maybe some little kid could get that stupid stuffed duck for Christmas if i wouldn’t be doing what i was doing. so by the time it was my turn to get rung up, i’d already come up with a perfect solution. i would cut the hat off the duck in my car, then slip it back into the donation box. and they wouldn’t think i was nuts when they see the duck back on the shelves because the cashier fell right into my trap by engaging me in this dialogue:

cashier: “Cute little ducky!”

me (excited she brought up the duck): “Yeah! It’s cool, there’s one back there without a hat, but i wanted this one...”

(see, my master plan goes like this: later, when they find the hatless one on the shelf, she’ll remember what i said and think that there were originally TWO ducks! fucking genius)

cashier (confused): "Really? You sure..."

(time seems to stand still, i’m about five seconds from throwing the duck and my grey shirts over her shoulder and running out the door)

me: "Uhhh, i think so..."

cashier (shrugging): "Must be a little boy duck and a little girl duck."

me (way too happy): "Exactly!!!"

so then i’m out in my car, parked behind a truck, hunched over and ripping the hat off the duck like it’s a sex crime. but when i go to the donation bins, it says “Clothes Only” and i think there’s no way they won’t notice the scalped duck in there. so after all that i end up taking the damn thing home and sticking it in the gazebo outside my apartment building, hoping some kid will eventually find it.

like some kid will really want the thing. strings hanging off it’s head, sitting in the rain, might as well have left the thing with it’s flippers tied in electrical tape.

get this. there was a mouse stuck in the electrical socket at work. i stared at the thing for like fifteen minutes before i realized what i was looking at. he definitely got fried because his body was quite crispy when it was finally removed. better than having his head stuck for days i guess. poor little bastard must have touched the blue wire. he didn’t watch enough movies to know that you’re supposed to cut the red wire instead.

epilogue:

so i’m coming up the sidewalk to my apartment and i see this old lady and a couple little boys on the bench. the little boy says, “do you live in my house?” (meaning do i live in his building) and i say “yes i do.” and suddenly i remember the duck (see above) and get an idea. i said, “hey, you guys want to see a real live duck, go to the gazebo and say hi!” and the boys are all excited and the grandma says “okay, let’s go!” and off they go and i’m feeling like i did a good deed. then, i hear them clomping up the steps so i look out the peep-hole to see if they go the duck and they’re empty handed. so now i feel bad that i let them down, and...where did the duck go?

tonight after a late night snack-run, i walked around the building and got my answer. yellow police-line looking tape blocking off all the entrances to the gazebo and the duck has vanished. even though a ladder leaning up against the building suggests that paint is drying, some paranoids around me have got me convinced that the duck is in plastic bag in some detective’s lab. that means they’ll be coming for the hat real soon. stay tuned...

::: david - 7:50 AM [+] :::
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