First off, I want to let y’all know that at about a quarter after eleven tonight, when I silently wished the Los Angeles Clippers’ plane would crash on its way back to Cali , I immediately unwished it. I certainly want that to not happen. The only misfortune I want them to suffer is that they lose their next four games, starting Wednesday. That deeply felt but only momentarily yearned-for thought was just that: a thought that popped into my mind after a very disappointing loss in a playoff game by one of the only two teams I’m truly emotionally invested in. I couldn’t help it! My hoops heroes had a huge lead which they proceeded to start blowing right after I got home and tuned in about halfway through the fourth quarter. That’s probably the worst of my recent woes but it ain’t the only one.
     The radio in my car went out. See ya later, George Noory, it looks like I won’t be listening to Coast to Coast AM® on the way home when I get cut after midnight for awhile. Good-bye, (to local alterna-rock DJ) Craven Moorehead (yeah, really).  Now when I’m rolling I only have the choice of listening to compact discs or my own thoughts and if you read the previous paragraph you can probably guess which is the better option. But I can only listen to a CD straight through. The broken Sony® product won’t let me skip around like I like to——a big reason I fell in love with the compact disc format all those years ago——I have to listen from the first track to the last. It’s lucky that I had the volume in a good place when the shit broke ‘cause I can’t adjust it. If I turn off the car with a disc playing, the music will resume where I left off but if I take the CD out or anything, it’s start all over again. So I have to bring records with me that are good all the way through. Yesterday I dug out Nothing’s Shocking by 90’s rockers Jane’s Addiction. It’s one of the first digital discs I ever bought and it’s a hell of a good album. Except right smack in the middle of it is the tediously shitty (to me) “Summertime Rolls,” that I’d forgotten about. It was either seven minutes of that crap or make another listening decision. I chose the second option. This almost-dead stereo has heretofore been pretty good and lasted almost six years. I plan to get a new system soon and I’ll consider a Sony product from Best Buy® again. It’s not the end of the world and could be worse. I’m well aware how fortunate I am; a lot of people are riding the bus and listening to nothing or, like, that shitty Joe Walsh cover by Godsmack or something. Still, it sucks.
     Last night, my first table was teenage daughter, who was cute and nice, and middle-aged mom, who wasn’t. Their bill was $36 and change. I dropped the check and said, “I’ll take that for ya whenever you‘re ready,” Mom immediately started digging in her purse so I smiled and added, “That can be now if you want,’” ‘cause it sure looked like she wanted to negotiate things right away but she gave me a look that I felt was overly stern by a good margin (what the fuck?) and hissed at me that they weren’t ready yet. So I checked back about two minutes later, just in time to see a pair of twenties being inserted into the server book.. “I’ll be right back with your change!” I grinned, thinking surely I’d be informed that wouldn’t be necessary. I’ve gotten shitty tips before, no biggie.
     But no. Mom said, “OK,” so I took the check presenter out of their eyeshot and put the $3.30 in it and dropped It at the table. They thanked me, the daughter pleasantly, the mom a little grudgingly, and left. Shortly after, I looked to see that I’d been left a whole dollar. I’m extremely skeptical about Karma existing but if it does, Ms. Lady might have just purchased herself a nice chunk of it.
     The new restaurant is right next to a large mall.  There’s also a pretty big hotel and a “business campus” (whatever the fuck that is) there. The mall and the other ordeal both had something going on last week on Saturday. On Friday, we were told to park at the mile-away school and ride the employee shuttle that the mall allegedly provides because it was going to be very difficult to get into our parking lot and that mall security would very likely turn area workers away in favor of customers. I went to the school, getting there 30 minutes before my scheduled clock-in time, figuring that’d be plenty of time to get the promised shuttle and be at work a little early, like I like to be. There was exactly ONE other car in the parking lot when I arrived. I didn’t know what to do. I thought for a minute and decided to hoof it. I didn’t want trying to drive over there to cause me any problems. It was a nice day and I could see my destination from where I was. I know how to get to work fine but otherwise don’t know  that area of town real well. I got across the interstate OK but the “business campus” I had to cut through was cock-blocking like it was trying to win the Vezina Trophy or something, with a lot of fences and “DO NOT ENTER” signs and shit like that. I felt like I was in a large maze. I didn’t run, ‘cause fuck that, but I started walking pretty fast. I made it on time but it was hella close. And when I got to work, I saw that the lot was full but not anywhere near totally  full. All of my co-workers just parked like usual. I asked a couple of them and they all just drove over to work when they saw the school’s empty parking lot. I mentioned the situation to a manager and got a story about how they were just telling us what the property’s owners had said to them and a mumbled apology that I felt lacked sufficient sincerity. Then after working a pretty grueling waitshift, I had to walk the mile or so back to my whip