The Following Brought to You by Denny’s

(Written 6/25)

This past weekend I decided I was going to be a good grandson. I drove home and stayed at my parent’s Thursday night and then was going to see my grandma on her birthday on Friday. I don’t have a lot of time off, so I was going to just work from home Friday during the day and then see my Grandma in the afternoon. My niece actually had a play that night about an hour from my hometown, so I was going to go up and see that as well.

My job is non-stop crazy all the time, and the work from home day was no different. We were blasted with applications, emails, questions, etc. from 7:30 to when I had to shut down my computer at 3:30.  I was planning on getting out at 330, but it ended up being almost 4 before I packed up and headed out.

I got to my grandma’s place after receiving a couple texts from my brother who was already there. My grandma has kind of had a rough go the past few months, so I figured that we would just sit and watch the golf tournament for an hour or so.

But Grams wanted Denny’s.

So basically I walk in the door and Grandma’s like, “I’m HONGRY!” so we all get up and head out the door.

Heading out the door with a 93-year old woman is more of an arduous, Mordor-bound type odyssey than a quick trip, so the following 30 minutes or so was us getting her situated with her walker, walking her out to the car, packing up her walker, and then driving over to Denny’s.

One would think that Denny’s, a haven for those over 75, would take better care of its parking lot than to basically have pavement that resembles the surface of the moon. We get grandma out of the car, set up her walker, and then proceed to help shove her and her walker over 4 inch deep gashes in the pavement. The journey up Mount Doom (I guess I’m doing LOTR references today) ended with a foot-high curb that led up to the sidewalk. Don’t worry, though, this Denny’s caters to those in wheelchairs, by putting one ramp inbetween two handicapped spaces (because it’s Denny’s, these are always full) and the other down a sidewalk that’s curiously about 15 blocks long. So, we could either shove grandma over the craters, or make her walk 4 miles to get to the door. My brother’s kind of a rammy guy, so the craters it was.

By the time we got situated, it was about 445 and I was starting to sweat because my niece’s play was getting closer. I still had like 45 minutes before I had to leave, but… It’s Denny’s so no one really knows what service will be like.

Our waitress was great, so we ordered and then sat back and relaxed.

At this point I had been with my grandma for about an hour and had barely said 2 words to her. This was further exacerbated by the fact that my grandma has the hearing of a 93-year old and can’t hear my mellifluous (read: soft and feminine) voice.

My brother and I begin animated conversation but I proceeded to get extremely awkward because my grandma can’t hear, so she’s just kind of staring at the table. My bro and my convo had turned to coffee, so I turn to grandma and yell:

“YOU STILL DRINK COFFEE?!”

“What?”

“COFFEE! YOU DRINK IT?!”

“Yes, it’s no good at my place. Pretty watered down. Maxwell House is the best.”

Oddly enough my brother had just said the exact same thing, so this turned into a discussion of coffee that my grandma couldn’t hear, so I immediately froze up and tried to think of things to scream to draw her back into the conversation.

To be fair, I never really know what to talk to my grandma about anyway. I live in a big city and am homosexual, so it’s not like we have a lot of common ground:

Weather…

Weather.

Forecast?

My grandma doesn’t know I’m gay because, well, there would be a big ol’ “cannot compute” sign up and no one in the family really wants to deal with it.

It also doesn’t help that my grandma asked me a year ago “have you turned 17 yet?” I don’t think my baby face helps the situation, but my grandma has no idea how old I am. Case in point when she told my mother, “I hope he doesn’t go into a BAR!”

Oh… If she only knew.

Awkward convos turned into hushed eating because my brother and I are both one-track minded and can’t possibly talk AND eat. At this point, that one thing was eating.

We wrapped up, took no shortcut to mushrooms, and hauled Grams the 4 miles out of Denny’s across the sidewalk, through the cratery parking lot, and back to her retirement home.

We were actually doing pretty well on time, so I planned on staying and chatting for a while before I took off to see my niece.

This was railroaded when the meal I had just eaten basically exploded inside my stomach. It had been a full 15 minutes since I had eaten, and I broke out in the sweats and almost ghostbustered down my grandma’s bathroom door and hauled her out so I could take a doucer.

She got out, though, and I ran in, empting pretty much everything I had eaten that week in her toilet.

20 minutes later I ran out of the bathroom, kissed her goodbye, and then sprinted to my car.

Thanks, Grandma! As a special birthday treat, your youngest grandson is gonna come over late, drag you over a cratered parking lot to a meal where he won’t talk to you, then to top it off, shit his brains out in your toilet. Love you!

Denny’s: Episode II: The Fecal Menace

Denny’s stayed with me for a full week. I had not had a normal BM in almost 5 days.

At most workplaces this is okay. If you can’t use the general toilet, they usually have floor bathrooms or public bathrooms as back ups.

Not so at my office location. Our staff has grown from about 120 to 250 in the past year and the bathroom remains 3 urinals and 3 toilets for guys. There is also no general or floor toilet, so if the one on your floor is full… TOUGH COOKIES!

This is made more pleasant by the fact that we have one woman who cleans our entire floor.  For cleaning purposes at 10:30 every morning the entire men’s bathroom is completely shut down for 30 minutes.

10:30 is a great time, too, because it’s not like everyone’s breakfast has settled and the coffee has worked through everyone’s system at that point. Were I to describe 10:30 as a bathroom cleaning time, I would say, “Not inconvenient at all!”

Inevitably 3 times a week, I go toward the bathroom and immediately spin around because it’s, “closed for cleaning.”

I can deal with this most weeks, but when the Denny’s Supernova has gone off, it’s kind of hard to control when this movement happens.

This past week I felt the rumblings and knew I had to go. I got to the bathroom and was met with the sign, ‘CLOSED.’

I really thought I was going to lose it right there in the middle of the office.

Right there.

In front of 250 people, my bowels laid bare for all’s eyes to see.

I girded myself, though, and sprinted out of my office, down the four flights of stairs, waited at the light, and stormed into the train station across the street.

It took me 3 stalls before I found one in the train station bathroom with toilet paper.

And then gloriousness.

I walked back across the road like a king.

Brought to You by The Worst White Girls Everywhere

I was on the train this afternoon. As we were mashed on together, I was shoved toward a girl that makes you go, “You. Are. Terrible.”

She was wearing a skirt suit and had her hair bleached blond. Not like, “Is she natural?” blond, but more like, “What were you thinking?” blond.

As a good Christian boy, I don’t usually judge people until they open their mouths, so it was made very easy, because this girl was vocal frying all over the train.

The Terrible: “Ohmmmmyyygggooooddddd. You drive to work?”

“Yeah, it’s like faster from Wrigleyville.”

Terrible: “Ohmmyyyggoooodddd, right? I used to live in Wrigleyville.” (No way, lady? You? Get out!”)

She stood up and tottered across the train aisle so she could talk to the couple across the way.

Terrible (to guy): “And you’re from Poland, right?”

Guy: No.

Terrible: Well Poland is like so pretty! My friend’s friend’s brother is totally over there right now. He’s like, ‘It’s so pretty!’”

It was a relief to us all that she got off at the next stop. It was short-lived, however, as a snot-snorter replaced her. You could hear him snorting like a vacuum cleaner.

I hate commuting. When am I moving back to my rural roots?