I NEED A JOB. I don’t want a job. I hate working. But everyone hates working — and working does have its upsides. Mainly: Income, not feeling completely worthless all of the time, and being able to tell girls you meet what you “do.” Also, it’s very nice when crossing the Canadian border to be able to tell them you’re gainfully employed. There is nothing that makes a Canadian customs official’s ears perk up more than the word “unemployed.” It’s an instant red flag and you can be assured the next words out of his/her mouth will be, “Can you please step through the sliding doors marked ‘immigration’?” whereupon an unsmiling woman in a heavy-looking jacket will ask you all sorts of questions, and you will tell her you live with your parents, and that you “just graduated from university,” and you’re “just visiting a friend.” And then they will let you go, and you will get back on the bus everyone will look at you like you’re a convict.
Anyway, I need a job because the road trip is over. Back to “reality.” Yesterday on the flight back from Minneapolis I sat next to a 14-year-old kid I dubbed “porker” due to his generous proportions and the fact that he consumed sugar pretty much continuously throughout the entire flight. At one point he tried to order a Red Bull from the stewardess but couldn’t because he only had cash. He was crestfallen. I briefly thought about paying for it with my debit card and having him give me cash, but I thought, “You don’t need this, little man. You need a treadmill.”
Descending into Seattle and watching the sun set over the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I had one of those “Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of my Life” moments, where you think you’re going to get up the next day at 7AM, go on a 20-mile bike ride, eat a hearty breakfast, and grab the day by its proverbial horns. Now it’s 10:10AM, I’m sitting on the couch in my parents’ living room, my midriff is peeking out between my shirt and mesh basketball shorts, and I’ve spent the last hour talking to people on G-Chat. Maybe I’ll seize this afternoon by its horns.
-Wetzler
This entry was written by , posted on April 8, 2009 at 12:14 pm, filed under Uncategorized and tagged alaska airlines, Chipotle, coffman, mill district, minneapolis, mount rainier, puget sound, road trip, stone arch bridge, university of minnesota. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
It’s freezing in Minnesota. I’m sitting in a Bruegger’s Bagels and my hands still haven’t thawed out. Bruegger’s Bagels, if you’ve never been there, is awful. That is, of course, unless you’re the type of person who likes paying seven dollars for a shitty-ass panini that leaves you hungrier than when you came. Then it’s paradise.
The worst part is there’s a Chipotle across the street. Probably the only Chipotle in all of Minneapolis. Lee and I were walking down University Avenue after crossing the Stone Arch Bridge towards where we thought might be food when I half-jokingly quipped, “What if there’s a Chipotle there?” We rounded the corner of University and Hennepin and there it was: Fate, wrapped in a tortilla.
Except we didn’t eat there. We decided to try something new. And different. And awful.
In related news, the other day we DID go to Chipotle in Los Angeles, and it was OK. My friend Andy said the line was longer than he’d ever seen it, which didn’t surprise me because once people in Los Angeles catch on to something trendy, they catch on with a vengeance. I assumed the line would move quickly as it does in Seattle, but it crawled along at a wounded salamander’s pace. Then, when we were ordering, I had my arm resting resting on the glass, leaning on it casually like a person does when he/she owns the place, and the woman in line behind me said to the employee crafting her burrito, “Sorry, I would tell you what I want, but I don’t want to talk through someone’s armpit.”
Excuse me? You come in to my fucking house and talk to me like that? I was furious. This woman embodied everything I despise about California, and here she was, in a holy place, talking like a goddamn moron. When asked what kind of salsa she wanted she responded, “What are my options?” What are your options? Walk outside to the parking lot and step in front of a fucking car. That’s your option. Either that or say fresh tomato, hot, and get on with it. Christ.
Anyway, people like her are one of the reasons why we had to leave LA. I mean, I bet if I was to walk in to the Chipotle across the street here in Minneapolis I would find no woman resembling this botoxed hag. Not in good ‘ol Heartland, America. Sure, the customers might not be Chipotle professionals, but at least they’d have a little common sense. Be able to tell their asses from their elbows; their sour creams from their guacs.
Tomorrow, when I have a little more common sense myself and decide not to go to Bruegger’s, maybe I’ll confirm that this is true.
Until then,
Wetzler
This entry was written by , posted on April 6, 2009 at 5:11 pm, filed under Chipotle and tagged Chipotle, gophers, heaven, how i met your mother, minneapolis. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.