Don't Be Lude

As I've mentioned in a number of other stories, my family had a summer home in Atlantic City, NJ and I spent many a summer season prowling that old wooden boardwalk with my friends in search of adventure and girls, always girls.

I've always been a whore. My father respected and encouraged that.

My father... As tough as that man was, I could get straight to that man's heart, and his wallet, by mentioning that I had the possibility of getting laid. It worked every fucking time. Pussy was my personal four leaf clover. Okay, I'm lying, but I'd like to pretend it was. Fuck off, they're my memories.

I remember when my father and I had the sex talk. It was pretty damn funny. I was about thirteen or so and he sidled on up to me.

"Steven," he said, "We need to talk."

My father looked embarrassed; horribly so. Good.

"Sure, Pop. What's up?"

"We need to talk about sex, son," my father said. There was quite a bit of uncertainty in his voice.

"Sure, Pop. What did you need to know?"

My father's face grew red and drifted into purple. I didn't know if he was embarrassed, pissed off, or what, but he just spluttered something and stalked off in a huff. Ah, good times.

But our typical conversations would usually go something like this:

Me: "Dad, can I have $20?"

Back in those days, $20 could get you places.

My Father: "No. You work, use your own money. I'm not giving you $15. I'm not giving you $10. What the hell do you need $5 for?"

Like it was a fucking negotiation or something. How much was the vig going to be?

Me: "I'm broke and I have a date. I might get laid."

My Father (reaching into his wallet): "Don't use words like that. Here you go, Is $20 going to be enough? Don't tell your mother."

And then there was this famous conversation after I started high school in Atlantic City when I was fourteen. We were headed back to Florida and the transfer paperwork from my high school had a typo in it that made me a year older. In my mind, this opened up a world of salacious opportunities and I did a little research. As it turned out, the State of Florida's Department of Motor Vehicles would accept school records as proof of identity and age. Suddenly, I was eligible for my learner's permit an entire year earlier than I should have been. I had a plan.

I approached my father and I told him of the typo and my scheme. He refused to be a part of it. What the hell? My father was into all kinds of shady shit, why not this? I tried and I tried, I fast talked as much as I could; I was literally tap dancing, but still my father stood firm, so I pulled out the big guns.

"Dad," I said, "You just don't understand."

"I understand plenty," my father said, "I said no and that's final. Don't make me tell you no again, or you'll regret it."

Fuck that. I wasn't about to give up, this was totally worth a beating.

"Dad," I pleaded and then I dropped the magic words, "This could get me laid."

"Your mother will kill me."

I was winning. I knew it and he knew it. I pressed home my attack.

"She doesn't need to know," I told him. "I'll never say a word. Seriously, Dad, I could totally get laid."

When the collapse came, it happened all at once.

"Alright," he said, "We'll go to the DMV on Saturday morning. Don't tell your mother. She's going to kill me."

I couldn't believe it, I had won.

I got my permit and then I got a motorcycle. It got me laid. Oh, did it ever.

I just wanted you to understand how my father was when it came to me and girls. We're going to go back to Atlantic City, now.

It was the Summer of 1980 and I was almost fifteen years old. I thought that I was hot shit with my license that made me a year older than I was and it set the stage for a whole new world of trouble. Trouble of the best kind.

I worked a lot in the summertime, usually having two jobs and I also dabbled in a few other things to help supplement my income. I had a close relative that moved a lot of drugs and I would purchase weed and Quaaludes from that relative and then sell the weed to my friends and the ludes would make their way to other friends, or I would sell them for top dollar at the local discos. Nobody really cared about your age back then when it came to getting into bars. If you had money to spend, you were in.

On this particular day, I had scored three hundred Quaaludes from my relative and I needed a safe and secure place to count the pills and then divide them up. Our condo was out; my parents watched me like a hawk and they didn't trust me for shit. I've never understood why, I was always such a wonderful and loving son. Responsible, too.

My friend Sue had a sister named Kathy, who was a few years older than I and lived in the same building that we did. Kathy was also one of my biggest customers. Her parents would let her stay in their condo all summer long and would only show up on the weekends, when they would drive down from Cherry Hill, a suburban enclave in New Jersey, but was more of a suburb of Philadelphia. I went down to the beach and I approached Kathy and explained what I needed to do and I asked her if I could use her apartment for a few minutes, telling her that I'd make it worth her while. As luck would have it, my parents were also at the beach and they took notice of the two of us leaving together. I looked over at my parents and waved to them. They didn't wave back. Instead, they looked at me suspiciously. Somehow, they always knew when I was up to something, not that they were the most trusting of souls to begin with.

Kathy and I went back to our building and she brought me up to her apartment. Once inside, I pulled the bag of ludes out of my pocket and I dumped them on a small table by the door. Those fucking things were rolling all over the place. We started counting everything up, to make sure that the amount that I had was accurate. When we were finished, we would divide them up into piles of ten and wrap them in aluminum foil; they looked just like a roll of Lifesavers when we did that. It was so cute.

Just as we started counting, someone started pounding loudly on the front door.

We both looked up, startled. We hadn't been expecting anyone. I looked at her and she looked at me. Who the fuck could it be? Whomever it was, it couldn't be good, we had three hundred fucking Quaaludes on the table and they were in full view of the door. Fuck, fuck, fuck...

The pounding on the door continued.

Kathy's voice was cracking with fear as she asked me what we should do.

I whispered back to her, "Stop freaking out. Calm down and ask who it is."

Kathy gulped, took a deep breath and sounded a lot like a big ol' hoot owl when she asked, "Who-who is it?"

"It's Tony. Is Steven in there? Tell him to get his ass out here, right now!" yelled the voice at the door.

It was my father. Fuck. Shit. Fuckshit. What the hell was he doing here? Shit. I was well and truly fucked. Maybe he'd understand that I was just trying to make some extra money. Maybe he wouldn't actually kill, me either, but I knew that I was just bullshitting myself. My father wasn't going to understand shit and I was a fucking dead man. Hell, even I understood that much.

If I thought Kathy had been panicking before, she seemed about to piss herself at that very moment and I don't think that I was too far behind her. This shit was getting out of control. I had to think of something.

Like a lightbulb that sizzles and pops, I had an epiphany and I knew what I had to do.

I looked at Kathy and I said, "Don't worry, I've got this. I've got a plan."

You'd think that would have calmed her down, but noooo... Why do people always get nervous when I say that I have a plan? They always work. Mostly. Sometimes. On occasion, maybe. Fuck you.

I got up and started walking towards the door, unbuttoning and unzipping my pants as I went. I pulled my shirt out of my jeans and then I messed up my hair. I unlocked the door and cracked it open enough for my father to see me as I was pulling my jeans back up and started zipping them. I could tell from the look on my father's face that he thought that he had interrupted something and that I was getting dressed. My father's face turned cherry red. It was working, I was going to get away with this. For once, one of my fucking ideas was actually working. I felt giddy with joy.

"What's up, Pop?" I asked him. "Need something?"

My father was speechless for a moment and then he started spluttering.

"I just wanted to know where you were," he said. "When you're finished here, come and find me. I need to talk to you about something."

He was trying to save face. My gambit had totally worked and I was going to live to see another day. The relief that I felt was palpable. This... This right here... This is why I'm a fucking evil genius and you're not.

"Sure thing, Pop," I said as I closed the door in his face and locked it. I turned around and started laughing my ass off.

Kathy looked at me as if I'd gone mad. I told her what I'd done and she started laughing too. Insanity, like laughter, is contagious.

"I can't believe he fell for it," I told her. "He really thought we were having sex."

Kathy looked at me a little funny and she said, "What would be so hard to believe about that?"

Oh? Ohhhh...

It was a while before I went looking for my father.

Thanks for stopping by!

If you enjoyed reading this story, you might enjoy this one as well:

If the Shoe Fits

Date Raped

I'm going to get all technical and shit, so bear with me for just a moment please...

You can skip reading this part, if you really want to.

Flunitrazepam, also known as Rohypnol, among other names, is an intermediate acting benzodiazepine used as an hypnotic, sedative, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, and skeletal muscle relaxant drug. In general, the prescription of flunitrazepam as a hypnotic is intended to be for short-term treatment of chronic or severe insomniacs not responsive to other hypnotics. Flunitrazepam has been referred to as a date rape drug even though its incidence is very rare in cases that have been reported.

Flunitrazepam is known to induce anterograde amnesia in sufficient doses; individuals are unable to remember certain events that they experienced while under the influence of the drug. This effect could be particularly dangerous if flunitrazepam is used to aid in the commission of sexual assault; victims may be unable to clearly recall the assault, the assailant, or the events surrounding the assault.

And you can start reading again here, if you went ahead and skipped out on all of that bullshit.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, Flunitrazepam, or Rohypnol, more commonly known as Roofies, are best remembered as a date rape drug. In modern parlance, getting "Roofied" is the term used to denote a drugged drink and a possible sexual assault. This wasn't always so.

As Don McLean sang in American Pie,

"A long, long time ago..."

It was probably around 1985, or so; some years on the timeline are a bit hazier than others. What I really mean to say is that some years are just a fucking blur, fueled by copious amounts of drugs, alcohol, easy money, even easier women and decidedly fast times. All of South Florida was a real life set for Miami Vice back then and the lines between art and reality would often blend together.

While the Earth might revolve around the sun, South Florida in the 80's revolved around two things, money and drugs. Money and drugs are the lifeblood of Florida, they always have been and they always will be; it's just a simple truth. Florida is a smuggler's paradise like no other, a nexus point where cash, cocaine and marijuana fuel a high flying lifestyle.

In those days, I used to get my weed from Val and her husband, Mike. Val was definitely the alpha dog of the pair, while Mike always seemed to be little more than an extra in the background, drunkenly puttering around and occasionally engaging in conversation. I had been scoring weed from them for years and what had originally started as a strictly business relationship had, over time, evolved into a genuine friendship. Occasionally, that friendship would provide access to some special treats. Hey, when I'm a good boy, sometimes people throw me a bone.

One particular day, I was getting low on weed and I gave Val a call. She told me to come on over and I did. I showed up at her house, she rolled a few joints, we got high and we hung out for a bit. There seemed to be an undercurrent of sexual tension between the two of us, there always was, but neither one of us ever acted upon the impulse. Shame. I'd have plowed that field like Mr. Green Jeans on a lawn tractor.

Val mentioned that she and Mike were going out that night with some friends and she asked if I wanted to tag along. I didn't have any plans for the evening, so I accepted her invitation. That was when she told me that she also had a single female friend named Jackie, who was also tagging along and she wanted the two of us to meet, because Val thought that we might like each other. I gave Val a look that could have melted steel and she just smirked. Fuck. The last thing that I wanted was to be fixed up on a blind couples date.

Val also mentioned that she had some special party favors for that evening, something called "Roofinal" that Val described as a South American Quaalude and how many did I want?

Quaaludes? Val certainly had my attention. Quaaludes were a fun drug that made the rounds during the 70's and early 80's. Quaaludes, also known as Ludes, Disco Biscuits, etc., had been illegal for years and I hadn't seen one in a very long time.

Yeah, I was definitely interested.

Never one for half measures, I told Val that I wanted two of the little white pills and she handed them over to me. Val baited her next trap with the offer of free food. That's some seriously unfair fuckery, right there. You can get me to agree to just about anything if you feed me. Need a date for a wedding, bar mitzvah, or funeral? Is there free food? I got your back. Toss in some free booze and I'll even pretend I love you. Oh yes, me love you long time, baby. Val asked me if I wanted to stay for dinner and I told her that I would, but that I wanted to go home to shower and change first, since I had been tricked into meeting someone.

Val smirked again and then she mentioned that Jackie would also be having dinner with us and then she confessed that it would really only be the four of us going out that night.

I'd just been completely bamboozled. Again. Fuck.

Bitch was still smirking. She was really fucking proud of herself and her Jedi mind tricks.

I headed home and I thought of not coming back, but I really didn't want to risk losing my best weed connection over something so silly. That would have been really fucked up.

When I got back to Mike and Val's, Jackie had already shown up and Val introduced us. Jackie was tall, thin and very cute with a pair of boobs that were outfuckingstanding. That old AT&T commercial jingle played in my head...

I wanted to reach out and touch someone, alright. 

Val disappeared into the kitchen to put the finishing touches on dinner, while Mike broke out the booze and started mixing drinks. I rolled a few joints and we passed those around. I'd say that we were all fairly comfortable by the time that we sat down to eat.

When dinner was finished, we took our drinks into the living room and we smoked a little more pot. Okay, a lot more pot. Val suggested that we should take the Roofies and we did. I tossed mine down with a rum and coke. It was going to be a great fucking night...

It was the early morning sunshine that woke me up. It was streaming in through the window and it was bitch slapping me across my face. I cracked open one bleary eye, winced and wondered just where the fuck I was and if anyone had caught the license number of the truck that had hit me. I tried to think. It fucking hurt. A lot. Slowly, very slowly, I began to piece together the events of the night before. Dinner, drinks, pot, Roofies and ??? I had no fucking clue. I slowly scanned my surroundings and realized that I was still at Mike and Val's house and still in the same position that I last remembered. I must have passed out, but at least I knew where I was. I felt relieved.

I closed my eyes again. I was tired, so tired.

I smelled coffee and something else. Bacon. It smelled like heaven. I slowly realized that  Mike and Val were both awake. Val noticed that I was stirring and she asked me if I wanted some coffee. I declined the coffee and I apologized to both of them for passing out on the couch the night before.

"What the fuck are you talking about"? Val asked me.

I was confused. Well, even more confused than I normally was. What the fuck was Val talking about? I had passed out on the couch and had woken up in the exact same spot, hadn't I?

Hadn't I?

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I shot back.

"We went out last night. Don't you remember?" Val asked.

"Remember what?" I asked. "You're full of shit, Val. Quit fucking with me."

"Quit fucking with me," Val said. 

Was there a fucking echo?

"Bullshit," I said, "The fuck we did."

"The fuck we didn't. You might want to take a look at your hands," Val told me.

And so I did...

What the fuck? My hands were covered in stamps from different nightclubs, while several bands from others adorned my wrists.

What the fuck?

"Okay," I said. "Would someone care to fill me in on just what the fuck happened last night?"

Val explained that we had left the house and headed for South Beach, where we started drinking at The Clevelander and then made the rounds of the local bars like horny tomcats on the prowl. We finished up at the Button South in nearby Hallandale, where we were thrown out at closing time, which was five a.m., or was it seven. Who the fuck remembers?

Certainly, I didn't remember a fucking thing.

There was more, a lot more. Fuck. There's always more, isn't there? Evidently, Jackie and I had been very friendly throughout the night, becoming even friendlier as the evening wore on, until we became about as friendly as two people can possibly get, right there in the fucking club.

Sex? I didn't remember any sex. And it was in the fucking club? Get the fuck out! Where the fuck was I? Sex? Like with another person kind of sex? I had all of this sex, in a club, with a real live person and I couldn't remember a fucking thing. Now that, was super fucked up. Was it good? Was I good? Did I give her the best 90 seconds, or less, of her life?

Apparently I must have, because Val had the impression that Jackie had the impression that the two of us were now a couple.

What? A couple? A couple of what? Ohhhhh... Oh, shit.

How the fuck did I get here? My head swam.

I was so fucked. What the fuck did I do and how the fuck did I get a girlfriend out of it?

"I'm going home," I announced. "I'm going home and I'm never leaving again. I think I'm going to crawl under a rock and stay there until I die."

Val smirked and said, "I can't wait to see you try and talk your way out of this one." And then she giggled.

Bitch.

I vaguely remember the drive home and when I finally fumbled my way into my apartment, I dragged myself into the bathroom and pretty much fell into the shower. I turned on the hot water and I emptied the tank, staying under the water until it was so cold that my teeth were chattering and my balls were blue, their natural color. The ringing of the phone pulled me out of the shower and I wrapped a towel around myself as I went to answer it. I face planted getting out of the tub, taking the shower curtain and the curtain rod down with me. It's okay, my face cushioned my fall.

I made it to the phone just as it stopped ringing.

Son of a bitch.

The answering machine picked up the call. It was Jackie. Apparently I had given her my number. Even worse, I had made plans with her for that night. What the fuck had I been thinking? I was so incredibly fucked. I picked up the phone and I tried to talk my way out of it, but everything that I said sailed right over Jackie's head. Yeah, I was fucked alright.

Jackie and I went out that night and it was like we came from two different planets. I talked about how wonderful it was to be single and I swear that crazy bitch didn't hear a word I said. She kept talking about our future. What future? Us? She was out of her fucking mind. We had a date and a sport fuck that I couldn't even remember and I wasn't even sure if I liked her or not and here she was, planning our wedding and picking out the names for our kids and shit.

After dinner, Jackie asked if I wanted to go back to my place. Okay. Who am I to say no? Why would I want to? As all men know, crazy bitch sex means crazy great sex, but it comes with a steep price; you have to pay for the crazy. It's okay, though, you can pay on the installment plan, they call it a relationship.

And I was curious to see what I had missed. Well, I hadn't missed it, I just couldn't fucking remember it.

Judging by the great sex to completely fucking bonkers scale, Jackie was a twelve out of ten. Shit, I still have scars on my back from that girl.

She left a note on my pillow before leaving in the morning. I found the notepad that she wrote it on. She had doodled all over it, variations of my name, such as Mrs. Steve M., or Mrs. Jackie M.

What the fuck? She was even crazier than I had previously thought, but the sex was incredible. I knew that I had to get rid of her and I had to do it soon, but damn, that woman could do things that, just fucking wow. I tried and I tried to get rid of her; I even broke up with her three fucking times and she just kept coming back and I kept having sex with her. She was into the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing and I felt trapped. Jackie started talking about marriage and she was serious, so I did the only thing that I could do and I tried my best to make her hate me.

Shit, I just had to be myself.

It worked. Our relationship unraveled in less than a month and she gave me the whole, "It's not you, it's me" talk.

Now that night, I remember. It was the best fucking night ever... 

Tea Time

Many years ago...

So many of my stories start like that. Let's change it up a little, shall we?

A long fucking time ago...

There, that looks a lot better.

Let's continue.

A long fucking time ago, I worked at an upscale Italian trattoria named Bruzzi, located in oh, so fucking chic Aventura, Florida. The food really wasn't all that spectacular, but the place was new, trendy, and cool. Okay, it really wasn't new. Previously, it had been owned by Patrick Swayze, but it hadn't been an overpriced pizza joint then. It had been a 50's themed diner kind of place that  made the staff sing and dance and shit on command. Yeah, fuck that. It failed miserably. However, Bruzzi was still trendy and cool, although I don't know what was all that fucking cool about it. The restaurant was an interesting place to work and by interesting, I mean it was a fucking nightmare. The clientele was a jetsetting crowd that felt as entitled as they were rich. These folks thought their shit not only didn't stink, but tasted delicious too. Outrageous requests, extremely detailed special orders, to the point of constructing their own meals from various items on the menu and generally just being the neediest motherfuckers and the biggest pains in the ass on the face of the fucking planet. However, the money was incredible and shit tastes great, for the right price. Money makes up for a lot. Oh yeah, it certainly does.

Sometimes we served the famous and infamous, too. There was the time that I waited on Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction. It was during his Porno for Pyros days and Perry was a totally cool cat, if a bit eccentric. Dude paid using a Porno for Pyros gold card. Awesome shit. Perry grew up in nearby North Miami Beach and he went to high school with a lot of my friends. Have you ever noticed how it is that when someone becomes famous, everyone that they went to high school with is their best friend? Not with Perry. No one admitted to being his friend, but the guy was a legend at North Miami Beach Senior High School and most notably remembered for running and screaming naked through the halls. 

So many crazy things happened in that place and my co-workers were all so delightfully demented. There are many tales to tell of my time there and a few of those stories will make an appearance here, whenever those stories are ready to be told.

One night, when the restaurant was slammed, which was every night, I was seated a party of four that consisted of two older Jewish couples who were obviously transplanted New Yorkers. As I greeted them and took their drink order, I silently prayed for them not to order hot tea and I repeated this mantra over and over in my head.

"Please don't order hot tea. Please don't order hot tea," I thought and I thought and then I thought some more. The two old ladies ordered hot tea. Of course they fucking did. I don't know why I bother pleading and whimpering to the invisible sky people, because that shit never works. It's either that, or the invisible sky people like to fuck with me. More likely, I'm just fucking insane. Take your pick, one choice is as good as another.

I got their drinks and delivered them to the table, dropped them off and politely asked if everyone was ready to order. They informed me that they needed some extra time and I took off to go do some waiter shit, like fuck off, smoke a cigarette, take a bake break, or whatever else I could sneak away and do, in order to avoid actually having to work. Look, we had food runners, service assistants, bussers and all sorts of other support staff and I had to tip out every single one of those bitches. Fuck that. Let them do all of the hard work. I just needed to look pretty, take orders and sling that shit. 

As I was making my way back through the dining room, one of the old ladies flagged me down by snapping her fingers at me. I winced. There's some shit that you just don't do and snapping your fingers at your waiter is one of them; it's incredibly rude. Normally, I'd look a snapper directly in the eye, smile and walk the other way, because fuck you. But for some reason (it must have been a bake break) I maintained my calm, professional demeanor and I made my way over to the table, thinking that they were ready to order.

Before I go any further, I really, really, really need to describe this woman to you, it's essential to the story. Picture an old Jewish woman, around nine thousand or so years old, as wrinkled and shriveled as a prune, with the bluest grey hair that you can possibly imagine and a voice that I don't even know how to begin to describe with the written word, but I can do a perfect imitation of her voice. You really need to hear the voice, it's a key ingredient. Maybe I'll do an audio version of this story on YouTube. I've often heard that I have the perfect voice for radio. As an aside, I've also been told that I have the perfect face for radio, too. I'm not sure how to take that. What do you think? Want to hear a story? Anyway, back to her voice. Imagine all of the wonderful attributes that I just mentioned and combine them with a voice that was as dry as cracked parchment and pure gravel. We're talking fifteen packs of smokes a day, chased with whiskey kind of gravel. And of all of this pleasantness was accompanied by a raspy, wheezing noise that she used to punctuate her words.

As I approached the table, she grabbed my arm, which is the ultimate no-no, looked up at me and she said, "Waaayytah... (wheeze) My hawt tea (wheeze) isn't very hawt (wheeze)."

To my credit, I didn't grab her by the back of the neck and bash her fucking prune face into the table. Don't ever fucking touch me. I'll shank a bitch.

Instead, I apologized and removed the offending kettle of hot water from the table, returned it to the kitchen and I made her a completely fresh set up. I brought the hopefully hotter water back to the table, apologized once more and set the kettle down in front of her. She placed her hands around the kettle, which was a thick, glazed stoneware.

The old woman grunted, looked up at me and said, "Waaayytah... (wheeze) My hawt tea (wheeze) isn't very hawt (wheeze)."

I tried to explain to her that she wouldn't be able to feel the heat through the thick stoneware, but she would have none of it, demanding that I bring her hotter water. I once again removed the kettle from the table, went into the kitchen, emptied it and refilled it with scalding hot water from the espresso maker. I returned to the table, apologized again and put the kettle back on the table.

Her shriveled and bony hands shot out, encircling the kettle and then she made that angry grunting noise again.

"Oh, shit," I thought, "Here it comes."

"Waaayytah... (wheeze) My hawt tea (wheeze) isn't very hawt (wheeze)," she spoke with what sounded like her dying breath. I wished I was that lucky.

Oh, for fuck's sake. This was starting to take up entirely too much of my time and I had other tables that needed attending to. This shit was really starting to get on my last fucking nerve. I was now officially in the weeds, which is restaurant speak for being completely fucked and so far behind that they need to send a search party out to find your sad, sorry ass. From all appearances, I was about to become Dr. Fucking Livingston, or so I presumed.

I snatched the fucking kettle off the table and I dashed into the kitchen, except this time, I exchanged it for a teacup and I filled that fucker up with boiling water, threw it into the microwave and I watched that shit boil like a motherfucker. When I was certain that the old bitch would burn the living fuck out of herself, I ran the hot water back to the table. The water in the cup was still bubbling, as I placed the cup on the table in front of her. I didn't apologize. Fuck that shit.

The old crone shot me the evil eye as her hands grabbed the tea cup.

I smirked. There was no fucking way. And then my arrogant, self-satisfied smile slithered away.

"Waaayytah... (wheeze) My hawt tea (wheeze) isn't very hawt (wheeze)."

Get the fuck out. Are you serious? Are you fucking with me? There was no fucking way, No fucking way. That fucking water was hot enough to fucking maim. Bullshit.

I completely fucking lost it.

I bent down next to her and I spoke into her ear, "Ma'am, it's because you're dead. You're dead and your brain just hasn't caught up to your body yet. Now shut up and drink your tea."

It's always so easy to pinpoint that moment where you know that you just fucked everything up. I only wish that I had hindsight for foresight. Fuck.

Everyone always freaks the fuck out when I tell them that part. Y'all know perfectly well that's exactly what I said, because by that point, I just didn't have any fucks left to give. My field of fucks was barren, but still, everyone is always like, "Holy shit! What did she do/say?"

I'll tell you exactly what the evil old crone said and did...

She didn't say anything. because she shut the fuck up and she drank her fucking tea.That's exactly what she did and that was the end of that. No complaints, nothing. I swear, if shit didn't fuck up all of the time, I'd think I led a charmed life.

Generally, I'm very professional and quite unflappable, but occasionally people can take things just a little too far and the customer isn't always right, either. While you're busy monopolizing my time for your petty concerns, perhaps you could explain to my other tables why you feel that you're more important than they are. I grew up around people like this woman, people who believe that the entire world revolves around them. Well, guess what, people? The fucking world doesn't revolve around you, not where I'm concerned. The only way to handle people like that is to beat them at their own game and stand up to them and put them in their place; bullies always fold and ridiculousness deserves ridicule.

Get over yourselves, you're not that fucking special...

For more tales of restaurant mayhem, give this one a try:

Fondue You

Waiter, There's a Lap in My Soup

Every now and then, I like to tell stories about my time in the restaurant industry. I grew up in the business. Literally. My parents owned several bars and a restaurant over the years.

When I was eight years old, my parents opened a restaurant in Pompano Beach, Florida. The eponymously named "Marandola's" served a somewhat more upscale fare, but was still home to many Italian favorites. The restaurant was frequented by a great many tough looking Italian men who came in singly or in variously sized groups. All of these men seemed to be friends of my father's and all of them seemed to have come from New York, New Jersey or Philadelphia; their accents reminiscent of Brooklyn and South Philly. My parents used to think it was cute to have me take baskets of bread out to the tables, where I would get tipped a dollar or five and then the dago bastards would always tousle my hair and call me "Stevie". For a little kid, it was a pretty lucrative racket, but I really despised having my hair tousled and being called "Stevie". As time went on, I started doing more and more around the restaurant; hosting, bussing tables, washing dishes, even a bit of cooking, here and there, but I never waited tables and I never wanted to.

Eventually, my parents sold the restaurant, but my experience there paid off and enabled me to land a job bussing tables at another restaurant. The skills that I learned working for my parents and what I have added to my skillset over time have come in handy many times and served me well, over the years.

When I was around seventeen, I had a job in the kitchen of a restaurant at a motel named The Colonial Inn, located in Sunny Isles, Florida. The motel and many others like it were a haven for all of the snowbirds who would flock down from the Northeast US and Canada, escaping the cold and spending the winter months in sunny South Florida. Depending upon the time of day, I would either be cooking, bussing tables, washing dishes or cleaning the kitchen. The pay was shit and the owner, Jeff, was cheap as hell and a complete douchebag to work for, but I got back at him by fucking his daughter Penny, who worked as the hostess and cashier. Quid pro quo, motherfucker. Quid pro quo.

As we moved into our busy season, Jeff hired another part-time cook to help out with the heavier volume. This was great for me, because it took some of the burden off of my back and I had to do a lot less of the shit work, because we had a new guy.

One day, the restaurant was packed and two of the waitresses hadn't shown up for work. There was a huge line at the door, the kitchen was slammed, we were out of clean dishes on the line and I ran back to the dish area to get the dishwasher going. Suddenly, Jeff walked up to me and I'll never forget the words that he said to me, "We're short in the dining room. I need you to start waiting tables. You're cleaner and more presentable than the other guy is and you know what goes on in the front of the house."

Jeff thrust some shit at me.

"Here's a pen and a pack of checks. Penny will tell you which tables are yours and she'll help you as much as she can. Don't fuck this up."

I was stunned. I stared at Jeff, bewildered.

"What the fuck are you waiting for?" Jeff asked me. "Get the fuck out there and start taking tables. You're gonna' fuck this up. Don't fuck this up."

Asshole.

I walked out into the dining room and it was complete pandemonium. Penny walked right up to me, grabbed my arm and pointed at a table.

"Start with that one," Penny said. "Ask them what they'd like to drink, write it down, get their drinks and take their order. Now! Go!

With that said, Penny smacked my ass and pushed me toward the table.

I nervously approached the table and introduced myself. Sitting before me were three older ladies and an older gentleman. They all had thick Germanic accents. I knew the type and knew that they were going to be very demanding. Great, just fucking great. They ordered three hot teas for the ladies and coffee, for the gentleman. Moments later, I discovered just how much I hate making hot tea for other people; it's a huge pain in the ass, incredibly time consuming and it's the bane of my fucking existence. I've always said a silent prayer at tables with old people, "Please don't order hot tea. Please don't order hot tea."

The power of prayer...

I pray and I pray.

The power of prayer, my ass. It never fucking works. They always order hot tea. There is no god.

People who order hot fucking chocolate are even worse. Hot chocolate? Seriously? What are you, five years old? Seriously. If you're an adult and you want hot chocolate, stay the fuck home and make it yourself, you entitled fucking asshole.

Unless you are under ten years old, don't even try to order that shit from me. If you're a kid, I'll happily make hot chocolate for you. If you're an adult, I'll either tell you that we don't have it, or I'll put the water in the cup, dump in the powder and cover that shit with whipped cream. There's no way in hell that I'm stirring that shit for you, I'm not your bitch. Hot chocolate. Fuck you.

Now you know two things that will really piss your server off. Wield this knowledge wisely.

I brought their drinks back to the table, took their dinner order and then dropped the check off in the kitchen.

Jeff looks at me and says, "Don't fuck this up."

Gee, thanks for the vote of fucking confidence, douchebag.

I walked back out into the dining room and Penny tells me that I have three more tables and that I need to hurry, because she's about to seat me more. I started to panic a little, because I totally wasn't ready for that shit. This was a sink or swim moment and I wasn't ready to drown just yet. My entire attitude changed to "Fuck it", an attitude that I've managed to carry with me up until this very day and one that I expect to serve me for years to come. I calmly went about my business, as long as you define calmly as me, running my ass off and trying to figure out just what the hell I'm supposed to be doing and somehow, in supposed to be doing all of this on the fly. Yup, sounds like complete and utter calm to me.

Thankfully, I'm a lazy fucker and laziness need breeds efficiency and makes for great organizational skills. I stayed afloat and managed not to screw anything up too badly. I was all like, "I got this shit," and shit and I was starting to feel a bit cocky about it.

By this time, the old folks had finished their meal and I cleared away their dirty dishes and took those back to the kitchen. I returned to the table and I offered them dessert, which they declined. They did ask for more coffee and hot water for tea, which, as I'm sure you can tell, had me absolutely jumping for joy. It's a good thing for Joy that she jumped first.

As I was pouring the coffee and hot water, the older gentleman asked me to bring a large bowl of hot water with lemons to the table. I was a little confused by his request and I asked him to be a little more specific. He became very agitated and he told me, in a very rude and demeaning tone, to just bring him a large bowl, full of boiling water and to throw in some lemons,

I walked back into the kitchen, still a little confused, but I did as he asked. The only bowls that we had in the restaurant were these big ass soup bowls, so I took one, filled it with boiling water, tossed in a few lemons. set it all on a tray and carried it out into the dining room.

As I approached the table, I stumbled and I watched in slow motion horror as the tray flipped over, the bowl of hot water went flying, upended and landed directly in the old guy's lap.

I recovered my balance and stood there, mortified.

There was about two seconds of complete silence and then all fucking hell broke loose.

The old guy jumped up and the bowl took flight once again, crashing to the floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces of flying shrapnel. I looked at the old man, horrified, but then I noticed that he looked as if he had pissed himself. I couldn't help myself; I started laughing. And laughing. I had completely lost it.

The old guy turned his evil eyes upon me and started screaming, "You stupid son of a bitch; you dumb bastard. Look what you've done, you idiot. You don't belong out here, you don't deserve to be a waiter. You're not a waiter! You should be the dishwasher."

Funny, I was doing that just about an hour ago...

"Yeah, about that..." I thought to myself, "Tomorrow, when I'm cooking your food, I'm going to poison you, you motherfucker. At the very least, I'm going to rub your fucking pancakes all over my balls."

I was still laughing. I couldn't stop and the old man just kept getting angrier and that only made me laugh harder.

I tried to apologize, but the old guy shut me right down. He was royally pissed off and throwing an epic temper tantrum. Not knowing what else to do, I walked back into the kitchen, composed myself and told Jeff my version of what had happened, which was, of course, the unimpeachable truth.

"Jesus Christ," Jeff said disgustedly, "I told you not to fuck it up and here you went and fucked it up."

Jeff ran into the dining room and went to the table.

Yeah, fuck you too, jefe.

I don't know what it was that Jeff said to the old bastard, but when I went back to the table to drop off the check, the old man apologized to me for his outburst, said that accidents happen and that a change of pants didn't mean the end of the world. He thanked me for my service, paid the check and told me to keep the change, To my complete shock, he had left me a twenty dollar tip on a fifty dollar check. I was elated.

The rest of the day went smoothly and I ended up making a lot of money. Jeff was so pleased with my performance that he permanently made me a waiter and gave me all of the best shifts and my income doubled. I'm still not sure if that was a promotion or a demotion, but I do know that night, a legend was born, even if it was just in my own mind.

I kept fucking his daughter, too.

I love a job with benefits.

Thanks for stopping by!

If you enjoyed this story, why not another?

Kill it with Fire

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Get Thee Behind Me, Satan

It's Not Delivery, It's A Porno

I've mentioned my friend Luke previously in a couple of stories, such as They Call It Mellow Yellow and Kill It With Fire; Luke and I have shared some crazy adventures and they haven't stopped yet. The two of us have always been as close as brothers and we have been roommates at various times over the years. This story goes back a long, long way, to the very first time that we were roommates. We were living in North Miami, Florida, at a huge apartment complex called the Hamlet Estates. I'm not sure how they made the jump from apartment to estate, but whatever. Aside from a few moral degenerates, meaning us, the community had a very large and eclectic population, but for the most part, it was full of young singles and we had many friends that were also neighbors. It was a great place to live and a lot of great memories were made there.

We even had a friendly neighborhood cop that lived down the hall from us, Dan worked next door in North Miami Beach. He was such a nice guy and such a great neighbor that he was kind and thoughtful enough to stop by one day and knock on our door, just because he wanted to be a good neighbor and do us a neighborly solid. Luke and I had been sitting around, trying to smoke a week's worth of pot in an hour, when we were startled by an abrupt and authoritative pounding on the door. I looked at him, he looked at me and we both knew that we wanted the other to get the door, mainly because we were both lazy, stoned fucks. The pounding started again and I sighed and went to answer the door.

I really, really need to get in the habit of looking through the peephole, before I open a door, because, as I opened the door, a large and very visible whitish wave of Jamaica's finest wafted out (talk about watching the clouds roll by) to engulf the police officer who was standing before me,

I nearly shit my pants, but not before I noticed that his badge read North Miami Beach and not North Miami. No worries, I wasn't in his jurisdiction, so fuck that guy. My sphincter relaxed a bit. My gaze travelled from the badge to his face and I recognized our neighbor.

"Hey Dan, what's up?" I asked him.

"Mind if I come in?" he asked.

"Nope. Can I get you a drink or something?" I asked as I led him into the apartment.

"No thanks," he said, "I just wanted to talk to you and Luke for a second."

"Sure, dude. What's up?"

Dan explained to us that we were really stinking up the place. Literally. Evidently, we smoked so much pot that the smell and the smoke filled the hallway like a cloud. Walking to and from his apartment, he said, was like running the gauntlet in a Colombian sauna and he blamed us for the contact buzz that caused an increase in his doughnut intake and the subsequent widening of his waist.

Dan suggested that we stuff a towel under the door to help block out some of the smoke and the smell, because he thought that eventually someone was going to complain and that he didn't want us to get in any trouble.

He told us that he liked us, thought we were nice guys, good neighbors (he knew we did everything under the sun to help out the little old lady who lived next door) and that he'd hate to see anything happen to us. We thanked him for his kindness and advice and then he was on his way. I turned around and there was Luke with a rolled up towel. A towel that was headed directly for my face,

"Catch!." Luke said and turned away.

The towel smacked me in the face. Fucker. He hadn't even stopped to admire his handiwork. I think that was the bigger insult.

Fucking asshole. Payback, motherfucker payback. We've been playing this game for thirty fucking years. As a matter of fact, I owe that bastard one. I'm glad that I remembered. You just can't let these motherfuckers get away with shit, ya' know? You don't fuck with a thug like me and get away with it. I shall demand justice in the most passive aggressive way that I can. #winning

I threw the towel under the door and then we went back to getting high.

Back in those days, cable television was still a toddler and satellite television was in its infancy. Our apartment complex had contracted with a company that would provide satellite television programming, a package that included everything that we currently had, along with a few extra channels, but at a fraction of the cost of cable. Since saving that much money on the cable bill would mean that we would have more money to blow on women, drugs and booze, it was very easy for us to cut the cord and make the switch. The twisted logic that you can use to justify stupidity is a wonderfully enabling thing when you're young. We signed right up, of course and were given an appointment. We were good to go.

On the day of our appointment, both Luke and I had taken the day off from work. Back in those days, their customer service was even worse than it is now. I know how hard that is to believe, even more so, if you're a Comcast customer. For example, if you had an appointment for a cable or satellite television installation and it was scheduled for 9:00 am, you might be lucky if the tech arrived by 5:00 pm. You couldn't do anything all day, except wait for the cable guy. You sat and you stared at the door. And you waited and waited and stared and stared and you checked the time, a lot, and you slowly went out of your fucking mind until the guy got there, You couldn't even pee, because if you did, it would be guaranteed that the guy would be knocking on the door while you've got your dick in hand and faster than you can shake and stuff, the fucker would be gone and you'd have to go through the whole rigamarole all over again. With the two of us there, we could still do other things; one of us could cover the door if the other one had to pee and we wouldn't miss the satellite guy. We were pee buddies. #peebuddies

As Luke and I were waiting for the satellite guy to get there, we broke out the weed and started getting high. It was a veritable bonghit bonanza and a great way to kill time.

Our appointment time came and went. Still waiting. Still smoking weed, too.

The fucking pizza we ordered arrived on time.

We caught the delivery guy a buzz as a bonus tip.

Those guys are my fucking heroes, putting their lives on the line, every single fucking  day, to deliver manna from Heaven in thirty minutes or less. Respect, bros!

 I even wrote you guys a little poem/song to show the love. I stole the music from Sesame Street, but you can sing-a-long with me!

Ready?

He's my hero, pizza guy,

Comes to save me, when I get high

That's as far as I ever got with it. What did you expect from a pot head? I hope your expectations weren't too high. Who the fuck am I kidding? If you're reading this, I suspect that your expectations are pretty fucking low as it is.

Why is it that I am always early for everything in life, but not one goddamn thing can ever happen on time for me? That's some bullshit, right there.

Almost three hours after our anointed appointment time, there's a loud knock on the door. A cop kind of knock. We panicked and spilled the bong. Fuuuuuck!

I carefully hid the bong on the side of the couch and went to answer the door. I opened the door and there was the satellite guy in all of his homeless man looking glory. Finally and thank goodness. Another five minutes of smoking weed and I'd have no longer had the ability to function as a human being. I could barely stand as it was. As I staggered to the door, it felt as if I were walking through quicksand. Luke was even more useless than I was. He was barely coherent and glued to the couch.

The installer apologized for being late, we showed him where everything was and he went right to work. We asked him questions while he was working and he patiently explained everything that he was doing. All in all, we thought he was a pretty cool dude. We wanted to hook the guy up and give him a tip, but since we were young and stupid, we tended to spend all of our spare money on necessities like weed and alcohol, so we were both broke and the only thing that we could tip him with was weed.

I popped the question.

"Do you smoke weed, man? Do you wanna' catch a buzz?"

He looked at me as if I were retarded. People do that a lot. I don't get it.

"That's a stupid question," he said. "This is Florida, dude, everybody gets high,"

He did have a point. Maybe I was retarded, after all.

Well, Luke and I sat that motherfucker down and we got him stoned. No, it was much more than that, we got that guy light years beyond stoned. We broke out the weed, we broke out the bong, we rolled joints and huffed and puffed away, but then Luke drastically upped the stakes by pulling out the coup de grace; our own little personal Death Star. It was a thing of beauty, it was and I loved that thing all the way up until the day that it exploded in my face. Luke had this oxygen/gas mask abomination that was attached to a piece of PVC, that had a bowl attached to the end of it and a carburetor hole at the front. It looked like something out of a bad BDSM nightmare, but it got you freaking baked. In the end, that was all that really mattered. One of the best things about this contraption was that the carburetor hole was the perfect size for the nozzle on my whipped cream maker, which was the kind that took nitrous oxide cartridges. Basically, this setup enabled us to do nitrous oxide bong hits and very potent ones at that. We put the satellite guy into the fucking twilight zone. That poor guy was orbiting the planet and could barely stand upright, by the time that we were finished with him.

When it was time for him to leave, we packed him up a little care package to take with him.

He was one happy motherfucker, let me tell you.

Satellite man told us that he needed to get one last thing out of his truck and that he'd be right back. He left the apartment and returned a few minutes later, carrying a small black box.

"I thought we were all set?" I asked him.

"You guys just needed one last thing," he said.

"What's that?" Luke asked.

He asked us, "Do you guys like porn?"

I looked at him as if he were retarded. Dumbest fucking question ever.

"Dude," I said. "We're guys. Of course we like porn."

Porn. That magical elixir of life. Back then, long before the Internet, porn wasn't as easily accessible and private as it is today. It's freaking everywhere, these days. Hell, I'll bet that there isn't one innocent thing that you can Google without turning up at least one result that's porn. Which, when you think about it, is quite an indictment of the society that we live in. But back then, if you wanted porn, you were limited to the porno theater, the video rental store. soft core Cinemax, magazines and places like this:

On second thought, that's a fucking lot. And none of that porn was free. :(

The satellite guy walked over to the television and put the little black box on top of it, plugged in some wires, fiddled around behind the tv, doing some kind of mystical satellite guy voodoo magic, plugged in the box and hit a button on the remote and magic happened.

Hardcore porn filled the screen.

It was beautiful. It was breathtaking, I wanted to drop to my knees and cry. I almost did. I even thought that I heard Luke stifle a sniffle from somewhere behind me. I turned around and I saw the look on Luke's face; he was mesmerized and excited. So excited, that I thought that he was going to jump up and hug the satellite guy.

He did. And he did it with tears in his eyes.

"I love you, man," Luke told the satellite guy. "Thank you, this is the best day of my life,"

Satellite man told us that we were the coolest customers that he'd ever had and that he wanted to thank us by showing his appreciation for how nice we were to him. He showed his appreciation by hooking us up with a free converter box for the hardcore porn channels.

Free porn.

Free fucking porn.

And this was decades before the Internet, mind you. Free porn. Holy shit. Are you fucking kidding me? For two guys that had just turned twenty, this was like we had both just had our birthdays, celebrated Christmas, won the lottery, found a bag of weed and gotten a free fucking ice cream cone, all at the same time.

Holy shit! I couldn't believe our luck.

Holy shit!

We thanked the satellite guy profusely. Luke hugged him again and I could have sworn that I heard him whisper, "I love you," once again, to the satellite guy, but Luke denies it. Maybe it was just the porno that was playing in the background. I know what I heard, though.

The satellite dude went off on his merry little way, bag of weed in hand and a big ol' smile on his face.

We now had a twenty-four hour backdrop of hardcore porn to accompany everything that we did in the apartment. Eat dinner? Porn. Catch a buzz? Porn again. Wake up in the middle of the night to go pee? Where's my pee buddy when I need him? Even more porn. I think I got a little jaded. Nah, I'm just fucking with you. Who could get tired of free porn? Nothing beats a full-time backgound of hardcore porn to lessen the banality of your mundane existence. Yeah, existentialism wrapped in shit is still shit. Porn was always there; omnipresent. We never turned it off. I'm not sure that we ever really watched anything else, either. Who the hell wants to watch television when you can watch free porn?

Hell, I haven't even told you the best part, yet. I know, right? You're sitting there, asking yourself, "What could be better than free porn?" You'd think that getting free porn would have been the best part, but it wasn't. I know that it's hard to believe, but it's true.

So what's the best part?

The best part is that we got not one, not two, not even three, but four, count 'em, four channels of free hardcore porn. That's more porn than you can shake a dick at, Stick, damn it, I meant stick. I hate fucking cliches...

Free fucking porn! Woohoo! Calling it fucking porn does seem a bit redundant though, doesn't it? Then again, that moniker does help to distinguish it from oral, anal and homosexual marriage equality and polygamy porn, because, you know, The Gays.

Once word got around that we had more porn than we knew what to do with, Luke and I became immensely popular with all of our friends and those jerkoffs started dropping by the apartment at all hours of the day and night. Hell, we even caught a couple of assholes trying to steal our converter box. Dickheads. Friends don't steal porn from friends. Thankfully, we were able to hang on to that magic little box and we were able to enjoy the fruits of our kindness over the next few years.

In closing, I'd just like to make the point that you should always treat people with kindness and consideration. Also, you should always remember to tip well for a job that is well done. Finally, and this might be the most important part, get that motherfucker high as fuck and maybe, just maybe, you'll get hooked up with some free porn of your own, but I doubt it.

You'll just have to go fuck yourself.

Thanks for stopping by. If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one:

If The Shoe Fits

Looking for a more serious read?

O' Brother, Where Art Thou?

Bonus pics below.

I wonder if they deliver?

Primal Forces

A soft, southern drizzle was falling that night, a minor prelude to the main symphony that was soon to play out as the hurricane edged closer. Hurriedly, we tied our surfboards down and ran back to the shelter of my friend Rob’s apartment. Once under cover, the steady calypso rhythms of the storm gave way to the enraged tantrum of nature gone wild. Hurricane Bertha was nursed in the warm, tropical waters off Western Africa. This angry, petulant child cut a swath of destruction across the Caribbean and now she was steadily bearing down on us. My friends and I had hoped this storm would come. Indeed, such is the recklessness of youth, we had even prayed for it. As morning broke, the sky was a Rorschach blot of disturbing swirls and shapes that seemed a fitting backdrop to the insanity that was about to take center stage. I could barely hear the car engine start, the wind and the rain was that intense, but the engine managed to sputter and cough its way to life, and we were off to the beach. The deserted streets and the unnatural light created a nervous energy; a primal fear in those who strode forth to challenge the sea as we were.

Arriving at the nearly deserted beach, we could see that the swells were enormous. Sets of ten to twelve foot waves and even the occasional fifteen foot monster were storming across the great stone jetty like a panzer blitzkrieg across the Low Countries of Europe. The jetty was nothing more than piles of carelessly placed, enormous stones, shaped like a “C.” The jetty ran due east for about one hundred yards and then curved south for another fifty or so. Like a sheltered cove, it provided a safe haven for us to paddle out into the ocean, out to where the waves were breaking. The three of us started to paddle out when we were suddenly caught in the death grip of a rip current that shot us down beach about three hundred yards. In a calm spot for a moment, we settled in and waited for the next set of waves to break; the wind and the rain swirling about us. It wasn’t much of a wait. Rob caught the first wave, a nice twelve footer that he peeled like an apple before slicing and dicing it. I was next in, on a similar wave, rushing down this raging wall of water before snapping back up; thrashing and grasping at empty sky before plunging back down; forty-five seconds of pure adrenalin rush. Jeffy went next, flipping off the backside of his wave in a truly spectacular wipeout. Catching wave after wave, we were having a great time. The three of us were young and indestructible in that idiot way that only youth could be.

Paddling back out, another set loomed large behind us. Rob caught his wave and was off, while half a heartbeat later, there was, I think, well over eighteen feet of water at my back. Realizing what a bad position I was in, relative to the wave, I began paddling like hell, hoping to gain position on the wave without being crushed by it. Blink. It was do or die time. I jumped up, planted my feet firmly; I did it; a smile and um, no I didn’t. Suddenly, the world turned upside down as I was hurled like a rag doll through the air and into the bottom of the wave; the leash on my ankle pulling my surfboard along behind me like an angry snarling dog; a dog that was soon to turn on its owner. Spun end over end, I was completely disoriented. I was deep and there was no indication of which direction was up. The logical thing to do would be to follow the surfboard to the surface as fiberglass and foam likes to float. Unfortunately, my board was below me. Large waves continued to crash down, keeping me pinned where I was. Realizing I was trapped,

I thought, “This is it, the end; game over.” Well maybe nothing quite that stoic but my thoughts did contain a lot of words that just aren’t fit for print. Strangely, I was calm and detached; resigned to and accepting my fate, when suddenly I was at the surface, gasping for air, my lungs straining to catch a breath. The surfboard exploded from the water right next to me, the nose smacking my head while the fins bit deeply into my flesh. Any relief I may have felt was short-lived, I had surfaced just in time to be hit by another large wave, dragged under, only now to find myself caught once again by the rip current. I can’t say with any certainty how many times this scene repeated, spinning over and over again, lost in the endless hours of seconds until the sea finally released its grip. Exhausted and bleeding, I washed up on the shore, more a piece of flotsam than a human being; but at least I was still alive. Maybe I should have been thankful, jubilant, even joyous to be alive, but I felt none of these things. Instead, I felt cold, wet and absolutely miserable. I felt as if I had tried to tackle a freight train, albeit a very wet one.

After choking and sputtering for a few minutes, coughing up what seemed like half of the Atlantic Ocean from my lungs; I managed to drag my waterlogged butt further up the sand and away from the ocean. I was amazed to see that I was over a thousand yards away from where I had started. After checking on me, my friends paddled back out, eager to catch a few more waves before the full fury of the storm landed upon us. As for me, I was done for the day. It had been man against nature, and nature had clearly won. Hurricane Bertha took the lives of two surfers that morning; I was lucky not to have been the third.

Here's a few pictures of where this story took place.

This is the jetty at Bal Harbor Beach, FL

Haulover Beach is on the other side.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

I did not take any of these photographs.

Aerial view from the Harbor House.

Just to give you an idea of what the surf can occasionally be like.

Nothing like a stormy day and cutting school.

These aren't very large really.

This is mild compared to the day of Bertha.

It was never this crowded when I was a kid.

R.I.P. Shawn

Nothing like a beautiful day and cutting school too.

Long Boards and Old Guys. We Rule!