What One Restaurant Owner Has To Say About You!

This is Chapter One: Dissection of a Blog.


Just for fun, I decided…how great would it be to dissect someone else’s blog?! Genius you say, right? Well this blog is REEEEEAAAAALLLLLLYYYY long, but I actually think it's worth the time...so pull up a comfy chair, grab a beer and have a go at it!

SO…I choose a candidate that has a lot to say, someone who has some sort of position in society (ok, by no means is this any sort of relevant position, but it’s a business owner. Someone who is in the service industry, which in most cases means they are in the industry of servicing people. What is the old saying about this industry? The customer is always right. When you run a business that people actually come to, an actual place where people physically place themselves and pay money for a product or service, you damn well better offer them the best. You damn well better offer them WHAT THEY WANT.

How many people out there believe this to be true?

If you have a store that sells paper and someone comes to you for paper…you better give them paper…not paper scented dog turds. It just won’t cut it folks. Pretty soon, people are going to go somewhere else for their paper…and your good name is going with them. The power of the people is quite a powerful thing in the retail and service industry. (Of course, there are some exceptions for that, considering that some people have NO STANDARDS AT ALL. Some people actually like paper scented dog shit.)

Ok. So, I will not tell you the name of the blogger or the business name for that matter. I want you to be able to view the screenshots with an unbiased eye, a blog in its entirety, you make your own opinion about it. The blog in question is/was originally posted on a public website, anyone is open to read it, so I am not technically divulging any type of “secrets” or things that the blogger doesn’t want the whole world to know. I am also not liable for making any sort of false accusation about the blog owner. I am simply showing you what I read, then giving you my opinion about it.


Enjoy!



If the customers look at the menu and they are disappointed, and it is happening a lot...you think you would change the menu. I've worked at many restaurants...when something isn't working...it's gone. Any corporate restaurant will take the complaints and use them as constructive criticism. I have studied the menu. In this case, the blogger is forgetting to mention that her Italian restaurant offers it's patrons a choice of a baked potato or pasta with every meal. For every 10 customers, 7 ask about the baked potato. That is not confirmed statistics...just a generalization of the comments received from people.

The blogger also makes a comment about "the painful ordeal". I don't think people would be happy knowing that this restaurant owner considers taking orders from her paying customers a "painful ordeal". I would think that the majority of people who live in this area would boycott her business just for that comment alone.



Wow. Ok, so these people are really picky and they are obviously insane since they didn't like the chicken. Her fault, not yours. Nothing you can do about that, right? Sorry...the customer is ALWAYS wrong.



Unhappy about life in general. Does this restaurant owner have a degree in psychology too! That is amazing, instead of trying to make this customer happy...so they don't tell everyone they know how bad your restaurant sucks...you decide that they are unhappy in their life and this is the sole reason they thought your chicken sucked. HMMM...really



It is hard these days to find decent drug free workers. Especially trained chefs and line cooks who will work for way, WAY less than every other restaurant in town! Amazing how that works huh! You pay decent wages and you get decent employees. Not transient, never cooked a meal in their life, breaking into your joint and stealing your supplies type employees. It's cause and effect lady. Didn't you learn that in first grade...because I think everyone around you did and it's a decent lesson in life to have a firm grasp on.



OOPS! Too late. (And i've got 5 more entries to dissect...i've got a feeling you've shared entirely too many details already!)



Again...what a waste of a good Phd degree! Why the hell are you peddling pasta when you could be making $200 an hour diagnosing people's alleged problems?! Why can't you tell them that? They're your employees right? You can tell the whole damn world in a blog that you think they need help...but you can't tell them to their face? This blogger is not only loose lipped on the world wide web, she's also a coward in real life.



You mean to tell me the company who owns the mall that you lease a spot in, for your restaurant...wants to check up on the quality of service that you're putting out! You mean to tell me that the company who owns the space YOU ARE RENTING want to see whether or not you are bringing customers to their establishment and contributing SOMETHING to the goodness of the mall?! How outragious is that! How dare they! I'm sure that is totally not kosher for that company to be protecting their investment in you! With this attitude, i'm not surprised that you failed...and again...it probably comes as no surprise to anyone reading this, that you believe the sercret shopper has a "grudge" or a "chip on her shoulder"!?!

Am I in the twilight zone? Is this lady for real?

A secret shopper who is hired to go to restaurants, is an important person...they get to judge you on everything, from a consumer point of view. These are actually consumers that get paid to eat in your restaurant...they aren't your arch rival from your old highschool cheerleading squad, they're not your husbands mistress, they're not the slacky waitresses you fired...they don't get paid to have "chips" on their shoulders. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder...and the mall owners don't like your style...I guess you are shit out of luck. Maybe next time you should consider BUYING a commercial property so you don't have to deal with pesky landlords wanting to make a profit.

But I give you an A++ for the effort of excuses as to why you failed, you should write a book lady. This stuff is seriously too funny for words! It's called reality...you should check into it.



What a shame that she can't hire people who do sidework, or wash windows, or mop floors, or organize supplies, or find things to clean. She shouldn't be discriminating against all those crazy tweekers...they've got a lot of energy to burn...you could find them things to clean for days and days. Or maybe because you bitch and whine about everything and wrongly diagnose your employees all the good ones left? Maybe folks are standing around because you ain't telling them to do anything?!

I get the feeling this blogger isn't quite telling us EVERYTHING.

So now this blog is becoming quite tedious, if I do say so myself. And everyone knows I like the sound of my fingers on the keyboards almost as much as I like the sound of my voice...but really...where am I going with this?

Time to really just post the completely ridiculous, horribly unprofessional like details of our restaurant owners blog...hold on a moment while I gather up the rest of the really juicy tid-bits of 5 more posts...BRB...



Good attitude. So how are you going to ever have a committed employee when you don't want to hear they're committed?!?! I'm confused...you want people who are committed and are never going to leave you, but you don't want them to act like they are committed or bother you with solemn vows of their commitment. So how the hell do you determine what sort of employee they are?! Sounds like you wouldn't be happy if a million dollar bill was shoved up your ass because, "Ouchies, it hurts!!"



Hmm. So someone who was not qualified to be doing a certain job got a big head and thought they were better than everyone else...hypothetically speaking, that would be similiar to someone who takes horse riding lessons and then buys a stable and a bunch of race horses and loses an assload of money at the track. Or say, a person who gets a wild hair up their ass, goes to culinary school and gets a cordon bleu certificate, buys a restaurant instead of developing their own ideas and marketing and opening THEIR OWN restaurant (gee whiz...branding is really HARD!) and then fails miserably at it. Not only failure in keeping decent staff and employer to employee relations, but also secret shoppers and annoying customers who want what they want!

Whose shit that doesn't stink are we talking about again?! I forgot.



Not to sound redundant here...but why are you in the restaurant industry again?!



...especially if you never even try to please them...(cause/effect, i'm pretty sure they can explain this to you over at Wikipedia.)



Decorum...hmmmm, decorum like your trash bloggin' Cordon Bleu ass displays? Let's tally up everything so far...I can see the help wanted ad now...

"Looking for a permanent, hard working, intelligent, non drug-using cook, with the decorum of a chef yet willing to be looked down upon by the real Cordon Bleu chef. Pay is 30% lower than what the other restaurants in town pay, but on the plus side...you don't have to worry about complaints from the customers because we simply don't care about what their grudging ass has to say. Must be willing to prep and do dishes. Must be willing to lose all self respect. Please only committed people apply for this job, once hired please do not ever speak of your commitment to me or you will be banished from my will and beaten with wire hangers. No calls before noon and no calls on even minutes, no calls from cell phones, payphones or jail. (No calls between 12:30pm and 11:30am) No transients, but folks with low or no bills are greatly encouraged to apply!"

Yeah...some people would call it a blessing...or believe that the "Universe" wanted it to happen...other people, they think..."Hmmm self, what the hell am I doing wrong?! Shit is just plain messed up!" I doubt it has anything to do with you?! I doubt none of your problems are occuring because of your actions. Let's regard it as an amazing blessing in disguise or the mystical Universe deciding your life!

Let's all wear pink tutus and run off with the sprites into a pasture to find a leprechaun's pot of gold instead of doing our taxes, paying our utility bills and stopping at red lights!! It's what the UNIVERSE wants me to do!! The UNIVERSE told me to chase rainbows thru the Deschutes National Forest! Going to jail...sitting in the dark, getting t-boned by a semi-truck, it was all one huge BLESSING IN DISGUISE!!!!!

I'll tell you what sounds like a complete and utter miracle. The fact that this woman has run any one single business for an amazing 10 months in a row.

The only thing I wonder is if she really, really, in the depths of her miserable little heart, can honestly tell herself, it was not for a lack of trying?



Again...things you might have thought about, BEFORE YOU BOUGHT A DAMN RESTAURANT!! It would have helped if you had ever worked in one before...or maybe ate in one before? You would have saved yourself the trouble of dealing with these damn people who want to eat!!!



Key word being "great"...you're making people wait 2 hours for food that when they make a suggestion on how it could be better, you write a bitchy blog about them instead and blame them for being "grudgey".



This is a screenshot from the Bloggers very first blog!! It was also her 4th day of ownership! Amazing what running a restaurant for 10 months and 10 days will do to a person. Back then, "the customer comes first, when they want to order, you take their order." to present day...when the whole process is simply a "painful ordeal".

Should have visited the race track and learned a little bit about the jockeys before you bet the farm lady!

I wouldn't worry too much about it though, the UNIVERSE wants you to fail...

How to Distinguish Tourons from Tourists.

Before I even start this blog i'd like to make one thing very clear. I'm not really bashing any of the parties in what I am about to write...i'm just playfully nudging a bit...you know, laughing WITH you, not AT you. It's just a little fun and games...so no one get your undies in a knot. No one try to start a new Bend Hates Meany-Mean Blog where everyone decides to boycott me, maybe fire me from my job at the radio station. We'll have none of that.

I will say outright, that tourism in this city is what puts food on my table and pays every single one of my bills. If it wasn't for tourism i'd be living under a blue tarp out on China Hat. So I would never want people to think that tourism needs to go away in this city. I simply want to offer up to you fine folks of the blogworld...my observations, on the difference between tourists and tourons.

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Top Ten Ways to Tell the Difference Between a Tourist and a Touron¹

10. Tourons ask for a pint of Bud Light when they go out to eat. Tourists always request Coke or Diet Coke, even though every place they already went to said they only had Pepsi.

9. Tourons sit all cozy near the fire down at the Rock, sipping on Peppermint Patties in their fleece earmuffs and Uggs, not a board or ski in sight. Tourists are Bam Margera style running your ass over, all the way down the entire mountain.

8. Tourons don't even realize they're not on I-5 anymore and are driving 75 on the Parkway. Tourists drive 45 mph because that's what the signs tell them to do and the last thing they want to do is draw any unwanted attention, by any of the fine men & women of the BPD.

7. Tourons are hogging up all the seats and 2 parking spots each at the Victorian. Tourists are down at IHOP eating all you can eat pancakes and leaving 6% tips because they've got to save every last hundred for their day up at Bachelor.

6. Tourons are everyone on the road NOT driving a Ford or Chevy monster truck, Subaru Outback or Biodiesel Mercedes Benz. Tourists coasted into town on fumes because they spent all their money on weed.

5. Tourons are stopped in the middle of Circle 11 arguing with their wife about breaking the GPS. Tourists are mistaking the bike paths for roads after one too many Cinder Cones at the Owl's Nest.

4. Tourons change their plans for the entire day when the forecast says rain. Tourists crack open another micro brew, smoke a bowl and wait 45 minutes before they go out.

3. Tourons wash their car when they get to town since it got "real dirty" coming over the pass. Tourists don't have time to wash their cars because they're busy trying to find a hotel that costs less than $20 a night.

2. Tourons are taking over downtown like it's "Night of the Living Dead" gobbling up all the expensive trinkets and knick-knacks like Pac-Man in a Louis Vuitton patterned velour tracksuit all hopped up on pac-man jr.s Ritalin. Tourists are running around in quite the same manner...only they're not spending any money while they do it.

1. The number one way to tell the difference between a touron and a tourist? By their bumper stickers.

Examples of common touron stickers:




Examples of common tourist stickers:



Please understand that many occasions can not necessarily be determined by these 10 things alone. In some cases, new recruits to the area are being "mistaken" for tourons. Under certain circumstances, some new recruits are placed in the category called, "Overglorified Tourons" which we may or may not discuss in a future blog. In many cases these overglorified tourons are typically driving Hummers, Lexus mini-vansuvs, Cadillac Escalades or shiny brand new Corvettes. They are rarely seen in public without a sweater tied around their shoulders. BUT for the real test you should approach them with your best joke; if they laugh and nothing above their cheek bones move, they are indeed new recruits. New recruits may be classified as tourons for upwards of 12 years from the time of entry as deemed fit by their neighbors and passerbys.







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¹Tour·on [tour-on]
- noun
1. a moron who is traveling, esp. for the pleasure of annoying everyone else within sight or sound.
2. in moron -class accommodations, or by moron-class conveyance: to travel touron.

Proud to be a naysayer. (Especially if it means I can afford a house in Bend someday.)

This is what $200,000 looks like in Bend, Oregon money.

I read something that someone posted on a Bend blog, the quote went something like this… "They look to the Bulletin as an unbiased news source that actually interviews Realtors as real estate experts. That's like going to Bill Gates and asking for an unbiased opinion about software & what brand you should buy.” and forgive me for not knowing or remembering who posted this genius comment. Everyday I read something new posted by idiots, investors, realtors, the people with mortgage payments that exceed the value of their property and the poor saps such as myself waiting for that market to crash, crash, crash…so that I too can be a homeowner in the American Dream that is, Central Oregon.

I’ll tell you something that will be a very good indicator about how educated I am on these topics. I went to college for Graphic Design. That was 10 years ago and I currently do not have any sort of degree to show for it. I live, for the most part, paycheck to paycheck…with minimal savings and checking accounts. In 3 years I will be the sole owner of a nice all-wheel drive vehicle that gets just under 30 mpg (and since I live in Bend I’m sure that it goes without saying that said car is indeed a Subaru Outback.) I have been a home renter for my entire adult life, which is getting more adult like every single day. (I know, I know Dad! I said too much...I could hear your voice in my head when I was typing this paragraph!)

I have lived in Oregon since the age of 9, so I pretty much consider myself an “Oregonian”. I did not move here from California…but you can dock some points because I came from Arizona. (We all know that in California you can go two ways, you can go south if you're red and north if you're blue.) Now in all fairness, you have to add back some points because I stayed in Oregon after I became an adult instead of running back to where I came from. I have lived in Bend for a year. I moved here because I love Oregon and I hate the rain. I’m one of those non-Californians who loves Bend because it makes me smile…not because it made me an assload of money.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs about the real estate bubble over here in Bend. It’s easy to decipher the REAL agenda of each and every poster. It’s really easy to spot the folks who’re in debt to their eyeballs and then some. These are the same people who try to persuade us that the bubble burst already and the values are heading back up again. (I clearly missed seeing those rock bottom prices, but then again...I spend a lot of time doing things like working...which seems to be something that people in Bend don't really do a lot of these days.)

Why? Because the Bulletin posts a story with their main source of information coming from the realtors of Bend? Anyone with half a brain knows the bottom line for the realtors of Bend. Anyone who is semi-comatose or better knows what sort of career you don’t want to be in right about now.

If the real estate companies in Bend really wanted to get the facts straight with us, they would do what Assist 2 Sell does and publish their sold list as soon as they sold, that way we could really see, with our very own eyes what is selling and for how much. All the houses that are selling this March (an increase from what sold in February the Bulletin told us today) are they actual houses that sold…or are they houses taken off the market? Who wants to fess up and show us some proof? Because if Assist 2 Sell is NOT lying (and what reason would they have to do so)…not much is being sold in 2007.

I went on their website, I took a look at what sold. Currently there are 74 houses for sale over at Assist 2 Sell. Now assuming that all 74 of these houses have been for sale for the duration of 2007 (which I have no way of knowing) it means that Assist 2 Sell has sold 9.7% of their inventory this year. That’s right folks, a whopping 8 houses have sold through Assist 2 Sell in 2007.

But you want to hear the good news? Six out of eight of those houses sold for, get this…lower than asking price! That means that 75% of the houses they sold, sold for less than the over-inflated asking price. The average sale price was $319,000 at an average 4% less than asking price. One home sold for asking price and one sold for 4% higher than the asking price and that single house that sold for more, sold for under $300,000. How about that for some statistics people?! You’re not seeing that printed in the Bulletin are you? I wonder why that is? Who has the most to lose from this sort of information being realized by the masses?

Yeahhhhhh. Things are really looking up for the real estate market in Bend. We're not headed in a downward spiral, we're heading on up! Selling some houses...making some money!

Whatever helps you sleep at night folks!!

I’m not going to take into account any of the other real estate companies in town, unless they want to start publishing on their site the houses they are selling, the houses that are being pulled from the market and the houses that are in foreclosure! These DO NOT count as sales. But that’s what the Bulletin is trying to tell us!

The boom happened in late 2005 and the first 6 months of 2006. That was the time to sell your house and make some money. You missed out! The cold, hard truth…for anyone with their home listed right now at 75% more than the value…you missed out. You need to invest in a really good time machine and go back to May 2006. I've got several for sale if you're interested...just email me. I'm unloading those babies at a very reasonable $347,000.

Last year, 2006, Assist 2 Sell sold 65 houses. I don’t know how many houses they had listed, but that translates to roughly 5 per month. What a booming market! 13 of those 65 houses (20%) sold for 7.8% higher than the asking price. 13 of those 65 houses (20%) sold for the asking price. (Which were all less than 400k) If you are good at math, you know that leaves 60% of the remaining houses selling for less than the asking price. People who bought these 39 houses last year in Bend, got them for $547,000 less than the asking price. Which doesn’t mean squat, considering that they still overpaid by about 70% when everything was said and done.

So who is doing the math on the statistics provided to the Bulletin?! I mean, I figured these statistics out pretty easily and I never made it past high school Algebra! I understand that Assist 2 Sell is just one of the dozens of realty companies in town, but still! Multiply those statistics by the amount of realty companies in town and they still add up to the same thing. Shit is not selling...and it’s DEFINITELY not selling for what you’re asking! Plain and simple.

This is the truth, and it hurts. But not for me, because I want to buy a house in Bend someday before I die, without having a $2,300 a month mortgage payment (which is what it boils down to on a median house of $347,000) Because like I said before, I don’t even have a college degree and without one of those babies you sure as hell aren’t making $90,000 a year, which is what you would have to make to qualify for a mortgage that size.

What is up with schools nowadays?!

While doing research on the Jerunction Catty High School homepage for the name of a teacher I was trying to think of, I clicked on the "Departments" section of my alma mater.

What a surprise. Here I am, at the ripe old age of 28...still feeling the pain of waking up at 6am, riding the bus, chocolate cake monster cookies with powdered sugar on top, the "green machine" and Mr. Duerr like they all happened yesterday. The suffering of each day, somehow passing slower and slower except on snow days and vacations. The endless hours spent daydreaming in Mrs. Peterson's Honors 11 English class about the way I would decorate my very first apartment, as soon as I was released from this horrible nightmare.

Suddenly, in one frightening moment of this hysterically sad and profound flashback, I realized that something wasn't quite right about this webpage.

Did I accidentally stumble somehow into a portal of OSU's department section?

These pampered little school children nowadays are way too savvy for simple reading, writing and arithmetic classes. As if mini-MINI skirts (compared to official mini skirts of the 60's these babies nowadays should be renamed "nonexistent skirts"), $220 designer jeans, ipods, cell phones, energy drinks and plastic surgery aren't big enough typical accessories to our age 13-18 year olds these days they've got COLLEGE TYPE CLASSES TOO!

Now I am really starting to get pissed.

When I was in high school you were considered cool if you had socks that matched your shirt, Nike shoes for P.E, a new backpack EVERY year and you brought a bagged lunch with pudding snacks or other pre-packaged items. If you had a beeper…you were a drug dealer or a prostitute. No one would talk to you because you were one of the "bad kids". If you wore a tight-ass dress to school and anything that closely resembled skin was hanging anywhere out of that dress you were called a "whore" and most likely people in the cafeteria threw food at you when you walked by. We drove to school in beat down cars bought at the auction, that we were LUCKY to get when we became juniors. They were usually a minimum of 2 colors and sometimes contained pieces from half a dozen different cars that your dad rummaged through down at the demo yard. If you had a tape player…you were the one who drove to Valley River Center after school with a car full of "friends". When you backed into a bush, it cost one can of bondo...not $14,000 like it does nowadays because your spoiled little brat had to have a brand new H3 Hummer.

Nowadays the little childrens are seriously too good for all of this. We've got to make them feel like pre-adults. They need to feel like the world they are living in most closely resembles the "real-life". What is with these damn adults these days?! They sound like a big bunch of freekin' a-holes. And dumb a-holes at that. I want to take them, shake them and smack them in the face.
Let us start with Agriculture. "Farm Business Management" specifically. Wow. That's a pretty amazing thing there. But in Jerunction Catty I think it might be a little redundant since anyone and everyone who takes that class already comes from one of the 2 dozen farming families that basically settled the town of Jerunction Catty. You've got a great "in" already on the whole Farm Management thing. My guess is your pampered little, racist, silver spooned hands have been managing border jumpers picking beans on your families property since you could walk. If that's not a life lesson in Farm Management, this class is not going to help out in the least. I don't think there is anything you can learn in this class that your daddy or the show "Dallas" hasn't already taught you.

Which moves me to Business. When I was in high school we had one business class. And I can tell you there was not a single student who I went to school with who knew that business class was about business oriented things. We thought it was about who could make Mrs. Prevics cry first. I can't remember a single thing I learned in that so-called business class. If they had wanted us to learn something in that class, they should have hired a TEACHER instead of that wimpy, shallow voiced lady who liked to cry a lot and interrupt every lesson to yell at someone for doing something or saying something that would eventually make her cry.

Business classes these days are classy, prissy things like "Sports & Entertainment Marketing". Because everybody knows that if you go to school in Jerunction Catty and want to make anything at all out of your life, you damn well better be REALLY fantastic at sports. It's nice though, that all those kids nowadays who AREN'T fantastically good at sports or who AREN'T sons of the athletic administrator can ALSO make a good life for themselves. Being sports and entertainment agents, managers, personal assistants, lawyers, stylists, public relations and so on and so forth. That's super. I guess that means you can write off the 20 grand you spent on clothing for your child for her senior year. After all, these are simply the tools needed for jump starting anyones career in this shallow, vain and overrated sport and entertainment driven world that we live in. I mean after all, without all of these people we wouldn't know what killed Anna Nicole Smith and all the juicy details about Britney Spears' time in rehab!! These are extremely important occupations we're talking about. I am very glad that schools offer these sort of classes.

When I was a senior I took those tests that told you what you were best suited for doing career wise in the event you made it to adulthood. I was so excited the day we planned to receive our results. I just knew that i'd be told, someday...you're going to win a pulitzer prize...a nobel peace prize...you might even have what it takes to be the first female president! Guidance counselor told me that I would be best suited for Truck Driving. I wish that I could say that to be funny because with material like that, i'd be a millionaire stand-up comic. But that my friends, is the sad truth. Me, cut out for truck driving. All those years of brushing my teeth and learning proper grammar...down the drain! All those years I could have been collecting trucker hats and flannel shirts!

But after seeing the new classes offered at my alma mater, I realize that I was not a dummy after-all, the school was just too cheap to let me have any sort of $250,000 a year paying job training class.

Don't even get me started in the department that might have done me a little good. English. English used to be weekly spelling tests, the definition of existentialism and val-i-grams. Now it's "Computer Design" and "Intro to Journalism". No more spelling tests?! You mean that kids nowadays are being pumped out by the millions not knowing the difference between "your" and "you're" but they can design and build a webpage using XML and php like it's making a pop tart?! You mean to tell me that kids down at JCHS have computers nowadays to use for something besides 89' Pagemaker and Oregon Trail?!

That really pisses me off. They should have to learn to type on word processors! They should have to turn in assignments that are hand-written on college ruled paper! They should turn in important book reports and "special" papers with green and white striped paper that smells of chemicals and has ream wholes all up the sides. If they are really adventurous and good little over-achievers they will make a decorative cover page with some sort of classy clip art image to depict something quite wittingly related to the topic of the paper. This is how things should be getting done. Like the old days.

We made peanut butter balls and spaghetti, learned to iron clothes with Wendy's mom (who was also our Home Economics teacher) but nowadays they have "Culinary Arts" where they can learn to become the next Rachel Ray or Giada DeLaurantiis. They make foo-foo things like foie gras and veal parmigiano completely oblivious to the horrendous nature of both of them. They actually have a chance at winning "America's Top Chef", like tomorrow…not just someday when they're big time cordon bleu graduates.

"Consumer Skills" which is probably where they learn that Diesel jeans are so not hot anymore and that Seven For All Mankind are! Because real-life is simply dreadful if you show up to the party wearing Levi's and think your name is going to be on the homecoming ballot.

"Child Development" we did have something like that. It was called "a converted janitors closet way, way out back where no one ever went." If rumors are right, there was a nursery back there and that girls in our school had real-life babies that they gave real-life birth to and that they were back in that room having a "special class" that their babies could also come to. We really just thought that it was the school daycare and these gals were getting school credits for everyday that they didn't accidentally let their kid die.

Get a load of this class. "Medical Terminology". Amazing. I don't even know what half of those words mean. But I've got a hunch they're a jump start on some amazing and good paying jobs in the medical industry. I hope to god that these kids get some REALLY good football scholarships to Lame Community College, because medical school ain't cheap, and I have a feeling daddy's not going to be too happy when he hears you want to be some pansy ass, limp wristed brain surgeon instead of head boss at your family bean farm. For god sakes child that bean farm has been in your family for 29 generations!! How on Earth could you let down all your ancestors like that, you greedy little shit?

When I was in school, the only career path for the nice, butch style lesbian was the forest industry or middle school PE teacher and you mean to tell me, that they can become sports therapists and massage therapists and all sorts of other things with a degree in physical education?

These kids have it SO good. They don't even have to use the stove to make mac and cheese anymore! How convenient that Easy Mac was invented long after I learned to cook. I miss out on everything! Measuring a fourth of a cup of butter and a forth of a cup of milk isn't the part that put me out...it's the whole boiling process that got to me. Everytime I wanted to eat me some mac and cheese I had to waste an entire 7 minutes of my life that I will NEVER get back because I didn't have Easy Mac & Cheese!! There has got to be SOMEONE that I can sue over this!?

I'm very surprised that the music department has not changed since 1913. Still just band or chorus. I don't understand why they aren't offering classes yet on how to apply hair-goupe for that rockstar sticky-up, just got out of bed look, eyeliner 101 (because every good rocker boy needs his eyeliner), emo life learning skills, remixing good songs of the past and selling out for millions of dollars business skills. It baffles me that these classes aren't being offered to the thousands of school children that so desperately need these things. Our schools are suffering my friends when it comes to the arts...

And so, to get on with this long ass story, basically I was shocked to see that my old stomping ground, the source for years and years of therapy and Paxil prescriptions, is now a highly sophisticated breeding grounds for young professionals and other white collar workers. They have surpassed every late 20 something year old out there in knowledge and technology ALL before they can even get into an R rated movie!

We've got a lot to look forward to in the next 10 years. Like the decline of our civilization as we know it. And I haven't even learned to use Power Point yet…that's the bitch of it all.