I think that, like bartenders (theoretically), waitresses at restaurants that serve breakfast all day should be well-schooled in the art of "cutting off" customers who've "had too much."

The scene:
Saturday, lunch with a coworker - I've been oddly busy of late, so we made a 2 p.m. lunch date. Due to delays (tarp pull, anyone?), it was bumped to about 2:45.

Location: About ten minutes west of the ballpark, at a place called Grandma's Restaurant & Pub (but they serve breakfast all day; the pub's in a separate room)

I kind of thought I wanted eggs when I arrived, and so did my coworker, so we each ordered coffee. A look at the menu, though, and I determined that a Super French Dip (with swiss cheese and grilled onions and mushrooms - though they substituted green peppers) was much more appealing. She got a sandwich of some sort.

As the meal arrived, we requested a second pot of coffee. As the bill came, we were finishing that second pot of coffee. I had consumed one glass of water (the waitress wasn't as diligent about refilling the water, and did not bring out a pitcher) during the meal, for the record.

So we departed the restaurant, and continued our sparkling "what've you been up to for the last week?"-related conversation and, as she's saying, well, something, I interrupt: "I think I had six cups of coffee during our hour-long lunch." "I think I did too." "My heart hurts."

Pretty much, I had a headache - a pulsing, pounding, bad one - when we returned to the ballpark four minutes later. And I was wired for most of the game (though I switched from water back to Diet Mountain Dew in about the sixth inning - the comedown had finally begun, six hours later), but made it through without (much) incident. (See: WIDiRVoFOW, eventually, though I sense I've got a long post coming.)

Point is, sure, there's some accountability and some responsibility involved on my part - I did, after all, consume 14 times my recommended daily caffeine intake in the span of an hour - but I think that waitresses should be required to switch the second pot to decaf if, as occurred here, two people request a new pot of coffee after less than a half-hour. Or maybe I should just, well, slow the hell down.

The coffee was good, friends. So was the sandwich, though it was more expensive than expected.

Grandma's officially joins the Hard Luck Cafe as destination points for visitors, though Grandma's is lower on the list. It's also about 25 minutes from my apartment, whereas the Hard Luck's closer to four.

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I spend a whole lot of money this week - more on entertainment-related stuff and going out-related stuff these last five days than at any other stretch in months. There was a goodbye dinner for a coworker's girlfriend on Tuesday. Bought lunch for a departing intern Friday. Another lunch out Saturday (see above). Went out both Friday and Saturday. Wallet's hurting a bit. Pretty dumb, really, though all five events were pretty good.

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I got a pretty amazing email from my cousin on Friday, in response to an email I had sent her. She had come to visit when The Boy was up here in August, and she left for the wild world of college at the start of the week. So, being that there had been some recent communication, I figured she'd appreciate a "check-in" email.

And so I did and, 20 minutes later, the response was incredible.

Early on, an "AMAZING!" and then a lot of the great things you like to hear ("so much fun!!!" and "my roommates are so nice and laid back" and ":)" and "so awesome") when you send an email like that.

Her email brought me back to that time eight years ago, because it's a pretty neat time. I kind of remember sending my older brother a similar response to an email from him - naming all the wonderful friends, and describing them ("he's from Knoxville, and really loves football" and "he's this big dude from Appleton who's really funny" and "there's this odd dude from Houston that creeps me out" and "I met this really friendly, not at all off-kilter, guy from El Paso" and "there's a guy from the Twin Cities who is not at all socially-awkward, and I think I'll be able to learn a lot from him about picking up chicks" and "there's this twerp from Pittsburgh that's always hanging around - maybe I'll tell him I have a highly-contagious and potentially fatal disease and he'll stay the hell away already"), and just being excited.

I'm not going to say that her email made my day, because Friday was pretty fun, but it was neat enough that I showed it to someone else in the office. She told me I had wasted her time, and I told her that that was kind of the point.

- - - - - - - - -

In other email-related stories, I spoke with my mom at around 3 this afternoon. I had sent her a series of emails (photos of Crazy Drew) on Saturday, and she had responded in kind with an email at about noon today. In the course of our conversation, she made reference to responding to my emails, and I said that I hadn't seen her response yet. (Computer hadn't been turned on yet.) I did some errands, returned to the house about 4:15. She called again at about 4:45, and told me she was headed over to see The Boy's apartment, and told me that The Boy's gas still hadn't been turned on and that he had been taking cold showers and that he stayed in Glenview on Saturday night for the purpose of having actual hot water.

I said, "Wow, I didn't know that," or something similarly intelligent.

She said, "You know, it's in the email," which was incredible for so many reasons.

Among them:
1) She sounded genuinely angry.
2) It had been not even five hours, and she was genuinely angry.
3) She can't actually operate a computer, I don't think.
4) The fantastic email (which she referred to twice in the span of two five-minute conversations, less than 90 minutes apart) was about 55 words long. When I finally read it at about 6, it didn't live up to advance billing.

Feel free to add your own here, as well.

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I was thinking that I should change the subhead at the top of this page, but I realized that I basically only write about baseball, rock music, and fantasy football, and that it's totally boring crap. So I won't change it, for now, anyway.

- - - - - - - - -

After a friendly-but-firm email sent during the middle of last week, and some subsequent correspondence, I received my 2006 WNUR T-shirt in the mail on Thursday night. (See it here, and then click on the archive.)

I'll be honest, I was a bit hesitant about the look when I received it. Certainly, I thought, It doesn't compare to the Record Player model, which is pretty much unmatchable for fantastic-ness. In fact, I immediately ranked it right near the bottom of the rankings among my WNUR t-shirts (I have them starting in 2001). Wrong colors for me, maybe a bit too gaudy, and the material (100 percent cotton, I confirmed) just felt too...smooth...for my tastes.

But, nonetheless, I rocked it at work on Friday, and received an immediate compliment. And, at that point, I decided I liked it.

Bullshot warned me to be wary of t-shirt compliments - "Maybe she saw that you saw her look at your shirt, and she felt she had to say something," she told me - and I tucked away the advice. But, with nothing to do, I confronted the person who gave the compliment (I do these things), and she confirmed that, "No, it's a really nice shirt. Well-designed, and I can definitely read what it says."

The color's still not great for me, but it'll make it into the t-shirt rotation.

- - - - - - - - - -

My sister got back in town from the Czech Republic on Thursday. She was the first to hear about the WNUR t-shirt. I don't think we covered anything else of substance, but it was nice to hear her voice again.

- - - - - - - - - -

WIDiRVoFOW
As of Saturday afternoon, I was considering suspending the WIDiRVoFOW. To be honest, the R/DS and I have reached an unspoken agreement - we don't particularly enjoy each other's company, but we stay out of each other's way. We've been a lot less sarcastic (we were mean-sarcastic, not friendly- and funny-sarcastic) with each other and, while his insistence on keeping our office and apartment meat freezer-cold still gets to me, it's been pretty not-bad of late.

I was even considering acknowledging things like "Maybe I didn't give him a fair shake" and "Maybe he's not that bad of a guy" and "I guess I should feel bad for him sometimes, and I'm an ass for not being more sympathetic."

But then, I made an innocent mistake, and he unloaded on me, and then he piled on. (And he's fat, like, really fat, like, orca fat, so when he piles on, even metaphorically, it freakin' hurts.)

My mistake:
After the game on Saturday, I was getting ready to leave the booth. I noticed a tupperware container and a fork on the countertop. Because I make my lunch on an almost-daily basis, I assumed that I had accidentally left them there earlier in the week or on the previous homestand. I smelled the container, and it stunk of some sort of food. So I turned on the sink and started to rinse it out.

As I'm rinsing, he interjects: "Great. Now it's not even dry. I've been drying it there since I ate this afternoon."

Me: "Oh, I'm sorry. I figured it was mine, and I had left it. Hope it's not too much of a problem."
R/DS: "Not as much of a problem as how you kept trying to ruin the broadcast by bringing up all those stupid topics during the late innings tonight."

Seriously. That's what he said. After I put water on a meal-sized tupperware container.

The "stupid topics" I brought up, in a game the home team was losing, 7-1, in the eighth inning:

1) The stadium that our club was headed to for their next series.
(His thought: Stupid. My thought: Well, the fans might want to know what it looks like. After all, it's three hours away - maybe they're thinking about going to the game.)

2) The various versions of the rally cap, and what was his favorite.
(His thought: Stupid. My thought: Rally caps are fun, and they're everywhere in the crowd tonight. Maybe people would like to hear about them.)

3) Whether our trainer - wearing slacks and a collared shirt every game - was the best-dressed trainer in the league. After all, the visiting team's trainer was in baggy cargo shorts and a team sweatshirt.
(His thought: Stupid. My thought: Well, kind of stupid, but funny to me.)

So, therefore,
This Week's Reason: He sucks on just about every level.

- - - - - - - - - - -

For the record, the rally cap thing featured this on-air exchange.
"R/DS, when you were playing Little League, what was your - "
"I didn't play Little League."
"Oh. Well, what's your favorite..."

After the game, I asked for clarification:
"You didn't play Little League?"
"No, I didn't play baseball until I was 13. I was a gymnast before then. I didn't want to discuss that on the air."
"Well, for the sake of the flow of the broadcast, couldn't you have pretended?"
"I never played Little League. Little League goes until the age of 12, and I never participated in it."
"I never played in Little League either. Technically, I played Bronco baseball and Pony League and things like that."
"Well, then you shouldn't have brought it up."

He's so odd.