Chicken Soup

Just when I was pressed for something to blog about, I had a really weird night at work. First, as a side note, I may have complained about this guy I work with every week sucking, and it makes bussing hard for me. I didn't tell any bosses because I would feel extremely bad if he got demoted or something because I complained about him being slow. And I didn't have the heart to say, "Hey, you're really slow. And a lot of the things that you do, you don't have to do yet. It can wait while we have tables." But, somehow, something clicked, and he's normal now. I dunno if someone said something to him or what, but not only do I like him as a person, but it's cool working with him now. And I say this because sometimes, you don't have to be a dick. You can just let someone figure something out for themselves. And now, he doesn't think I'm an asshole for telling him he sucks, and he still has his good shifts. Pacifism is not always that bad.
Anyway, tonight I was working with the aforementioned guy, Trevor. It was a normal Sunday, kinda slow, he was going to bus a table, I was following a few steps behind him. I round the corner of the bus station, and there's Trevor, giving the Heimlich maneuver to this girl. And there is the girl's boyfriend, I guess he didn't know what to do, because he was standing there, with his hand on the girl's arm, like giving moral support. What do you do when a loved one is kind of in danger of dying, and you don't know how to help? So Trevor is giving her a few heave-hos and realizes it's not working. I'm watching what's happening, but not interfering, and when he stops giving the Heimlich, he looks at me and says, "She's choking." He is always calm, and kind of monotone, even though he's about my age. So I guessed it was my turn to give it a shot, and stepped up, mounting this strange girl as she choked on a tortilla chip, standing over her table. While I was standing there, kind of recalling what to do from CPR classes in high school, I remembered the diaphragm has to be pushed. So I guessed where it was, gave her a good tug in the belly, and she made a weird sound like I hurt her, so I stopped. But then she started breathing, so all I said was, "All good?" And I kind of heard silence, and that was good enough for me. She sat down, and I kept working. It was then that I realized how much of an adrenaline rush I had gotten, because I was all jittery. But I was acting overly calm through the whole thing.
Another weird thing was that I wanted to go over to her, and be like, "Man, that was nuts!" But I felt like she would be embarrassed, and I didn't wanna seem like I was fishing for compliments and thank-yous. But I also felt weird not talking to her because I just shoved my fist into her belly from behind. Kind of an intimate maneuver, the Heimlich. And I got enough atta-boys from everyone at work, so I felt good that I helped someone out.
And another side note about work. There's a guy that works there as a manager sometimes, and sometimes as a server, and he's very unfriendly. He has a very deep voice, and looks, to me, like he could be a drug lord that kills little blond American girls and stuffs their bodies with drugs to smuggle across the border. He never initiates a hello to me, never tells me I'm doing a good job. And the only thing he tells me to do is make sure the bus station is swept up, and to check the bathroom. He's an over-payed babysitter. And then tonight, when all this happened, he came over to see if everything was ok, the girl was ordering food, and everything was normal. I assume that he was worried about that girl getting mad at us for choking on our food and suing us or something. But even when I gave a girl the Heimlich maneuver, he didn't say one thing to me. Nothing. Fucking asshole.

Just Another Rant

One of my readers (evidently the most consistent one) expressed that she felt that I complained about my life and wanted to live in a remote part of town because my life sucks. She was drunk, so maybe that skewed her expression of her thoughts, maybe it didn't. Or maybe that's what everyone thinks. I'll address that issue as such: at first, I thought that was ridiculous. I talk about things in this blog that bother me all the time, I think they're the most interesting things to write about. And I also wrote about moving to a farmer town because the idea of it sounds cool, just living off of what I produce myself, and living with genuinely nice people and just having a really simple life. I thought I mentioned this, maybe I didn't. I didn't double check before I wrote this, and I won't before I post this entry. I will say this though: ideally, living in a rural town and farming sounds cool. But it would probably suck. Which is why I think most people live in cities, and most people on TV in rural towns talk about getting the fuck out of whatever town they're in as an unattainable dream. But I was talking to Grant the other day (I dunno about what exactly), and he told me to look up interviews with Noam Chomsky, an author and linguistics professor at MIT. I did, and I actually found out why living in a rural town sounds cool, ideally.
In America, we know we are awesome. We live in, if not the best, one of the best countries in the world. But most of us know that comes at a price. Many would say that price is the lives lost that our soldiers bravely give defending it. Many would say it's the governmental/societal/natural/whatever douchey reason-oppression that keeps the poor poor and the rich rich. In my opinion, it's probably a mixture of both. But most of us are middle class, most of us are happy, and majority usually rules in a democracy, so whatever works, let's do it. And bear with me, here's my point. After watching Chomsky's interviews, it wasn't exactly eye-opening because I know that the US government, like most governments, does fucked up shit. But just hearing him cite instances where it definitely happened, and remembering, not realizing, that fucked up shit is a part of the world, I then realized that I would like to live in a rural town because I would ideally like to run away from fucked up shit. I don't want to remember that wars exist and they're part of life. And I want life to be simpler. And I want to live in a town where most people aren't douche bags, but if there are douche bags, you know exactly who they are and it's easy to avoid them. But sadly, there's a word for things you think about that sound really good in theory, but probably won't work out in real life, and that is ideal. So I have to find a way to live happily among fucked up shit and douche bags.
On a different note, I found out a while ago, I dunno how long, that my cousin, Jessica, was going to get married. I remember meeting her only once because her dad (my uncle Allen) and my grandpa don't talk, apparently because of some family feud regarding a restaurant they owned. So on top of being X miles away from them, there's family stuff involved, and I never see Allen and his kids.
So I'm on facebook tonight and on my news feed, I see one of my friends changed her profile picture and her name is Jessica Wathen. And I'm like, who the fuck is Jessica Wathen? Oh, my cousin...who apparently got married. Cool.
What the fuck is that shit? Fuck family feuds, they're stupid. I want to know what's going on with my family. I found out I have a relative-in-law by facebook pictures? Sad. Also, I don't even know how to pronounce my cousin's last name. Is it Wah-then or Way-then? Who the fuck knows, I don't talk to my family.