"The apocalypse. Also: IHOP's latest monstrosity, the puntastic Criss-Croissants, a name that the breakfast chain has trademarked. But there's no promise this breakfast mash-up will make you want to 'jump jump.'"
Whatever.
Did you know that the first job I ever had was waitress at the International House of Pancakes? Year: 1969. That year of years.
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25 comments:
well...we always knew you knew how to pour on the syrup!
In no particular order:
Hurricane Camille, Ho Chi Minh dies, Woodstock, Cinderella Mets win the Series, Nixon inaugurated, Battle of Bogside, Sonje Jennie dies, Neil Armstrong walls on moon, Jets win Super Bowl, FLQ Bombing, Manson Murders, Chappaquiddick, Judy Garland dies, Prince of Wales investiture, Eisenhower dies...
We had a NYT 1970 Almanac (which covers the year 1969) in our bathroom for fifteen years. That's a lot of reading about one specific year.
"Did you know that the first job I ever had was waitress at the International House of Pancakes? Year: 1969. That year of years."
Fond memories...
Malcolm: I banged a lot of waitresses in my day, but you, you, you were the best.
Cookie Fleck: You don't forget the best.
will the criss croissants make you Jump Jump?
And wear your clothes backwards?
They tossed a Molotov cocktail into the local IHOP when I was a kid (1963 or '64). The reason was..wait for it..racism!!
Funny I was thinking Christopher Cross. Not a one hit wonder.
Inevitably, where does a one-legged waitress work? IHOP of course.
That sounds pretty good. Hold whatever that cream is.
My dad graduated high school in 1969.
Inevitably, where does a one-legged waitress work? IHOP of course.
What's her name?
Eileen
What would her name be in Japan?
Irene
Irene is my sister's name. My first job with a paycheck was in '68. Car hop. I was 14.
Did you ever babysit?
My first and still best job was as a golf caddy.
My first "job" was working as a magazine freelance writer, selling articles to girlie pulps. The editors never found out they were buying stuff from a 15-year-old kid.
- DEC (Jungle Trader)
My first job was in 1993 when I was thirteen. I was a dishwasher in my dad's restaurant.
I think I babysat once. I always turned babysitting jobs down, but this was a special case, a friend of the family in a bind.
Good lord.
If you asked me
I could show a list
of jobs I did and done
and kept up--and worked.
My first job was baby-sitting, when I was 11. (Well, I might have been 12. I remember that you had to be 11 years old to take the YMCA's Red Cross babysitting course, which I did.) I made $14 for watching a neighbor's 2 year old for 7 hours. $2 an hour seemed like a fair price back then. I remember proudly counting out those bills for my parents, my first real wages. This was back in 1992 or 1993 - that decade of decades.
It's funny how nowadays both my parents and my charge's parents would run the risk of arrest for permitting such a situation.
First job? Fleenor's Auto Parts, back in the Summer of 83. I made $3.50 an hour, while my jealous buddies at the Subway across the street were only pulling in $3.35.
Both stores are long gone, and I have no idea what happened to my jealous buddies.
Assembling the Boston Sunday Globe by hand in 1969? Start with the comic section on Tuesday. Insert the Sunday magazine, ad flyers and then in succeeding days the living, homes, arts and metro sections. The front page news and sports arrived on Saturday night. The Sunday paper used to be a big fat monster. Now not so much.
Areas that have IHOPs almost never have Waffle Houses, and vice versa.
http://deadspin.com/map-do-you-live-in-ihop-america-or-waffle-house-americ-510668232
My first job was delivering Chicago Tribunes, Sun-Times, and WSJ's. Started when I was eight. Made a penny a paper, about $1.25 a day. Get up at 5AM, deliver them before school. I did this all the way through Junior High.
I delivered all my papers during the big snow of 1967. Started when I was out on the the first half of my route on my bike, ultimately took two days walking and using a sled to deliver them all.
Can you imagine a youth of today making sure all the papers were delivered?
Did IHOP have themed pancake dishes such as "Age of Aquarius Blueberry Pancakes" etc.? I turned ten in the fall of 1969 and I remember attending the high school beauty pageant (my seven years older brother was performing in the high school stage band at the event) in which the theme was The Age of Aquarius. The stage band played the song and other pop songs of the era. It seemed like we were all going to be traveling around with jet packs before long. Magical.
I've told this story before, but I'm going to tell it again.
My favorite job of my youth was working in the office of a pest control company when I was sixteen. If you were new, they tried to find a particularly bad job for you to go along on, so when I woman called with a terrible roach infestation, I hopped in the truck with the exterminator.
When we got there, it was obvious that it was going to be really bad. Before we started, roaches were scampering in and out of the walls in well-lit rooms. The residents left, and the exterminator handed me a can of poison, and told me to spray it around the bases of the fixtures and the baseboards. "When you start spraying, they'll start coming out of there, so spray your shoes first to keep them from trying to climb on you."
Exciting!
He left for the kitchen, and I started the work in the bathroom. Sure enough, as soon as the spray hit the cracks, the roaches started coming out. First, just a few, but more and more as I went. Pretty soon, they were all over the place. I didn't know when the exterminator would walk by again, and I didn't want to look like a wimp, so I tried to keep cool and step on the ones around me as casually as possible.
They were coming out of the top of the walls onto the ceiling too, and some of them were falling down. (No wonder these guys wore hats!) One hit the bill of my ballcap. I was unnerved. It seemed odd that no one talked about this at the office.
I headed out to the kitchen to ask the exterminator if it was usually like this, and I found him stomping and leaping wildly around the kitchen, yelling obscenities. There were roaches everywhere. We didn't dare stand still. You had to keep your feet moving up and down to keep them from climbing on you, so you were constantly smashing them as you brought your foot back down.
"Is it usually like this?"
"I've never seen anything like this in all my life! Hurry and do the hall."
So I went down the hall, and it had a bunch of coats hanging on one side. I sprayed the poison along the bottom of the walls as I went, and when I got to the end of the hall and turned to come back, there were roaches out on the edges of the coat sleeves trying to get away from the wall.
I eased out of there and went into the living room where there was brown shag carpet. Roaches were escaping through it from the kitchen, and it looked like it was moving. I checked the bedroom, and, oddly enough, not a single roach. (Roaches like water and food.)
The kitchen was still a horror show, and the exterminator had had it. "Let's get out of here!"
We went to the truck, and he radioed the office. "Hey, we need backup." We waited and waited, but no one showed up, so he radioed again. They'd thought he was joking. The head exterminator came, and he was ticked off.
"What do you mean you need backup?!"
"You look in there for yourself."
He went in and came right back out. "Holy shit!"
"See!"
They used a fogging machine normally used in big spaces like warehouses or school hallways. The family had to stay out for a day or so, and when they got home, the woman called. She was angry because the whole house was covered in dead roaches. "Well, would you rather we'd left them alive?"
My favorite meal is probably the massive hot, sweet and greasy American breakfast. I only have it about twice a year but, oh baby! Thank you for serving the cause in your youth, Althouse.
"Funny I was thinking Christopher Cross. Not a one hit wonder."
in that case will the chriscroussants take you away?
Dupea: I'd like a, uh, plain omelette, uh, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee, and wheat toast.
Waitress: No substitutions.
Dupea: What do you mean? You don't have any tomatoes?
Waitress: Only what's on the menu. You can have a number two - a plain omelette. It comes with cottage fries and rolls.
Dupea: Yeah, I know what it comes with, but it's not what I want.
Waitress: Well, I'll come back when you make up your mind.
Dupea: Wait a minute. I have made up my mind. I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee, and a side order of wheat toast.
Waitress: I'm sorry. We don't have any side orders of toast. I'll give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.
Dupea: What do you mean you don't make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you?
Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?
Palm Apodaca: Hey, Mac . . .
Dupea: [to Apodaca] Shut up. [to the waitress] You've got bread and a toaster of some kind?
Waitress: I don't make the rules.
Dupea: Okay, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. I'd like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce, and a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A number two, chicken sal san, hold the butter, the lettuce, and the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Dupea: Yeah. Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.
Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
Dupea: I want you to hold it between your knees.
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