-I am very, very hungry right now.  I like to eat, I mean, I like to eat a lot.  But I can’t cook.  Don’t know how to cook, don’t want to learn to cook, don’t like cooking.  When I moved to New York City I never thought I would be faced with this dilemma.  What can I say?  Cooking is just not my cup of tea.  Come to think of it, I don’t even know how to make a cup of tea…

-For whatever reason, my apartment has a very nice kitchen.  My roommate and I have two George Foreman grills (one with built-in bun warmer), a stove, a mini propane grill, a toaster, and a microwave.  I don’t think I have used any of them even once.  Seriously.

-I even have one of those Sub-Z fridges like in Meet the Parents, you know the one with the hidden doors?  The refrigerator in guys’ apartments is always a funny thing.  We have no solids, only condiments and drinks.  And they’re not even good condiments and drinks.  It’s like a jar of relish, a packet of soy sauce, a bottle of flat Diet Coke and a six-pack of cheap beer.  Damn I’m hungry…

-By this point you have realized that I eat out.  A lot.  I have major problems with the eating establishments in this city.  Here are some of them…

-I don’t know about you, but when I got out to eat, I go to get fed.  Just serve me the food ready to eat!  I don’t want buffets or smorgasbords, forget variety and selection, and I certainly don’t want to make-my-own or build-my-own anything!  I just want to fucking eat!  If I order fajitas, don’t serve me chicken on one plate, guacamole and sour cream in another dish, and lettuce and onions in another.  Wrap that mother fucker up for me – you’re the chef, why the hell would you think I can do it better than you?

-Same deal with when you get served a salad where all the cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. are grouped separately in the bowl.  I thought I ordered a salad, not some weird vegetable Seder plate.  Mix that shit up!

-There’s this restaurant in the city where you have two-sided coasters at your place setting.  One side is green and the other side is red.  If you leave your coaster on green, the waiters keep coming over to you with more meat, and they don’t stop until you turn it red.  What the fuck is going on here?  Are we eating food or drag racing?  My God, if I wanted to deal with all that red light-green light stress I would have just gone out and got stuck in traffic.

-How about these take-out places where they charge you by weighing your food?  I don’t like to have my food weighed.  I feel like a fucking zoo animal except I get Baked Lays on the side.

-When you order a sandwich at the deli or whatever, do you like to see them actually make the sandwich in front of you?  I don’t.  Then you see just how little skill and effort went into your sandwich and, for me, that just ruins the whole experience.  I want to go home and open that wax paper and at least pretend my hoagie was made with a little bit of love and tenderness.

-When I order a Coke at a restaurant and the waiter asks me if Pepsi is OK, I just want to punch him in the neck.  Of course it’s OK!  (Anyone out there reading this who just thought to themselves, “But I like Coke and I don’t like Pepsi” please don’t email me about this – I hate people like you more than the stupid waiter.)

-One of my number one pet peeves: waiters who make you feel bad about ordering tap water.  Here’s a typical conversation.  Waiter: “Would you care for an overpriced bottle of sparkling water?”  Me: “Uh… no thanks, regular water is fine.”  Waiter: “Oh, so just plain tap water?  From the sink in the bathroom in the back?  Of course sir, right away sir, I’ll be back in a moment with two dirty glasses.”

-What about when you’re at some fancy shmancy restaurant and you try to pronounce the dish properly when you order but the waiter totally calls you out on it by loudly pronouncing it correctly when he unnecessarily repeats the order back to you?

-As regular readers of my column know, there is a tradition in the Karo family that when you graduate college and get your first real job and your first real paycheck, you have to take the entire family out to a really nice dinner.  My dad has been holding the dinner over my head since I was like eight years old.  Last summer, I finally got to take the family out.  Of course, since I was picking up the tab, my dad ordered like lobster-encrusted filet mignon or something ridiculous like that.  You should have seen my dad’s face when I signed the bill.  Actually, you probably could.  He had the waiter take a picture.

-Another thing I hate: garbage cans with a swinging lid at fast food restaurants.  Am I the only the one who has a problem with this?  Basically, you have two options.  You can either attempt to push the lid in using your tray while at the same time making sure your Dr. Pepper and half-eaten burger don’t spill all over the place, or you can actually touch that swinging lid of filth to keep it open while you drop your garbage in.  Either way you’re fucked in my book.

-How about this:  you go to a restaurant with one of your friends.  It just so happens that your friend speaks another language, and so does your waiter.  And when they discover this, they spend the rest of the meal speaking in that language so you can’t understand what the hell they’re saying, but they’re giggling so much you think they must be making fun of you for drinking tap water.

-When you are at a restaurant and someone asks the waiter, “So, are the clams any good?” don’t you just want, for one time in your life, the waiter to say, “Ma’am, I have to be honest, the clams here suck.”  I think that would make me really happy.

-You know what freaks me out about restaurant bathrooms?  The “Employees Must Wash Hands” sign.  To me, this implies that the restaurant employees need to be reminded to wash their hands before returning to work.  I can just imagine the conversation between chefs in the bathroom:  “Hey Jack, did you know you had to wash your hands after taking a shit?”  “Really?”  “Yeah, it says so right here on this sign.”

-The U.S. Open golf tournament was played at the Bethpage Black course this year, which is just a few minutes from my house in Long Island.  It was definitely an awesome experience.  I spent the whole day watching golf in the sun while kicking back beers and munching on jalapeno poppers.  The next I think I set a world record for poisoning.  I managed to get sun, food, and alcohol poisoning all at once.  But I’d do it all over again.

-The other day I made a Saturday appointment for my regular check-up at the doctor.  The receptionist said that I could not eat before I came in because it might affect my blood tests.  She kept insisting that since I had to fast beforehand, I had to have a really early appointment, like 9am, otherwise I would get too hungry.  I’m like, listen lady, make my appointment at two in the afternoon, I sleep until 1:30 anyway!

-Why doe everyone working at Taco Bell wear braces?

-Why are all the workers at the “authentic” Tex-Mex place down the block from me Asian?

-Why are all delivery men only four feet tall?  And why do they insist on riding their bicycles kamikaze-style down the wrong side of the street?

-I have a coupon for Domino’s pizza.  On the bottom, it says “Drivers carry less than $20.”  Right above that it says, “Special: Two Large Pizzas and 2-Liter Soda, $21.99.”  So what happens when I give the guy $21.99, he can’t accept it?

-Why do people chew cinnamon breath mints?  They don’t freshen your breath, they just make it smell like cinnamon.  And that’s weird.

-How come after I cut a bagel in half I can never get the two halves to line up perfectly again when I try to make a sandwich?

-In Ruminations #25, I talked about the “mystery beep,” that strange beeping coming from somewhere in your apartment that you have to track for weeks.  Well now I have the mystery smell.  Something smells, but I don’t know what it is or where it’s coming from.  One thing is for certain though, it’s not coming from the Sub-Z – I’ve never had any food in there!

-Here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I’ve started to notice a disturbing fashion trend – guys wearing polo shirts with the collar turned up.  Dude, we’re not on your yacht, and this isn’t 1985.

-Does anyone look good with a mustache?

-Isn’t it awkward when you run into a really good friend that you haven’t seen in like two years but you can’t run up and hug them because they are either on their cell phone or talking to someone else so you kind of just have to stand there patiently and wait until it’s convenient to get excited?

-I love when people act like they have inside terrorist information:  “Are you sure you want to go to Boston this weekend?”  “Oh yeah, it’ll be fine, I heard they’re attacking Las Vegas instead.”

-Why do I always prick myself trying to open a “safety” pin?

-A very awkward situation occurs often in New York City when you are walking down a relatively empty sidewalk and there happens to be a person walking right next to you in the same direction as you at the exact same pace as you.  I never know whether to pass or draft.  It becomes sort of a strange competition.

-When you realize that a shirt has to go to the dry cleaners anyway, don’t you smush it up into a little ball in your closet so it gets as wrinkled as possible?  Ever go into the dry cleaners and they tell you that your stuff will be ready in a week, but when you ask if they can have it ready by tomorrow, they can?

-Have you ever been in someone else’s apartment, picked up the TV remote control instead of the cable remote control, and tried to change the channel, thereby fucking up the entire system so that you can’t even figure out how to get it back to channel three?

-So, I took the leap.  I made my stand-up comedy debut on July 10th.  Although I was nervous as hell, I am happy to report that it was a rousing success.  To me, comedy is like sex.  Beforehand, you’re a little nervous.  During, it’s the best feeling in the world.  And immediately afterward you never want to do it again and all you want is a hoagie.  I’ll make sure, though, to let you guys know the next time I perform.  Stand-up, that is.

-Ever notice that Foot Locker and Athlete’s Foot barely even sell sneakers anymore?  It’s like one row of Nikes and 900 shelves of jerseys, socks, and wristbands.

-I went to DC for July 4th weekend with a bunch of my frat buddies.  Their thought process is hilarious.  The girl we were visiting suggested we go to the White House.  All of us at once were like, “Oh, is that a bar?”

-It bothers me that only Oscar winners and championship athletes say, “If you follow your dreams, and don’t give up, you will succeed.”  Of course you’re saying that, you just won the fucking Stanley Cup!  You never see any homeless people say not to give up.

-And, finally, ever notice that whenever you write an awesome, long, detailed email to a friend, you always accidentally delete it before sending it and then instead of retyping it you write something like, “I just wrote you the longest email, but then I deleted it, fuck me!” and just send that instead?  By the way, after I wrote this issue out the first time, I deleted it by accident.  Fuck me!

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