My Chilly Milk and Ice Beverage Brings All The Gentlemen of Superior Intellect to the Acre.

I’ve been at this job longer than I care to admit.  In that time I’ve developed a schedule of “regulars” who come in and ask only for me to serve them.  Perhaps it’s my sunny personality *scoff* or maybe it’s the way the pancake syrup stain on my uniform brings out the desperation in my eyes, but they seem to like me. 

On Wednesdays and Thursdays I have Thomas the Tax Guy.  He meets with his clients at our place.  He has a thing for bacon that’s been burned black, and—speaking of burned—should someone ever set his house ablaze, he’d probably die in the fire trying to decide whether to save his wife or his Playstation 3.  It’s a tough call once you’ve logged all those hours of Grand Theft Auto.

On Thursday mornings I have “The Samurai.”  They’re into some new-agey Deepak Chopra, Abraham-Hicks type stuff. (Think “The Secret” only more hard core.)

On random weekdays I get this guy who works next door.  I’m not quite sure what his “deal” is, but he wears shirts like “Darth Vader was Framed” tucked into his elastic-waist jeans (pulled practically up to his chin).  He isn’t morbidly obese, so I’m not sure what the pants are about.  He has a little friend who has the kind of snarky superiority complex only a mom’s basement nerd can cultivate.  He’s one of those “Worst Everything Ever” types.  They’ve gone from complaining about everything and only tipping a dollar to complaining about most things and leaving three.  I think I’m winning them over.

Saturday and Sunday mornings Jeff and Mark come in.  I can only assume these two have been friends since college if not high school by the way they bicker at each other.  It’s a total bromance.  They sit and talk about bedroom furniture, some RPG and make up weird breakfast creations like oysters and hollandaise sauce over hashbrowns.  One of their concoctions made it onto our new menu, though I don’t know who’s brave enough to order it.

Recently I’ve acquired another pair of friends on Sundays.  An affable couple of slightly rotund gentlemen who will sit at one of my tables for hours (I mean like five straight hours) drinking coffee and mapping out some kind of total immersion role-playing game.   I used to think they were scientists or something with all the papers containing unpronounceable words spread around the table, but no.  Hard core gamers.

Come to think of it…

All of my best customers are total, unadulterated nerds.

I guess it isn’t my personality or the pancake syrup stains at all.  They can smell the Star Wars on me.  They come in and they can sense that underneath all that makeup and Burberry perfume that I’ve seen every episode of Red Dwarf ever aired in the US.  They know that I can Mario Kart them all into the ground, and that I currently hold tickets to the Video Game Symphony.  Despite all my efforts to seem cool and fashionable and trendy, they can sense that I’m a fellow geek and they gravitate to me.

What I’m trying to say is:

My milkshake brings all the nerds to the yard.

 

Dear Nerdy Regulars (Should any of you happen upon this blog):

I love all of you dearly, and it’s your total nerd-ness that I find so endearing.  So please take this with the sense of humor it was intended to have…  In other words, don’t stop tipping.  My Red Dwarf DVD collection is nearly complete.

Nanoo-Nanoo,

Em