BootsnAll Travel Network



Incompetent cops and winning the lottery

December 30th, 2005

I must first say that I just wrote this entire story out and lost it by hitting some wrong button and am now too annoyed to be eloquent or witty. I’m just trying to express my utter disdain with the Portland Police, with drunks who get pervy, with owners of bars who set up cameras to spy on every drink I pour and every transaction I make that they can watch 24/7 from home on their computer…and stupid drivers, and malls, and people who are walking cliches, and bad grammar and cheap hot sauce.

So, in the previous saga involving the man threatening to shoot up the whole bar I’d explained how the cops had urged the would-be shooter to return the following day to resolve his issues. And then we get robbed within 10 days. What I didn’t explain was how, 12 hours after the robbery, I was working and 2 cops enter the bar. They look around and when I finally made eye contact with them I asked them if I could help them, assuming they were simply in there to check up on us. The cop explains they’re looking for someone who may have robbed the video store down the street at gun point, to which I respond “Oh, you mean like what happened here earlier today?” The cop looks at me blankly and says “Uh…you were robbed today too?” and proceeds to ask me for a description that JJ (the one who was pistol whipped and taken for his own money and cell phone) had given them when the robbery actually occured. The cops got on shift in our neighborhood and had absolutely no idea that an armed robbery had taken place that morning in their beat. And here I’d thought they were coming in to check back in with us and see that everything was cool.

So tonight a cop comes in about a half an hour before we close the bar in order to “establish ties with the late night businesses in the neighborhood” yet he had no idea we’d had someone threaten to shoot us or had been robbed at gun point. After I told him how the police had helped in both situations he shook his head ashamed and offered that I must not feel very safe. No shit. Then he went on to say that over the holidays the experienced police officers are on vacation and that these types of communication breakdowns are what happen as a result. So evidently our tax dollars are only at their most effective when the average police officer doesn’t want a day off. Lesson being: don’t be a victim of crime in the months of June, July, August or December because the “good cops” just might be at DisneyLand, Boca Raton, the Grand Canyon, Wall Drug or Niagra Falls. And really it might be best to consult with your local precinct before getting robbed, attacked, hit by a car, murdered or dosed with the date rape drug just to ensure that the police on duty will be able to competently process your case and also pass your case on to any other relevant authorities (including the next guy on shift). To be fair, the guy who came in tonight was really cool and I felt for the first time that someone had actually listened to what we were saying, but his advice was that we were more likely to find out who did it through the regulars at the bar than to rely on the police.

So, thank you Portland Police. I will keep this in mind the next time I’m threatened. But a bit of advice to ya’ll: when I get done with a shift, it’s my responsibility to inform the next bartender if we’re out of anything, if anyone has had too much to drink, if lemons need to be cut, if the bathroom’s low on TP, etc. It might help if you establish the same pattern. Tell the next cop on duty if the squad car is low on gas, if the neighborhood bar was robbed at gun point and the robber is at large, if there’s road construction one of the main roads, if everyone with any common sense has taken a day off, if the coffee shop is closed (sorry, I can’t help the snark)….
Just a thought.

And also this week at work (or en route) I’ve been grabbed by people multiple times, been called “tits,” nearly hit by someone while driving and then honked at and flipped off by the same person (do you drivers really deal with this on a daily basis??), passive-agressively asked by my boss to shit talk my coworkers and told I was the prettiest, smartest girl in the bar by a guy on his 8th beer. I will keep the hot sauce and Linda Ronstadt bitching for a more appropriate time.

But, I won the lottery today so who really cares?…well, kinda. I won $3 on Powerball which I play weekly in hopes of starting Liz’s and my Bollywood careers and $44 on a Megabucks ticket I had to buy after I rang it in wrong for a customer who wanted one. Next week we’ll win millions. For sure. In the mean time I’m happy with my small windfall. I’ll toss it into my newly created travel savings account.

In the mean time, sorry for all of the whiney entries, especially written so half-assed, half-drunk at 4 am after already accidentally deleting one smarter version. Things have been a little difficult lately on the job front, but I swear I’m going to start actually documenting travel related issues. My application to the job in France has to be done in a couple of weeks and I still can’t remember a damn word of French. We’ll try and focus soon and then you can listen to a whole different set of difficulties! I just hope that they’re a little more relevant to things I think are really important.

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Merry Xmas…would you like to see my resume??

December 28th, 2005

So the holidays were very mellow. Lots of cooking and chilling. Tiff and Justin came down and we had a happy little family holiday. Xmas night Justin and I ended up drinking ourselves silly with a bunch of high school friends I hadn’t seen in years.

It was one of those nights you get home trashed at 4 am and have to get up at 9 to deal with family and then when your about to pass out all hungover to nap on your mom’s couch before the 2 hour drive home your boss calls and says the bar you work at was held up at gun point and he was pistol whipped and could you please come in and work for him.

Ehh…

So of course Mom thinks you should never bartend again, your friends think you should quit immediately and you feel like you really have to get back up to Portland to work for the poor 65 year old man who had a gun pointed at him, was robbed for $300 of his own cash and his cell phone since they couldn’t access any of the bar’s money, and got clocked on the back of his head with the butt of the gun while he was just trying to root for the elderly black woman in the showcase showdown on the Price is Right (or as he calls it, Bob Barker). Naturally, since you end up working on your day off under these circumstances, everything that could suck or be annoying will be. And your boyfriend will end up inadvertantly starting a nearly-major bar fight in the last 15 minutes the bar is open and you’ll have to spend the last few minutes of your already fucked up day stepping inbetween 2 guys who are double your size to keep them from swinging at eachother and yelling at everyone in there to sitthefuckdown, chillthefuck out, shutthefuck up, leave eachotherthefuckalone, etc… And of course all of the yelling is accompanied by a lot of physical intervention (as the only woman there) to keep things from getting really violent. And of course the boyfriend gets pissed at you for thinking he was out of line. And of course the boyfriend gets home and immediately calls to apologize and, of course, you’re far too tired to take his calls…for at least 24 hours…

Yeah, I had a feeling you’d understand.

Now, if you’d like to offer me a job without the threat of gun violence, please comment here and I’ll gladly forward you my resume.

For the rest of you, Happy Holidays (seriously).

I’ll be adding an entry on the complete incompetancy of the Portland Police and maybe even a rant about how Linda Ronstadt should never EVER be considered folk music next time.

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Drunk Post #2

December 18th, 2005

After too much laziness, the boy (Justin, for the uninitiated) and I got some food and then headed to the bar I work at to get my weekly pay. Since we’re both broke and the booze is cheap we decided to hang there and have a drink. Now, as a preface, it seems important to describe my bar briefly…

I work at a bar that nobody I know has ever even heard of, let alone hung out at (except for Court…but let her tell you that story). It’s relatively close in to the major parts of the city, but hides in an odd nook on a busy street that is unnoticed by anyone except for the alcoholics and videocrackheads (we have legalized video poker here in Oregon) who live and/or work nearby. And it is worth noting that this town is full of young hipsters who pride themselves on finding and exploiting every dive bar they can worm their way into. They have not found this one. Yet. It’s not a great neighborhood and I’ve already (in the month+ I’ve worked there) dealt with all kinds of fights and other confrontations resulting in calls to the police…but ultimately nothing too scary or threatening.

So, tonight I go in to grab my paycheck and take advantage of the employee discount on drinks since the boy and I are both poor. We order some cocktails, call some friends to join us, hang out, chat play some pool…the usual mellow evening in the silly dive bar. While waiting to pee, a man I know as video poker player from my shifts starts freaking out on the bartender (my co-worker). Last week he’d told me I had the perfect ass of a black woman right before he informed me his 3 year old daughter had been killed in a car wreck the day before and he was going home to bury her. I really felt for this poor guy who I’d seen in there before, sinking dollars into a machine intended to take advantage of his inability to calculate the probabilities of taking the Oregon government for a few extra hundred dollars.

He is a videocrackhead. He’s never seemed drunk or high or out of control. He has, in the past, inappropriately commented on my physical attributes, but in the name of flattery, I’d hardly hold that against him. In all honesty, he struck me as a relatively sane, amusing man trying to schmooze me and after a few games of pool with him, even Justin very much enjoyed his company.

So, evidently much earlier in the day he had had a problem with the video poker machines. Now mind you, the technology in these machines has never ceased to amaze me with it’s ability to track every single little thing without fail. One does not lose money to machine malfunction. But there was a malfunction and he claimed to have had money in the machine, in the amount of $42, that he lost as a result. He had been told tht his claim could only be taken up with the Oregon Lottery and that the bar could only file a report. So, of course, 7 hours later, he’s in the bar (playing pool with my boyfriend) and ends up freaking out about his lost money. In line for the bathroom I see him shouting about talking to the owner, about calling the lottery and about his dead 3 year old baby girl. After being informed that the lottery said he was taking a risk by even playing the machines, and the owner said to call the cops rather to talk to him, the poor man with the dead child was left hollering at anyone who would listen about the pain he felt that nobody understood.

At that point, I felt for the man. He kept saying that no one was feeling him and his pain…and I’m sure he was right. He kept asking this one girl trying to calm him down (a regular customer of mine) if she’d lost a baby girl, as though his problems would have been solved if she had. And in the midst of a lot of yelling he was informed that the police were coming and he had to leave. End of story, right?

This guy leaves under the threat of police intervention. He finally grabs his coat, shouting about nobody feeling his pain and walks out the door. But not more than 5 seconds later, comes back in the door and yells “You guys have ten minutes to get out of here! I’m gonna come back and shoot up this bar!! You have 10 minutes!!! I’m going to come back and shoot up this whole bar!!”

Needless to say the bar clears out. Everyone politely closes out their tabs and a particular style of Portland-style chaos ensues…lots of “oh dear! What should we do??!”s and gently frantic grabs for coats and scarves and last gulps of bad drinks. I decide immediately to get the fuck out of there and then, just as immediately, to stay out of some odd loyalty to this bizarre job that I can barely justify having. I wouldn’t leave and many of the regulars had the same reaction. I have never in my life been so eager to see the cops. I’ve generally viewed them as a bullying, offensive force in my daily life, but also a necessary one in certain cases. I sat in such anticipation of the police I was lauging at myself. It wasn’t even irony…just a girl sitting in bar being threatened to be shot along with 20 others, hoping for any kind of intervention to dissolve the situation. And the cops came. And they found the guy a block away and gave him a talking to. They hadn’t even heard he’d threatened to shoot us all until midway through their conversation with him, but it didn’t seem to phase them. They suggested he go home and cool down and come back to the bar tomorrow to reclaim his money. They came into the bar to inform the bartender of their “actions.”

The really messed up thing is, the people who know him say he has some really deep, violent connections (I believe the term OG was used) and that they were concerned some of those type of people could be contacted to carry out any threats he’d made. In reality, this guy is completely grief-stricken out of his mind and is freaking out like he really is the OG, but jesusHchrist, threatening to come and shoot up an entire bar!!!??? The bar I work at??!!!

Nothing came of it as of yet. I insisted on staying at the bar out of some sort of misguided noble protest against his threat. I’m now 3 drinks drunker than I’d intended on being…but I really don’t konw how to process someone threatening to shoot up my workplace. Thank god it’s a bar. If it were an accounting firm the bastard would have come back with a shotgun.

Maybe I should try and process this when I’m more sober and don’t have to take my friends to the airport in 2 hours.

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Potential Titles via NTFT

December 9th, 2005

So my dearest Travis has offered up these suggestions:
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Cracker Attack

Cracker on Parade

The Jugs Report

Cracker Unplugged

Cracker me this

Cracker Confidential

The Peanut Butter and Jelly Diaries

CrackerTalk

Tapping my Inner Diva

Cracker Patrol

The Cracker Chronicles

Are you going to finish that douche?

The Cracker Channel

A Waltz with the Absurd

Cracker’s Absurdist Cafe

The Absurdist Diaries

Cracker’s All-you-can-eat Absurdist Buffet

Harlan Hunt

Cracker’s Blind Date with the World

Embracing Banalities

Big Whoops

Racing to Menopause

That’s not how it went down, Officer

Now Where was I?

My JiveAss Blog

Shucking and Jiving in my Head

Someone Bring me my Meds

Nothing to See Here, People

UberCracker

Cracker hears voices

The Cracker Circus

Cracker’s BigTop

As the Cracker Turns

Animal Cracker

Cracker’s BoobFree Zone

The Cracker Zone

Moving right along

Cracker on the Move

GoCracker

Cracker to Go
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I love some and hate some. Any thoughts? Other ideas? Please. I beseech you. Help little Cracker out.

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Drunk post #1

December 9th, 2005

You know you’ve got a good man when…

You’re back has been in a twist for days and in a moment of pain and charity you grab a pain pill and offer one to your boyfriend. Unfortunately, you’re at the skeezy bar you work at and drop your pill on the nastyass crackhead floor. Justin, without even blinking, offers to take your pill off of the skeezy bar floor and give you his untainted, shiny, white Vicodin instead.

And who says chivalry is dead.

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The Advent Calendar

December 7th, 2005

I had an odd experience today in the student store. Not Earth shattering exactly but it threw me for a loop and I dont quite get it.

I was purchasing a double chocolate, vegan cookie and while depositing my change in my bag I caught sight of an advent calendar. Now, for those of you who did not have the blessed fortune of being raised by a very religious family, advent calendars have 25 little windows to open up one by one on each day leading up to Christmas day. Some calendars have little bible verses under the windows you open and some have little drawings of festive things such as snowmen, angels, or candy canes. But some have chocolate hidden under each and every one of those little windows and it goes without saying that on the years we had the chocolate filled calendars, every morning was a race to get up and break into the flimsy cardboard that held our treasured treats. My parents rarely indulged us with these.

So, this calendar was naturally one of these chocolate laden booklets and when I caught sight of it after purchasing my cookie it caused me to come to a complete stop. I must have spent 5 seconds just staring at the silly decoration while holding up the line until the woman behind the counter offered to help the person behind me as a gentle prodding to move me along. I fought the overwhelming urge to grab one and take it home with me.

Now, few people I know would describe me as sentimental and if there’s one thing that really won’t stir up nostalgia for me it’s tacky, religious ornamentation. However, for some reason I had an overwhelming wave of gushy, wispy images of happy, holiday cheer. My family laughing. Christmas lights. Fires in the woodstove. Hot peppermint tea and sugar cookies. And, while all of those things existed at times in my family, they very rarely came more than one at a time, let alone more than one in a holiday week.

For a brief second I was transported into an only partially reality-based version of my own past that was intense enough to inspire me to hold up the 5 people already late for their finals behind me and spend $2.85 on something I’d never in a million years normally spend money on. What the hell was going on in my funny, little head? It was such a strong gut reaction that I physically felt myself snap out of it. And thank god I did. Otherwise I’d be sitting here at 4.30 in the morning writing here to justify my purchase of another piece of consumer crap that I don’t need. But then again, I might wake up in the morning with a piece of chocolate and flashes of my family laughing, christmas lights, fires in the woodstove and hot peppermint tea and sugar cookies…real or not.

Maybe it was just all of the pills I’ve had to take since I hurt my back this week.

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First things first

December 7th, 2005

So Travis demands a new title and what Travis wants, Travis gets.

Well, in reality, I got a sudden urge to start this and knew that if I waited until I had a title, I’d sooner be menopausal than a blogger. This is a title intended to be ditched, so help a sister out.

Since the only people checking in on this at this point are BootsnAll travel geeks, I figured I’d pose the question to you: What should the title of the blog be? You already know my penchant for travel and have been exposed to my personality and babblings.

My only request is that we leave out any reference to dancing, journeys, or my boobs and please no contrived alliteration. Cracker can’t quite consent to contriving.

Suggestions?

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In the beginning…

December 5th, 2005

Following such a fabulous weekend of meeting, hanging out partying with the BootsnAll crowd, I’m reminded of the pressing matter of me fleeing the country this year. Hanging with my fellow travel geeks is such great motivation and inspiration.

So I begin the blog here at the very beginning. A trip never starts with a flight. It starts with much forethought and planning and here I can vent my frustrations, fears, and shopping lists as I navigate my way through the planning process.

I start with a $0 budget, a few credits left before I have a university degree and a hangover. I’m hoping to have a job oversees, a few thousand dollars in the bank and all of my belongings packed into a smallish pack within the next 9 months.

On your mark.

Get set.

Go!!!

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