Secrets

Secrets are fun things. They're fun to keep, fun to tell, and fun to watch other people spill -- vountarily and sometimes not so voluntarily.

I especially love that split second right before the secret-teller realizes they've just revealed something up until that point he/she thought everyone else knew. The classic oops! moment.

I love the reaction that comes right after that initial statement. Watching everyone else's reactions and seeing the stunned look on people's faces - the comic expressions they inadvertently make that seem to freeze on their faces for a good three seconds - is pure magic.

It's like watching the calm before the storm. That moment spent waiting in dread, knowing that it's coming, just hovering right around the corner.

It's this moment that everyone dreads (or in some cases, love) -- the pivotal moment when you turn from being an innocent bystander to being crowned the table's gossipmonger.

Don't Bite the Hand that Serves You

A man ordered a beer from me the other day, and he was, to say the least, not exactly the most intelligent or respectful person I had met that day (or ever in my life for that matter).

Well, having poured more than my fair share of beer, I have - and am not at all shy to proclaim - that I have mastered the art of pouring foamless beer. It's not very difficult really, but it does take some effort and practice -- two things I have devoted a significant amount of my time on.

However, this bozo, I assume, was probably not one of those who understood this art because after handing him a cup of beer that had almost no visible trace of white foam, he loudly declared that he did not want this beer. According to him, the beer was flat. He then continued to insist that he taste the beer first before actually relinquishing any cash for it.

Well, since I was in no mood to contest (or even begin to deal with) his vulgarity, I simply let him. After taking one sip from it, he again confirmed what I had already predicted he would: the beer was flat.

So I proceed to remove the beer from his order, only to have him refute it by saying that it's not that he doesn't want the beer, he just doesn't want the beer from my post.

Finally exasperated at this point, I decide to speak up. I insisted that it's neither the beer nor is it my post that is faulty. I tell him that there is no foam in his beer because I poured it that way. And it doesn't matter which post I pour it from; I pour beer the same way I pour it every other time from any other post -- down the side and into the bottom.

Clearly offended at my comment, he gave me a rather condescending look that I could only have interpreted as the "What do you know about beer, you lowly server?" look. Visibly frustrated with my audacity to counter his worldly knowledge of alcohol, he insisted that I simply "just pour the beer from another post".

So I did.

I went and I poured. I pulled the handle down as hard as I could, held the cup firmly and as straight as I could, and watched the beer come pouring down vertically at a perfect 90 degree angle. I poured and I watched, and I waited until I filled the entire thing -- only stopping after 1/4 of its contents was marked by pure white foam.

I walk back to the guy, and was smirking inside when I handed the beer to him. But my complacency was soon squashed. Only seconds after taking a sip from his beer, he loudly declared, "Now this is what I call beer!"

Now this is what I call... an idiot.