...so ... tired

[dragonlady7]

UG. I had nothing to do from 2-4 pm yesterday, and then I ran around like a maniac from 4-9pm, missed derby practice entirely, and have spent this entire morning doing dishes and cleaning the house because I cannot leave rotting things in the sink when I'm going away for several days. I just can't do it.
I haven't wrapped presents. I haven't even finished buying presents. I don't know what I'm getting my oldest sister; I asked her repeatedly what she wanted and she couldn't really come up with anything. She's getting some kind of gift certificate, preferably one I can do via email, because I just don't have any more time to wait for inspiration to strike. My youngest sister, I had a great idea for, but I ran out of time to get it, so I don't really know what I'm doing for her instead. Fortunately she's 21 and looking to augment her liquor cabinet, and I knew I wouldn't be able to get my main idea for her, so I could run hog-wild in the liquor store instead. Booze is such a cop-out but it's easy really.
I have to get dressed and go wrap gifts now but I am so tired, so very tired. My legs are sore as hell. I turned in about $900 in sales last night, which given that I'd had about two tables before 4:30 is rather impressive. Z and his mom came and ate dinner with me, but of course they arrived at the same moment as United delayed their Chicago flight, so I got to wait on them along with ten other motherfucking tables, which was awesome. The regular bartender helpfully blew kisses at Z, which was mostly amusing because the regular bartender is male, and Z's mom noticed.

A joke the bartender told, later in the evening:
Q: What do you call an elderly Canadian couple drinking red wine?
A: Bad tippers.

It's been a very stingy holiday thusfar, although the guy at the table next to Z and his mom left me a pretty good tip and wrote "happy holidays!" on the receipt. I'm just glad he wasn't jealous that I gave Z a kiss and didn't give him one.

I packed Z's suitcase, in an exhilarating game of Suitcase Tetris. It was overweight by 3 pounds. Happily, his carryon was nearly empty, and as a bonus, the five-pound bag of frozen hot dogs was right on top in the overweight suitcase, which made it quite simple to fix the overweight problem.
So he flew with a carry-on containing his computer, its power adapter, and a five-pound bag of hot dogs. I am serious, that is all that was in the suitcase. TSA must've loved that. Actually they're used to the frozen hot dogs thing: you can't get Sahlen's outside of Buffalo, and a lot of Buffalo expats crave them. Some of the TSA screeners pride themselves on being able to distinguish Sahlen's from Zweigel's (a Rochester-exclusive brand) without opening the suitcase. (OK, I made that up, but isn't it funny? More and more lately I have the urge to insert possibly fictional punchlines into the ostensibly true stories I tell, and it's a terrible temptation.)

Sighhhhh. My butt is sore, sore, sore, and by that i mean the butt-muscles you use for walking fast while carrying real heavy trays. I am going to get up now and go wrap presents. Yes I am!!! I am so energized!! I am going to take on the world!!!

Please, God, please don't make there be any real actual weather on the East Coast. We will have enough trouble with the fake weather delays without real actual weather on top of it. Please please pretty please?

Comments

[maggiehoneybite.livejournal.com]

For future reference (and as a red-wine-drinking Canadian)... what would you consider a good, or at least decent, tip? I keep getting this feeling that the standards are different in our two countries. I try to tip about 15% if the service is decent, 10% (the accepted minimum) if it's indifferent or so-so, and over 15% if the person has really gone out of their way or been run off their feet. Most of the Canadians I know agree that 15% is about right. Is is different down where you are? Or do you only get stingy Canadians?

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

:D No, the standards are pretty much the same. And actually, for the most part, the Canadians aren't particularly more stingy than the Americans-- I have been pleasantly surprised as often as unpleasantly shocked, but the latter sticks more in the mind.
(The elderly in general tend to be poor tippers as well, and the two factors compound one another, so when a little old lady asks me for a Caesar I don't really expect her to leave me anything and am rarely proven wrong. I've also noted unscientifically that the stronger the provincial Canadian accent the cheaper the customer, but that might be more a case of it sticking in the mind and seeming more typical-- none of us keeps very good stats on the phenomena.)

The only thing I've noticed is that Canadians tend to more often go for the 10-15% end of the spectrum while Americans tend to more often go for the 15-20% end, being more likely to have 15 as their base rate below which they don't go unless something was wrong-- but it's usually a matter of a dollar or some loose change. It's not usually by very much and again, it may be a matter of perception.

Most importantly, however, the Canadians we get as customers are pre-selected to be thrifty. It's cheaper to fly within the US from here, and for the most part it's reasonable, but sometimes we get people who have driven literally five hours for the $100 savings, and it's sort of to the point of wondering whether they value their own time or not. So I know it's unfair to judge a whole nation, and I periodically post my little disclaimer. But it's enough of a trend that we make jokes about it at work. That bartender in particular is a conoisseur of all things Canadian since most of his girlfriends have been from across the border, so he likes to narrow down which townships have the worst tippers, and then go over there and tip their bartenders crappy. He's like that. ;)

Another funny point is that Canadians are almost always super polite. We joke that the more polite they are the worse the tip they'll leave, like their manners cost us. But that's also unscientific. I mean, at least they're not pains in the ass, right? Except when they ask for plum sauce.