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Tale of a bagle and the `Other` side of the fence by Gregory J. Ballan

Greg`s pithy quote for the day: The greener the grass, the more shit in the fertilizer.

This is my corollary to “The grass is always greener…..”

I’ve been doing some deep thinking the past few days in lieu of blogging. It doesn’t take much to get me into what I call “deep thought”. My minds “Hmmmmm” factor can be triggered by any number of outside stimuli. The trigger for my latest deep thoughts were triggered from a coffee session with Jaycee on Saturday and then a phone call from a friend that had recently been divorced and was touting the joys of his newfound freedom to me; the “poor miserable married slob” of 17 years.

I’ll start with Jaycee; we stopped at a local coffee chain to feed my caffeine addiction and get Jaycee a whole wheat bagel with eggs and sausage. We placed our order, paid the cashier and waited…. and waited. My coffee was served without real complication, but there must be some sort of rocket science involved in building a bagel breakfast sandwich. What Jaycee received the first time was a plain bagel with cream cheese. Jaycee repeated his order in slow, plain English. What we received back were looks of the dubious deer in the headlights. Seven minutes or so later, Jaycee receives a Croissant with egg and cheese. At this point I decided to be a little vocal, a little loud and a little rude. I expressed my displeasure and concluded with a “Speak English!” Bottom line, Jaycee got his wheat bagel sandwich the way he wanted; fifteen minutes or so later.

Now, I have nothing against immigrants, if you’re not a Native American/Indian from a tribe that can trace its history back beyond the pilgrims, you came from immigrants too. My beef is this; if you want to come to this country, learn the freaking language. Spanish is not the language of this country. It’s English. WAKE UP!! Also, what kind of business savvy is it to hire a bunch of people who haven’t mastered the English language and place them in a service based industry dealing with an English speaking population. This is not a recipe for customer service and will only lead to middle class English speaking people being pissed off and fighting the urge to reach across the counter and choke the shit out of your non English comprehending staff. Mister franchise proprietor, you may be saving money in the short term hiring these “Undocumented workers” and paying them crap and/or hiring foreigners who are willing to work your establishment for barely minimum wage. But what will you do when your customer base dissolves because your customers never get the right order and can’t communicate with your foreign staff? I’ll tell you, you go out of business. The long run blues. Even such a popular franchise can be blacklisted. Yours is not the only location in the area and competition for the coffee dollar is fierce.

Let me repeat, I have no ill will towards those hard working immigrants who come to this country (legally) and take jobs in order to support themselves and their families. God bless them. My rant, in this blog is aimed at those in management who exploits this and punishes the consumer for the sake of a short term dollar rather than a long term financial plan. Placing these workers in this situation is a mistake on managements part.

Item 2: “The greener the grass, the more shit in the fertilizer.” –Esper, copyright 8/02/2005. I get a quarter each time somebody quotes me : )

I hung up with my recently freed bud after hearing him sing the praises of his newfound bachlerhood. Here are some of the quotes that echoed in my head.

“Any babe any time I want now, no more begging for P_ _ _ _ from the same B _ _ _ _ who doesn’t want it.”

“No nagging if I come home late or have a few beers with the guys at the club.”

“No more sappy TV, the remote is mine.”

“Hunting season will be a blast, every afternoon I can hit the woods.”

Well, I’ve lifted enough quotes for the reader to get the message of the overall tone and flavor of the monologue/ dialogue. I freely admit that I would have griped back, but my wife was within earshot.

I gave my buds words some serious though, I know his ex, and have seen her at the club several times. She seemed like a decent sort, always pleasant. She pretty much catered to his every whim. She’d fetch him a fresh beer when his glass was empty, and let him beat her at pool. I’ve seen her play, for real, and she’s a shark with a que stick. I started looking over at buds grass on his side of the fence. It seemed awfully green compared to the summer scorched, tan grass covering the lawn of my life. Somehow I think my bud will be missing his ex, her cooking, her attention and the warmth of her body at night. (My friend has developed a post marriage beer body; he looks like a keg.) As I carefully picked apart our telephone call and his dialogue, I began to wade through all the fertilizer being used to make that grass seem so green.

What he said was true, He would not be nagged, but he never really was cuz his wife was usually with him at the club paying for his alcohol and hotdogs from her purse.

My friend’s wife was an avid NASCAR fan. Anyone who likes Dale Jr.’s #8 and Mike Waltrip’s #15 simply cannot be into sappy television.

My friend spent three weeks every year at deer camp in New Hampshire with a bunch of other club members. This was an expensive outing, yet for the 4 years I’ve been back at the club he’s always been on the trip. I remember him bragging about what a dynamo his wife was in the bedroom after six years of marriage, so I can only assume that there was still some bedroom activity occurring. My friend, in his current physical shape, and general sloppy appearance, wouldn’t attract anybody. I can’t see his nights being filled with hot steamy sex, unless he finds an expensive lady of the evening. The more I weighed the conversation and his proclamations of new found freedom the more they all somehow seemed to ring hollow. I remember seeing his wife at every club function, working in the kitchen or helping out in some capacity. I even saw her accompany him on one of the archery shoots, cheering him on at each target. I freely admit that she was very pleasant to look at, especially when she jumped up and down in that low cut blouse.

Suddenly the grass didn’t seem so green from my perspective. All of the bullshit spread on that side of the fence made a pretty lawn, but the closer I got to the grass the more it stank of B.S. fertilizer. I have a feeling my friend will be crying in his beer very shortly. No one to cook for him, do his laundry or buy his beer at the club. The more I analyzed his wife, the more I realized that she , perhaps, was looking for a greener pasture and found it someplace else, with somebody who spent more time appreciating her and all that she did. Maybe my friend was a fool who let a diamond slip through his grasp and hadn’t yet discovered all that he’d lost. Perhaps the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. I think my friend will find that out very soon. I’m sure his ex wife will find somebody new; I haven’t seen her car at the club parking lot since they split, which alone tells me that she only came for him. I wish her well, maybe she wanted more than what she had, maybe she actually saw a greener pasture. I hope, for her sake, that she’s found happiness. For after carefully examining my bud, he’s truly living in denial.

Author Info:

Science Fiction writer and columnist. Please send comments to Sparhawk76@msn.com, I`d love some feedback

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