"Turkey and Me"

by Sara Anis

I don't usually throw up. But the one time I did, wow that was crazy.

It was Thanksgiving night. I was seven. My mother and I were planning on taking a trip to Chandler, AZ right after dinner with the family.

Now, my family is from the Middle East, we aren't really know for cooking the best turkey in town. My seven-year-old stomach would agree on that one. That night, well... I don't know what it was. Probaby nasty for one. Anyways!

My mother and I get on the Greyhound planning to have a smooth ride to Chandler and then BOOM! -- the twists and turns start acting up. I really wanted it to be a good trip, I really did. Too bad the turkey had it in for me.

So there I am, about to throw up, when I notice everyone on the bus watching me. Now being the proper young lady I am, I turn around, gently snatch my mother's cashmere sweater, and let it out.

Gross... maybe. But I actually thought I was being pretty polite. That trip was a bummer, and I can honestly say that turkey and me have never been the best of friends since.

Sorry Mom.

"Chick Chick"

by Oscar Guerrero

I ate some questionable fried chicken from a questionable restaurant, in a questionable street in a questionable area east of LAX. My uncle is a steward at the airport, or something along those lines, so we picked him up from Terminal 20. He greeted us with a "Look how big you've gotten?" and a "Did you lose weight?" and the question we were all waiting for, "Are you hunrgy?"

He stuffed us in the car, took the wheel, and jammed his foot on the pedal until we were going 40 in a 15. "I know a place!"

Before we knew it, it was past nine and we had driven for two hours. "I think we missed it. It was supposed to me fifteen minutes from the airport." We gazed at him but bit our tongues, as we couldn't refuse his hospitality for offering to pay.

Then we spied a place: "Chicky Chicky," with bright flickering neon lights that, as Simon & Garfunkel put it, "split the night."

The menu varied from fried chicked to spicy fried chicken. Everyone ordered the spicy fried chicken but I, being the weakest of stomach of the family, couldn't help but be weak and submissive so as to stand out and get the chicken that was lacking in the spicy area.

So the cashier, this plump Hispanic woman with a Jennifer Aniston haircut and too many rings to count, followed our commands. In a matter of seconds, the food was ready. We had drinks, the chicken of spicy and non-spicy variety, and a little container overflowing with ranch sauce.

I ever-so-cautiously clenched my teeth on the ever-so-salty chicken. I chewed slowly. Save for a few bones it wasn't bad. The feast had officially begun, as everyone was grabbing for a leg, or a nugget, or a wing, and chewing, and savoring, and swallowing, and gulping, and of course digesting.

We finished the meal, payed a surprisingly large bill, and got in the car to say, "This wasn't so bad."

My dad drove tmie, going 25mph under the speed limit. But even at that speed, I felt a pressure in the center of my torso, building up, slowly, but surely.

Then there was rumbling, and sweating, and the next thing I knew, my mouth was erupting white chunks of legs, nuggets, wings and other body parts of the fowl type.

And it was everywhere.

My shoes, my jeans, my Revolver shirt (which I had so carefully and lovingly preserved), and even my mother's dress (which she had carefully and lovingly preserved)... Not to mention two car seats, a bit of the window, and even some of the steering wheel.

Everyone gave me the stare they had previously given my uncle, but they bit their tongues, and kept driving, and driving and driving, and just ignoring the smell.

"The Skirt Incident"

by Alana Mohamed

It was morning-ish. I say morning-ish because the things you'd usually connect to morning -- sun, people, bumper-to-bumper traffic -- weren't present at 6am on the BQE. Dad had a meeting and was dropping me off to school a bit early. Three hours of wandering around Brooklyn wouldn't be that bad. The half-dead Toyota Camry warmth was all I could ask for this monring.

Then the car stopped.

It stopped nowhere near my school. We were at the corner of Dekalb Avenue and some street that definitely was not anywhere near my school. I looked at my father. He looked at me. He clicked the door unlocked.

"I'm late for work."

"Uh... okay."

"Just head to school yourself; I'll see you at home tonight."

And out the car I went in my skirt and boots and leather jacket. It was a cute outfit, but it wasn't hiking-through-Brooklyn approved. I had barely made it a block before fantasizing about the school's gym sweatpants. They were large, unflattering, unsightly, and very warm. By the seventh block I had been followed by a man in a van who insisted that the back of said van was the safest place in the world -- and another on foot who thought it was perfectly acceptable to stroke my leg.

Ten blocks later I decided I deserved breakfast. That part was okay. Rejuvenated, I strolled outside and took my time getting to school. I had all the time in the world.

I got to school and swiped in my ID card, but then --

"Young lady!"

The scratchy smoker's voice pierced the lazy quiet of the school lobby. I knew that "young lady." It's the "young lady" you get when a teacher decides she doens't like your attire for the day. Don't turn around just keep walking --

"Excuse me!"

I turned around. I smiled. My skirt fell just above my knees, perfectly acceptable. There's nothing she can do to me, I thought. Oh, how naive I was.

"You," the teacher spat. "Your ass is practically hanging out of that skirt. Dean's office now."

* * *

And so I found myself victim to another teacher's PMS, sitting in the dean's office, being told I'd need to trade in my brand new shiny iPhone for a pair of those aforementioned sweatpants. They no longer looked appealing though. They looked about 10 years old, smelled of mothballs, and probably had some elderly love juices sprayed on them.

I refused. They yelled; I yelled; they yelled some more. "Could I just pull the skirt down at little so it covers my knees?!" I'm not sure how sane I would seem if I had to explain to them my whole hike to Brooklyn Technical High School, how my father had abandoned me on the street. I pulled down my skirt to shor Mr. Dean and Ms. Teacher. More outrage. More yelling. What was said wasn't quite impertinent, because most of it was unintelligible. I'm not sure if they understood it. They were very excited and excitable.

Because of this "skirt incident" as it's come to be known among a close circle of friends and now you, I spent a good hour and forty-three minutes in the dean's office, waiting for my mother to pick me up from school.

I feel a bit wimpy that my first altercation with school officials was over a skirt -- and not something as ridiculously bad as, like, drugs or sex or injuring someone, But it's a start.

"Graffiti BS"

by Yossi Halpernin

The Smith-9th St. station is deserted at night the tracks clear of workers and the platform free of cops. This makes it a great place to go tagging. The trains come every twenty five minutes you time it right you got four minutes to find a spot twenty minutes to tag one to get away.

We are in the first four minutes looking for an empty space to tag. I don’t want to buff someone else’s tag so I find an empty space. I do an outline of my tag SCOPE and fill it in. I look at my friend David he’s almost done with his tag SPIKE.

“You're done Dom?”

“Almost Randy.”

“Hey.”

“Hey you.”

I turn around and a man who looks like he’s homeless approaches us he then pulls out a badge.

“What were you doing on the tracks?”

Before I can say a word or even think of what to say David opens his mouth.

“We weren’t doing graffiti.”

“How do you know I’m stopping you for graffiti?”

“Are you psychic?”

“That’s why you are stopping us.”

“Right.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I stopped you because you were on the tracks. Why were you on the tracks?”

We are both speechless. Time seems to slow down and drift away.

“So you were doing graffiti.”

“No” we say.

“So why were you on the tracks?”

“We were crossing to get to the Manhattan side.”

“This is the Brooklyn side.”

“I mean Brooklyn side.”

“Brooklyn or Manhattan side.”

“Brooklyn.”

“Ok.”

“If you were just crossing why were you walking on the tracks?”

“We needed to get to the front car.”

“Well this is actually the back.”

“Ow.”

“Well we thought it was the Manhattan side and that would have (would of) made it the front.”

“I thought you wanted the Brooklyn side.”

“Ya.”

“Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn Manhattan uptown downtown front back you're confusing me.”

“What’s confusing?”

“You should know were you are going.”

“Ya.”

“We needed to go further into Brooklyn and went to the Manhattan platform by mistake and we need to get the front car but accidentally went to the back car.”

“Ok. Just one thing. I saw you climb down onto the tracks and then twenty-four minutes later climb back out again before a train came. Are you telling me you weren’t doing graffiti?”

“We weren’t.”

“Then what were you doing?

“We were trying to get to the next station since we missed the train.”

“So why did you turn around and come back?”

“We realized that the station was too far and closed.”

“Closed or too far?”

“Which.”

“Too far.”

“Closed.”

“Which one?”

“Closed.”

“We reached the station and it was closed. So we turned around and came back.”

“Which station?”

“Not sure.”

“The one over there,” David says, pointing.

“Ok. I have news for you kids. Stations don’t close. They're open twenty-four seven.”

“Well it was empty so we assumed it was closed.”

“Actually we never made it to the station. Half way there we turned around and went back.”

“Because it was too far.”

“Too far? Or closed.”

“Too far.”

“Ya too far.”

“Ok let me see IDs.”

“For what officer?”

“We weren’t doing graffiti.”

“Sure you weren’t. Why were you on the tracks?”

“Because we didn’t want to break the law.”

“You didn’t want to break the law.”

“Ya.”

“We went on the tracks to smoke.”

“Smoke what.”

“Cigarettes.”

“Because it’s illegal to smoke on the platform.”

“What brand?”

“Marlboro.”

“Newport I mean Marlboro.”

“Marlboro or Newport.”

“Marlboro.”

“I was thinking Marlboro but I said Newport.”

“You sure? Or were you smoking Newport and he was smoking Marlboro?”

“Ya.”

“I had Newport he had Marlboro.”

“Ok. Let me get this straight. He was smoking Newport you were smoking Marlboro and when I asked you, you said Newport but meant Marlboro. And this whole time down there you were doing graffiti."

“Ya.”

“I mean no.”

“You're confusing me. Let me see the packs.”

We look at each other and pretend to look through our pockets.

“Where are the cigarettes?”

“Oh we must have (must of) left them on the train tracks.”

“Better go get them.”

“No, you're not going any where. No more games. IDs both of you.”

“But why?”

“We weren’t doing graffiti.”

“Sure you weren’t. IDs.”

We both reach into our pockets and find our IDs and are about to hand them to the officer.

“Why are your hands like that?”

“Huh?”

“Like what officer?”

I look at my hands then at Dom’s hands and realize that our hands are almost completely covered in paint. I guess we forgot to wipe the paint off.

“Show me your hands. What’s that on your hands?”

“Not sure.”

“Looks like paint.”

“How did it get there?”

“Huh.”

“Finger painting.”

“Finger painting. Aren’t you boys a bit old for finger painting?”

“The teacher made us do it at school.”

“School. It’s Sunday.”

“You have school on Sunday.”

“Ya.”

“Sunday school.”

“Really? So what did you paint?”

“Christmas trees.”

“It’s July.”

“So.”

“You're painting Christmas trees in July.”

“Ya.”

“And you.”

“Painting trees too.”

“No.”

“Santa.”

“So you were in Sunday school this morning painting black Christmas trees and blue Santas in the middle of July.”

“Can’t bullshit a bullshitter sir.”

“It’s from graffiti.”

“Ok.”

“It’s from graffiti.”

“But.”

“We were not doing graffiti.”

“Ya.”

“We went to go look at graffiti.”

“You went to look at graffiti? Then how did it get on your hands?”

“We accidentally touched it and it happened to be wet.”

“Ya we touched it to have a better connection with it.”

“You know how tactile contact can connect a person to an object?”

“Ok so let me get this straight. First you told me that you were crossing the tracks to get to the Manhattan side then you change it to the Brooklyn side. Then you tell me you needed the front car then the back car. Then you tell me you need to get to the other station but the station was closed and then it was too far. Then you went on the tracks to smoke a cigarette but neither of you know what brand. Now you're telling me you went to look at graffiti and accidentally touched it and also touched it to feel a tactile connection to it."

“I think it’s obvious that we were doing graffiti.”

“I think that’s obvious too.”

“How old are you two?”

“14.”

“16.”

“Do your parents know you're out this late?”

“Well sort of.”

“He’s sleeping at my house and I’m sleeping at his house.”

“Yes or No?”

“No.”

“No.”

“I'm taking you in and having a long talk with your parents about graffiti and sneaking out.”

Yossi Halpernin can be reached at Xskateboy12X [at] aol [dot] com.

"Elevator"

by Katie Waldron

The elevator doors opened.

"A little elaborate," Luke thought as they closed quickly behind him. Why couldn't the interview be in the lobby? Or on the tenth floor, even... It had to be on the goddamned 35th floor of the building.



He flew solo until the fifth floor. Then, a balding businessman entered the elevator, followed by three pencil-skirted women. One of the skirts glanced at the balding man and Luke's especially plump partner, the man who was accompanying him to his interview: Mike. The woman then glanced nervously at the "maximum capacity" sign.



By the 17th floor, an entire new cast of similar-looking characters had replaced the fifth-floor folk. Luke couldn't help but wonder if a couple of, ahem, robust people would meet the capacity of 700 lbs. They had to be at least 200 each.

Mike, the guy who had suggested him for the job, elbowed Luke in a "there's something witty coming" sort of way.

"You'd think they'd make the capacity bigger in the KFC headquarters, right?"



Luke forced a "ha" out. If he had to be subjected to Mike's humor for another two floors, he hoped that the elevator would drop.

It did. Pummeling fast to the ground, shaking violently with a faint burning smell in the back.

The passengers yelled various colorful unmentionables as the burning smell became more of a reek and Luke suggested everyone jump with the aid of the handrails. When he was 12 and he found out elevators weren't floating boxes, his grandmother told him, "If they drop, you can jump, that's what the bars are for."

As they careened toward the bottom, faster and faster and faster -- the screams got louder and louder and louder --



-- everyone began jumping.

His grandma lied.

Luke laid there on the bottom of the shaft, his skull reeking out of the top of his head. The elaborate doors fell and crushed the butchered remnants of the bodies. Some passerby lost his lunch when he peeked in past the "do not cross" yellow tape.



The nervous pencil-skirt walked back from a successful interview and looked down at her competition with a brief, grimy superiority. She thought: "Take the stairs if you want the job," like her grandma said.

Then she lost her lunch too.

"Cake!"

by Zackary Kruskal

If your friend's birthday sucks, there is always a backup plan, a reason to say until the end, a purpose as you swing randomly in the air hoping to bring an animal hung up from the rafters of the cold barn. A cake!

It always repairs any situation. Weddings, parties, or even a solitary night at home can be enjoyed with the presence of cake. You don't need a specific utensil (or any utensil at all) to breach the icing and indulge in the sugary goodness beneath the surface.

Of course not all cake is good. In fact, cake is a very hyped-up affair. Just saying "cake" sets the bar pretty high. When it fails to deliver, however well the party was going beforehand won't matter, because after the cake, there is talk, and if everyone has just had a piece of tough rubbery plastic instead of the lush red velvet they were promised, what are you going to talk about: the weather? Or how, out of politeness, you ladled piece after piece into your protesting mouth?

Bad cake is social depression and no one will want to come over to your house anymore.

However, a good cake might just fix that slow-moving bat mitzvah or remedy a bad relation with that aunt who makes the sweaters. Forget home-baked muffins; a cake is way beyond anyone's expectations and will break the ice no matter how thick it is.

"She is Such a..."

by Fatima Said

I stood outside the front door, glaring at her. She stared right back at me. I intensified my gaze but it did no good. She refused to go away. I decided to ignore her, thinking that eventually she would get tired and leave me alone.

She didn't. I walked up the front steps, went into the house, and slammed the door. She stared at me through the window. After twenty minutes of trying to wish her away, I finally snapped.

I barged outside.

"You! Here you are, new in town, and you're already trying to get your paws all over David! You just can't resist trying to steal him, can you?! And now you get all stalkerish, standing outside of my house for hours!"

She sniffed at me.

"Oh-- Oh yeah?" I shouted. "Well you can't have him, you, you, you FEMALE DOG!"

I stomped back inside and slammed the door. I gave her another long glare from my window, and finally, the little wench of wenchiness turned and started back toward her house. She reached her door, turned, looked back at me, and wagged her tail.

Then she disappeared into the doggy door.

I turned to see David standing at the doorway, staring at me. I smiled at him.

"It's just me and you, hon."

We both walked into the living room and curled up on the couch in front of the TV.

I let out a sigh. It was just me and my dog again, alone at last. That's the way I had always thought it would be until she came along.

Betsy had moved in across the street with the new neighbors. She was a golden retriever, like David. On the second day, I found her in my back yard, cuddling up to David on the grass. I kicked her out, but almost every day after that, for two weeks, I found her somewhere on my property. She was either in my yard or she had somehow managed to end up INSIDE my house. After the two weeks I started to suspect she was trying to steal David. You want to know why?

BECAUSE I FOUND THEM IN MY BEDROOM!

That's right, my bedroom. This is apparently what female dogs do.

"Dark, Lugubrious..."

by Silvan Carson-Goodman

"Embarrassment is a superfluous emotion. Given the choice, I would do without it. It's like fear in that respect, which is interesting considering that fear most often shows up when tied to embarrassment. Either through fear of shame or shame of fear."

The slightly round man sat down and after hearing his inspiring words I knew that I was in the right place.

I didn't want to be in the right place.

Being in the right place filled me with dark lugubrious shame. All these people looking at me, judging me with their distasteful eyes. Just by my being here they all knew what was wrong with me. Regardless of the fact that they were here for the same reason, deep down they knew that I was worse than them.

I am a lower being, something to be spit upon. Oh it all just made me feel so awful.

The slightly rounder man sitting next to the slightly round man looked at me and said:

"Harvey, would you like to share with the group?"

I reluctantly stood and said, "Hi, my name is Harvey and I'm a shameaholic."

Intentionally Bad Writing

On 8/21/08, inspired by the work of Amanda McKittrick Ros, we in the Workshop intentionally wrote the worst scenes and stories we could.

Here they go:

1. Miranda von Salis "A BAD STORY"
   
   Sherri woke up and the smell of Sharpies hitting her nose like a spike. Not one of those tent spikes but the kind from the medieval days that has the barbs on them and the knights or whatever would stab each other with them. And, if you can imagine one of those spikes being stabbed up your nose, or just anywhere really but especially on your face, then you know how Sherri felt. Now add to that the painfully, excruciating pain that is the strong and unforgiving stench of a recently unopened Sharpie opened for the first time then you know exactly how Sherri felt. Exactly. Sherri stood up and felt the warm mush of cold cheese and sauce between her toes. Looking down, she noticed the extra large sausage pizza from the night before. The pizza that she did not remember buying but that she assumed was from yesterday because it wasn’t there when she woke up yesterday at 9:04 (she slept in). And apparently she bought a pizza yesterday too.
   
   Disengaging he toes from the mysteriously placed pizza she began her morning ritual of her ritual preparations for the day. Today was like every other day, other than the pizza, so she got ready in the same way. Because she was getting ready in the same way she did the same things as she did yesterday, minus the pizza. When she was as ready as she was on every other morning that she could remember except for perhaps a few mornings on which she stayed in bed, she left the house. As she stepped in to the hall she had a flashback from her past.
   
   She was little, maybe 5 or 6 but she could have been 7, and she was in charge of watching her baby brother Lucas while their mom went out to the library or something. Lucas was fussing and Sherri calmed him down. This memory did not pertain to her current life or situation in anyway but she remembered it. While she was deep in thought about this memory she was not paying attention to what she was doing. She was so deep in thought about her baby brother Lucas, who hadn’t called her in a while anyway, she began to cross the street without looking both ways(which in general is a bad idea unless you are really, really busy and have somewhere very important to go at a very specific time or if you see a friend on the opposite sidewalk and want to go say hello and catch up). Because of this lack of judgment, Sherri did not see the truck coming. So, for Sherri, today was not like every other day because she died and you only do that once if you are lucky.



2. Alana Mohamed "A Bad Day"
   
   The day before yesterday after last month’s block party before this month was a bad day. Ellie was with her mom and her dad and her little brother and her aunt, who was a really annoying person, and her boyfriend, who was like God, only not. Her aunt was a really annoying person, so she didn’t have children or a husband, she just had herself. Actually, she had a house and a car, but it was a small house and a bad car, so that proved she was a really annoying person.
   
   Anyways, it was a bad day because she, meaning Ellie and not her aunt, or her mom, or even her little bother, who was sometimes mistaken for a girl because he had not yet reached puberty, but her as in Ellie had acquired a mondoginormous, scarlet period-like mark, only bigger than a normal period, on the tip of her nose so she looked like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer AND it was the block party and block parties are always bad because one of Ellie’s friend or neighbors always received some sort of violent action, like a shanking or a shooting. But mainly it was because of her red dot. Oh, and that and that and her annoying aunt.
   
   Her annoying aunt exclaimed boomingly when she saw it, about how unfortunate-looking she happened to be that day and how it was no different than any other day. Ellie would have liked to shead many a tear because of this distressing, wounding, painful, injurious, malicious, spiteful, vindictive, barbed statement, but her boyfriend was with her, only he was nodding his head in agreement, so she did and then her little brother let out a stentorian laugh and then everyone joined in to create a collective stentorian cackling. Ellie was terribly discomfited.



3. Katie Waldron
   
   "May we gracefully trot through the endless seas?" I questioned my bosom buddy as she gazed into the unmistakenably sky-seemingly spray painted by a graffiti artist with a pearly puffs of cumulus clouds.
   
   "Yes! That is a magnificent plan. Afterwards, shall we linger upon the vast sands of the beach cleverly named Coney Island?"
   
   I briefly pondered her previous statement. What an interesting formation of words. I once again admired the sky. It was beginning to darken like there was a prevailing storm in the midst of our exceedingly perfect day.
   
   "Our day has been foiled!" the babbling broad stated.
   
   "Yes, I do believe our day will be dampened, both literally and figuratively, by incoming precipitation."
   
   So, we laid lazily upon the couch in a daze much like the many warriors lost in the Battle of Gettysburg.



4. Kylah Shenkin
   
   Mitchell sat on the steps of the sanctuary waiting for Anthony's arrival as a cadaverous geriatric waits for their impending passing. He knew there was no stopping it, but he still wanted to flee and hide out from doom. As Mitchell contemplated actually attempting to go on the lam, Anthony made his dreaded appearance. Mitchell and Anthony's gazes met, and between them passed a mutual blend of detest and loathing.



5. Maureen Tant "A."
   
   The brown creamy color of his eyes, like an amber-brown crayon from the number 64 box, hit me as would a train collision, with one heading due East at 80 mph, and the other westbound at 60 knots.
   
   I walked, and it stunned me.
   
   "Do you see the road?" I soundlessly uttered, "It is the unending labyrinth of my dapple-hued soul in the spider-webbing aura of their id."
   
   "Who?" he verbalized intensely.
   
   "The ones who walk down upon it," I replied, thesaurusly, indicating the rare and genuine decisiveness of our epoch, the smoothened pebble of a Jones Beach penguin who diets on cabbage and frail mustard plant.
   
   They doth not take to strangers, and are seldom seen--they take up wing and invert themselves, adopting the subtle visage of a delicate gull--those gulls of the sea. In face of homosapien influence they strap themselves into that full-bodied mask, as so many do.
   
   But it was presently departing time, and the alluring knave thought not of sunset, so he took a wing of his own, just as the penguins of that proverbial Jones Beach in my mind.

Bar Fight

"Bar Fight"
by Silvan Carson-Goodman

Guy: I think that he was in love with her.

Guy2: Why would you think that? It looked like just another bar fight to me.

Guy: Maybe, but didn’t you see the look in his eyes? They were so full of pleading. He was there for more than just flirting, if you ask me.

Guy2: So they had some sort of history, is what you’re saying?

Guy: Possibly, but maybe it was love at first sight. Isn’t it more interesting if he saw her from across the room early in the night and their eyes met? Then the fire in his heart grew every time he saw the twinkle of her smile or the subtle way her wrist flicked when she grabbed her beer. Until he just couldn’t stand it anymore and he had to talk to her, not knowing that her two-hundred-pound weightlifter boyfriend was waiting in the wings.

Guy2: He was probably just her ex or something.

Guy: Yeah, probably.

***

Girl: Guys.

Girl2: They are ridiculous! Getting into fights over nothing!

Girl: I know! She clearly wanted nothing to do with that guy. It all would’ve ended peacefully but her boyfriend had to step in and start a brawl over nothing.

Girl2: Well, over her.

Girl: Over nothing! I mean, what makes her so special?

Girl2: Is this about Fred?

Girl: Well he never stands up for me! The other day some guy on the subway knocked me down and Fred didn’t do a damned thing.

Girl2: Maybe he’s just not that kind of guy.

Girl: Oh every guy is that kind of guy! Is it me, am I just not worth fighting for?

Girl2: No, you’re a real catch.

Girl: Well Fred doesn’t seem to think so… you know what? I’m breaking up with him. Screw Fred!

***

Bartender: Every night, every goddamned night with this shit. And they always break something. Either a stool, or glasses, or something that leaves little pieces scattered all around that I have to clean up!

Patron: (Chuckles)

Bartender: What are you laughing at?

Patron: You’re complaining to me.

Bartender: So?

Patron: Well it usually goes the other way now doesn’t it?

Bartender: All right, you have some complaining to do, Miss?

Patron: Well, I thought I did, but after what I just saw the world seems too funny to have any problems.

Bartender: Something funny about violence to you?

Patron: Oh no. It’s just that… well, that was my ex! He was too wasted to realize that the girl he was talking to wasn’t me! (Busts out laughing)

Bartender: Every goddamned night.