RL Picture Thread

AngryGerbil said:

My permanent partner at work (for the last 2 years and who knows for how much longer) is a 61 year old black man.

Whenever we go for lunch at whatever local fast food locale we choose for that day, we are almost always being served by a young female black or white. And, almost always, we are asked for our names for the to-go order.

Without exception and without hesitation, when asked his name, my partner ALWAYS tells the young woman asking him (even if it's a white woman) that his name is either Denzel Washington or Michael Jordan.

It's a fascinating thing. If the female he is talking to is under 40 years of age he will do this %100 of the time (if she is older than 40 he doesn't bother with it and just gives them his real name). Approximately %50 of the time the girl will either giggle and blush and play coy and give him his drink or his side for free, or she will look at him with a dead face and not react at all. I'm always so curious about the dead-faced ones. Are they dead-faced because they are sick and tired of old men hitting on them, or are they dead-faced because they simply do not understand the reference?

The ones who giggle, I assume, are quite happy to have a man's attention. My partner is slightly overweight and has a lazy-eye and is very clearly passed his prime. But even so, if he flirts with these girls, even given that he is 40+ years older than them, they seem to melt and to love it. Some of them fucking LOVE it.

We have a rule: The driver always orders first. He always drives so he always orders first. The logic is that if we were to get a sudden call, that he would at least be able to eat a few bites of food before we got to the ambulance, and then I would be able to eat a few bites of food on the way to call while sitting shotgun. It almost never matters, but that is our rule. So when he orders he always walks away from the counter with the smug look on his face and I ask him, "What name did you give?" and he will tell me either Denzel or Michael.

I feel like I need to keep a spreadsheet. I have this underlying desire to count the number of times he says Denzel vs the number of times he says Michael, then I want to correlate it to the exact age of the girl he is talking to and maybe even her race just for compeletionist reasons.

A full half of the time his flirtations gain him nothing. But a full half of the time they gain him either extra service, an extra item in his food bag, or at the very least some extra social attention in the form of the girl coming to our table to clean up after us before we leave.

Compare that to myself. I always just say, in an almost robotic tone, what my order is and what my name is. Nobody ever remembers me. I don't tell them that I am Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. I'm just AngryGerbil and I'm just here to eat some tacos. Take my money and leave me alone. Which they do. But then, they NEVER come to my table to clean up after me while I'm still sitting there, and they never comp me a free drink or an extra side of fries.

Maybe I will try this when I am older and have less shame. I really don't know. Maybe I won't. Every time he does it I stand and watch in awe, no matter the outcome.

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