Sly and Doris take us out for supper. In general, it should
be the guests who treat the hosts to supper, not the other way around, but I am
willing to compromise my principles because:
·
I buy my own lunch any time we are here
·
The rental car cost $130 (Primo paid)
·
Plane tickets were at least $500 apiece (Primo paid)
·
I have to take more Imitrex than usual because
being around them gives me a headache and Imitrex costs $20 a tablet retail and
I get only nine of them a month, so I treat them like gold
Primo: What are you getting?
Me: The vegetable plate looks good. Butter beans and corn
pudding and turnip greens and broccoli casserole.
Sly: I’ve never had good broccoli in a restaurant.
Restaurants never make good broccoli.
Sly has said nasty things about Stephanie and Jack. “Fat and lazy
and all she does is shop. She
needs to be in therapy and she needs psychiatric medication because she has a
mental illness. Jack should be in the program also.”
I have remained silent.
He has said nasty things about Jack. “Such a disappointment
to us,” he tells Primo. “We invested all that money in his restaurant and he
screwed it up.”
I have remained silent.
In their form Christmas letter
that Primo got before we left Austin, they complain about the old white
men who are running and ruining the world.[1]
The letter ends with the words,
We are in despair for
the state of the world. Have you seen our beautiful beaches and what has
happened to them? We’re afraid that our apathy has led us to our destruction.
Our society is degenerate. Success
is now measured by faux-celebrity, by millions/billions being made by
sports/music icons, by distorted ‘ethical’ values (have kids outside
marriage,[2]
hook-ups,[3]
porn online,[4] the most
outrageous entertainers accepted positively in sitcoms).
I have remained silent. They are mostly right, but who wants
to get this in a Christmas letter?
I have been remaining silent, but now? Now I am empowered.
Now I have challenged Sly successfully about the EXtract and about five times
negative five. I am bold. I am brave. I am a warrior.
Me: Really Sly? You can make the categorical statement that
there is not one single restaurant that makes good broccoli? That it is
impossible?
Sly: I have never had good broccoli in a restaurant.
Me: That doesn’t mean that all restaurants can’t make
broccoli. It means you have not picked good restaurants.
Ha! It feels so good to say that! And he doesn’t even
answer! I win!
I order the broccoli casserole. The waiter brings our
plates.
Sly: That doesn’t look as disgusting as I thought it would.
The waiter winces as he walks away.
Me: I’m not sure the waiter
appreciated that.
Sly: What? I always treat waiters very well.
Me: Define “well.”
Sly: I always tip in cash.
Me: What? That’s not treating waiters well.
Sly: Yes it is. This way, they don’t have to declare their
tips on their taxes.
Me: Are you advocating tax fraud? I pay taxes on what I
earn. When I had self-employment income, I paid not only income tax but 15.2%
social security tax. Why should I pay my taxes when a waiter isn’t going to pay
his?
Sly: Waiters make hardly any money.
Me: When I’ve had self-employment income, it’s been my only
income and it hasn’t been very much. When I was a waitress in college, I paid
my taxes. When I did temp work, I paid my taxes. I have
never cheated on my taxes.
Sly: But waiters don’t make any money.
Me: You know the IRS assumes tip income of a certain percent
of sales, right? You know they have to pay the taxes anyhow?
Ha! Twice! Twice in one sitting I have challenged Sly! I
like it. I like it a lot.
[1] I know.
Sly is an old white man. The ironies, they abound.
[2] From a
man who abandoned his two small children and his first wife when he met someone
he liked better.
[3] But they
were pissy that I didn’t want to share a room with Primo?
[4] Which,
apparently, is one of Sly’s main pastimes.
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