Tolerance...

"I hope you really enjoy the whole $7 an hour your making."

As my hand balls up into a fist I feel a hand pull back on my forearm. "Leave it Mike." Paulie steps out from behind me. He looks at the scruffy haired kid standing in front of us, "Why don't you take off."

"Fuck you guys, this sidewalk is community property." The kid is about 22 years old, 6' tall and all of 120lbs soaking wet. He has a trucker hat on with the bill of the hat bent straight up. His pants are tight, keys hung from a belt loop and the right pant leg is rolled up so it doesn't get caught in his bicycle chain. His shirt was at one time white and his arms are decorated with mismatched tattoos. There was dried blood around his nose. "I know my rights."

Five minutes before.

The kid was in the establishment. He decided that it would be ok to walk up behind a waitress and throw his arms around her. Not only that, he thought it would be funny if he grabbed her breasts and act like he was dry humping her. When Alice came up and told me I walked to the back and saw him laughing about it.

I grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the floor. He landed face first and knocked over a couple other people as he went down. I reached and grabbed him again, this time by his feet and I started dragging him out of the bar. He kept grabbing other people's legs as I was dragging him so I stopped. He spun around onto his back and I grabbed his arm and jerked him up. As he was coming up he was scared. I could see it in his eyes. His eyes were wide open and he kept looking around for help.

I went to grab his wrist and spin him around and he slipped out of my grasp. He tried to run out of the establishment but I tripped him and he fell to the ground again. This time he fell harder and busted his nose on the ground. Blood started coming out of his nose and trailing down his chin. Now he just laid there waiting for someone to help him. I grabbed him by the wrists and pulled him up. I stood him up and shoved him back and he started out the door.

Once outside the door he became tough. Slanders flew from his mouth like a river. Then they turned personal. Statements about people's mothers started coming out and that's when I started to get more angry. Usually these things don't upset me. I figure that the person doesn't know my mother so there's no reason to get upset but with the things this kid had already done it got to me. I could feel the adrenaline pulsing through me and that's when Paulie told me to let it go.

The kid wouldn't leave the front of the bar and he kept going on about "his rights". So I decided to let him get a first hand feel for what his rights really were. As a squad car drove past I flashed them with my flash light. The car stopped and pulled over. The kid thinking he was in the right stood there, "Yea, bring the cops over, I'll have your ass in jail!" He literally thought he was in the right.

The two cops came walking over. The first one walked up to me and the second one walked straight over to the kid.

"Hey Mike, what's going on?"

I explained what had happened and how the kid was dry humping the waitress and grabbing her breasts. I explained in detail what happened after that.

"Ok, the waitress want to file sexual assault charges?"

The kid overheard this. "What!? I didn't assault her! What the fuck!?"

The cop walked over to the kid and got into his face. "Excuse me? You grabbed a womans breasts without her consent. You think that's ok to do?"

The second cop turned the kid around and started patting him down. When the cuffs came out the kid started flaring up more. "What the fuck!? What about what he did to me? This is fuckin bullshit!!"

"He didn't do anything. You swung at him first. He was doing his job, protecting the staff and the business."

"I didn't swing at anyone!!"

"You have the right to remain silent...."

After the kid was read his rights and stuffed in the car, the cops talked to the waitress. She decided to press charges. Even if she doesn't show up for court the kid will have to spend all weekend in jail to wait for a court hearing.

Maybe he'll meet up with Big John while he's in there.

Hopefully Big John will think he's cute.

Here We Go...

Sorry about the lack of posting as of late. With the new year starting things have been a little hectic. New procedures have been put together at work and its been interesting to see how they've worked out.

A few years ago the city of Chicago almost passed a smoking ban. I was weary about them passing the ban because if they passed the ban then I figured we'd be next. Well, Chicago didn't pass the smoking ban but it wasn't necessarily because they didn't want to. It was because the whole state of Illinois decided to go non-smoking.

The state of Illinois has passed, what many have called, the most stringent smoking ban to date. Which goes along with Illinois being known as a Police State.

The major difference between Illinois' smoking ban and that of other states is that it's focused primarily on the employees health rather than the patrons. Which is fun to explain to the non-smoking patrons that come to the establishment and think the state loves them. It's not about you, it's about the waitress that doesn't smoke and you don't tip.

One thing about Illinois ban is the fresh air clause. According to rumor there isn't an air recycling unit that can work fast enough to keep up with the state's mandate. When I look over the Act online there are a lot of Sections missing to it so there's no way to tell.

There are also a lot of businesses that are already being hurt by the ban. There are smoke shops that are slowly closing down. If the business is a tobacco shop then you can't sell beverage or food. In fact, you have to give up those licenses completely. I've even seen a few restaurant's that have shut down their kitchens just so the regulars in the neighborhood can keep on smoking. They think they have a way around it. Wait until it's time to pay bills, they'll wish they had kept it open.

A big state ban is strange. People feel like their Rights are being taken away from them. In part, they are. It's the right to choose. The right to your own choice. If things were done a little differently then it wouldn't be so bad.

I don't want to get into all the little schematical issues over it.

This just makes work a lot more difficult. Now instead of just making sure everyone plays nice we have to make sure the kids aren't smoking inside the building. Anyone caught gets tossed for doing something that we've all done for years. So there should be some interesting reactions in the near future.

I've been telling myself that now is a good time to quit. The rebellious side of me just keeps winning the argument. When you keep the law for so long you let the rebellious side win at times. Maybe in a few months...

Be safe.

2008...

The new year is here. New problems and a major event has happened lately. More on that to come.

Hope everyone's New Year's Eve went well. Ours was a little hectic but there weren't a lot of problems. I think the worst thing to happen was a person puking. Even then they puked in a garbage can so it wasn't that big of a deal for me but they still had to leave.

I don't clean up puke. I think it's in my contract somewhere. Seriously. I will and have given the mop and bucket to people so they can clean up their own mess. Then they get booted after they clean it up. Yea, yea, dick move. Whatever. I'm not cleaning it up and someone has to.

I'll be back soon with more posts. I just need to iron out a few details.

Be safe.