I stopped into my favorite Thai restaurant today to pick up some curry fried rice to take home and eat while watching the Super Bowl. I did not call ahead, and so I needed to wait in the restaurant for fifteen minutes while the food was being prepared. I ordered a Samuel Adams beer and sat down for the wait. While waiting I observed and experienced a few things that, in sequential order, disappointed me, comforted me, entertained me, and then irritated me. I was motivated to share my experience, because it occurred to me that any average joe would feel the same gamut of emotions given similar circumstances.

With the first sip of my Samuel Adams beer, I knew that something was terribly wrong. Now I must point out that I am very particular about beer, especially if it is described on a restaurant menu as a “premium” beer as is always the case with Samuel Adams. Of course, one is always required to pay more for the premium beer. In this restaurant they only charged an additional $.75 over their other bottled beers, but I have seen some restaurants charge as much as $2.00 more for their premium beers.

I will also point out that when I pay for a premium beer, even if I am only paying an additional $.75, I expect a premium taste. Needless to say, today in this particular Thai restaurant, there was a major chasm between my expectation and my experience. Rather than the normal, full-bodied taste that I have come to expect from Samuel Adams, I was treated to something akin to the taste of urine that came from a squirrel with a particularly nasty bladder infection. Actually, the taste might not have been quite that bad, and I have to admit that it has been a long time since I drank squirrel urine, so I may be overstating the case a bit. Regardless, I was not satisfied with my “premium” beer.

One of the great things about Samuel Adams beer is that it has a freshness date on the side of the bottle label. Beer, rather than mellowing with age, just goes bad. Recognizing this, the brewers of Samuel Adams clearly mark on their beer bottles the month in which the beer will begin to lose it's fresh flavor. I turned the bottle which I was “enjoying” so that I could read the freshness date and discovered that this particular “premium” beer had lost it's freshness in September of last year. You now know what disappointed me, so let's move on to the source of my comfort.

As I sipped my squirrel urine, my eye caught a young couple in a back corner of the restaurant, and as I was watching, they clasped hands across the table, bowed their heads, closed their eyes, and prayed. My mind immediately wandered back to my father. He always insisted on giving thanks to God before every meal, and his gratitude was never tacit. Even in restaurants, he insisted on publicly proclaiming his gratitude for our sustenance. The wonderful thing about my dad's Christianity was that it was very much an American Christianity. If anybody would have ever been so bold or so stupid as to complain about his public expression of gratitude to God, my father would have protected his freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion rights by pummeling the complainer's head with a ham-hock sized fist. Today, even with the taste of squirrel urine in my mouth, I was greatly comforted and encouraged by this young couple's willingness to humble themselves and public acknowledge God's kindness.

And now we deal with the point in time at the restaurant when I became entertained. A thirty-something couple was given their check for the meal, and Mr. Thirty-something pulled out his Blackberry in order to calculate the tip. Remember, we were in a Thai food restaurant, so the bill could not have exceeded $30. Three possibilities presented themselves to me: 1.) Mr. Thirty-something has a new Blackberry and he wants to show it off, or 2.) Mr. Thirty-something is so anal-retentive that he has to figure the fifteen per cent gratuity to the nearest half penny, or 3.) Mr. Thirty-something is dumb and lazy and incapable of estimating in his head the gratuity on a bill of $30. Any of the foregoing possibilities would have supplied a limited amount of entertainment for me, but when I began to suspect that Mr. Thirty-something's actions might have resulted from a combination of all three possibilities, I began to quietly chuckle. My chuckle was soon interrupted by the object of my irritation.

Into the restaurant sashayed a male of the species (in case my subtlety has escaped you, I am intentionally avoiding the use of the word “man”). He was wearing a long, black, leather coat that reached to the middle of his calves. The leather coat did not stove-pipe, or hang straight down in the manner which one would expect a man's coat to hang, but instead it was fitted around the waist. One can only assume that the male wanted to make certain that the coat displayed his hips to advantage. His shoes were also black and sported three inch heels. He carried what could only be described as a purse. It was made of black leather and had a linked, gold bauble shoulder strap slung over his shoulder. He had rouged cheeks and long, perfectly coiffed gray hair. I grabbed my food and went home.

As I noted before, I believe that, given similar circumstances, the average joe would have felt the same emotions that I felt today. We average joes don't want to pay for a premium beer and receive a stale beer. We quietly worship our God, but if anyone should be so dumb as to try to prevent our worship , we are willing to defend our right to worship with our fists and, if need be, with our lives. We are generous people. We do not ever need to utilize a Blackberry to calculate a gratuity, because we know that you can never pay too much for good service, and we will never pay for bad service. We will never be guilty of trying to be fashionable and we will never understand those males who are so focused on fashion that they become effeminate.

This web site is for average joes. If you find an affinity with the foregoing paragraph, then spend a little time here each week. Your time will not be wasted.

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