Break out your swimsuits, kids!

PQK (looking at this week's weather report): "It's not even gonna be that cold this week. The low is only 18 degrees!"

What kind of topsy-turvy world am I living in where this sentence is normal? What has my life become?!

6 Word Biography

Didn't you hear? These are ALL the rage right now. Here's mine:

How does my hair look today?

What's yours?

Waitresscapades #1

Have you ever asked yourself what the PQK does for a living? Of course you have! You people think about me all of the time, I’m sure! Well, it turns out that bloggin’ don’t pay the bills and, on weekends, you can find me taking orders and slinging plates and drinks at one of Madison’s many restaurants. Sometimes it’s great—people shove extra tens at me, engage me in good, but not too intimate conversation, tip the full twenty percent, and tell me that they travel write for the New York Times and then invite me to write with them (this only happened once). Other times, working in the restaurant industry drives me to the verge of suicide—ten percent tips, people who don’t order alcohol, senior citizens, etc. You overhear and get told a lot of funny/awkward/ ridiculous things on this side of the apron, which is why I’ve decided to start this series called ‘Waitresscapades.’

Friday, February 15, 2008

Setting: Inebriated women dismantles restaurant-owned bouquet of flowers. She sits at a table with ten others, equally inebriated.

Woman: What do you do with these flowers?

PQK: We reuse them tomorrow.

Woman (holding a tea rose): Can I please have this? I—I grew up in a flower shop and I just—I haven’t seen these in so long!

PQK: There are flower shops in Madison.

Woman (to man): Smell

Man: Is that a carnation?

Woman: No. I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you what it ain’t!

Later-

Woman (holding a lily): This is an orchid. They’re very rare!



This was only the beginning. Daughter of a florist, indeed.

My name is Cupid Valentino

First off, I should be doing 1.5 million things other than blogging.

Secondly, I google-image searched the word 'love' and found this:



Third, my male roommate, who's a very good cook, made my other female roommate and me Valentine's Day dinner from scratch and it was TWO courses! First, there was a really wonderful soup. Second, there was a very classy meat loaf, topped off with a heart shaped out of bacon and sided with braised vegetables. Are we not the luckiest two girls in the whole wide world?

Fourth, every Valentine's Day, I try to listen to Andre 3000's Happy Valentine's Day off of The Love Below. Do you remember that album and how effin' great it was? DO YOU?!

Fifth, I am so tired, I shouldn't be allowed to touch a keyboard (I almost wrote 'aloud,' so who knows what else I may have missed).

Happy Valentine's, yall.

The PQK

We need to talk

Dear Winter,

I think that it’s time that you and I break up. I’m sorry to tell you this in a letter and all, but lately you have been too busy to listen to a word that I’ve said. This shouldn’t come as a shock to you because, frankly, we’ve been out of love for a while now. Remember when we first met? Our relationship was so hopeful and full of anticipation! I remember waking up in the morning and reveling in you, your freshness and comfort. I would roll around in your snow until even my eyelashes carried your flakes. I wish I still felt that way. I wish we could still appreciate each other the way we once did, but you have constantly duped me, throwing me a handful of sunny and 30-degree days, then, right when I think that you finally get it, you drop back below zero like those warm days never even happened. It’s not you. It’s me. I should have realized when we first met that this was how it would be.

We don’t dress up for each other anymore. I recall those sweet days of late November and early December when I would wear my fitted wool coat, quaint beret, and the scarf that compliments my eyes. You would surprise me with frost-kissed windows and a glittery lawn. Now, I just wear the same down coat and dingy red boots everyday, not even bothering to coordinate my mittens and hat. Do you know how many cute outfits I have lined up, but am unable to wear because it’s snowy or too cold?! At least five! Plus, you drive me to eat compulsively and then make me feel bad about it! And you. You have grown dirty and slushy. You’re even perilous, hiding cruel lumps of ice beneath the surface. You want to trip me up and embarrass me so that you can feel better.

I understand that you’re stressed and busy at work. With global warming breathing down your neck, you probably feel like you need to work overtime. At what price? The price of our relationship, that’s what. I have always been so respectful to you. I walk or take public transportation. I don’t even own a car. YOU somehow manage to punish me for this. You make the sidewalks icy, snow-filled, and over all difficult to walk on (that is if it’s not too cold to walk without getting wind burn, frostbite, or freezing to death) and you make the buses so packed that I practically have to crawl into Homeless Joe’s lap to find space.

I hope that I’ve made myself clear. Things between us will be rough for a while. I don’t have the funds to move out, plus you seem to like the cities that I like anyway. It will be awkward, maybe even upsetting, but I hope that you will be mature about this sensitive situation. Please don’t throw a blizzard-tantrum. With any luck, we won’t have to deal with each other in a couple of months when you go south of the equator to harass your old girlfriends. Until then, let’s just put on a smile and make the best of it. Remember, this hurts me more than it hurts you.

Always in memory,

The Pop Quiz Kid

Where's Al Gore when you need him?

If you will, imagine that you are in my place this past Thursday afternoon. You’re sitting in Creative Writing class on the seventh floor of a university building that looks oddly like a parking ramp. It’s hulking, made of concrete, and is void of any architectural beauty. It is wide and sturdy looking. You (as me) are sitting and listening to your classmates read their free writes about jugglers and gophers aloud, looking effortlessly stylish as usual. Right as one reader is finishing his story where the gopher character meets his tragic death by lawn mower, this bomb-shelter-looking unshakable building decides to shake. You hear a rumble and the room literally wobbles.
“It sounds like something hit the building,” Mr. Creative Writing says.
What do you do?
Perhaps you would create a group parachute from backpacks and coats, allowing the entire class to float to safety. Maybe you would call your loved ones. Or you might just blame it on construction happening near by and go on with your work. Any of these would be far more courageous than my response. First, I was the only one to get out of my seat, poised to flee. Everybody else stayed seated, waiting for instruction from the instructor.
“This seems like as good of a time as any to end class,” he said. “Don’t take the el—“
What came after that, I do not know. Don’t take the elephant? The elevated path? The L Word? El sombrero? I am unclear as to what finished the sentence because, as my fellow classmates were calmly packing their things, I was hurdling down the seven flights of stairs, coat in hand and leaving a trail of paper in my wake. All I could think was that the building was coming down and I was NOT going to be in it.
I always have imagined myself acting heroic in a disastrous situation. Perhaps I would lift up a crippled Albanian orphan and fire-carry him to safety. The truth is more like this- Self Preservation. As far as I know, I might have stepped on a newborn puppy’s skull as I thundered down the stairs. I wouldn’t have noticed. Did I even warn people who were walking into the building of the possible danger? Nope. Running into the cold weather, sans coat, I kept running until I was far enough away that I wouldn’t be crushed by falling debris. Here is a reenactment.

The building did not come down. Turns out, the tremor was caused by an ice quake. In other words, we in Wisconsin had a really warm day last week where the ice started to melt. The next day was very cold. The ice, fully confused, contracted, causing it to crack and LITERALLY rock our world (Bill Nye's got nothing on my puns)!

Knowing what I know now, maybe I should be embarrassed at my fleeing. Am I hereby known in my creative writing class as the girl who ran? Would I act the same if it happened again? In the words of Jim Halpert, absolutely I would. Only next time, hopefully, I will look back on this ice quake and remember my cowardly escape. Yes, next time I will carry out the baby animals and sick children. We will run away from the building in slow motion as it explodes behind us, ash smudged attractively on my face with my shirt suggestively sticking to my skin. I will have to be restrained by the crowds as I try to return to save others. Or I might just run away screaming. Or get crushed.