Super Frat

Braux Pas:  Do You Know Where You’re Going To?
written by Tony DiGerolamo
Copyright 2014

 So, I don’t know why this keeps happening to me and maybe I’m the only one, but—  This weekend, I didn’t do a comic book convention.  Although this seems to happen to me at comic book conventions a lot, but bear with me.

My brother-in-law was in this crossfit competition that his gym was throwing.  A food vendor backed out at the last minute and he asked if I would help out and cook hamburgers at the event.  Sure, why not?  I like cooking and we thought we could make some quick cash.

So I’m at the grill, just like I’d be at a comic book convention table somewhere.  We were in a parking lot outside and everyone once in a while a car would stop right in front of me and the grill.  The driver would roll down his or her window and ask, “Do you know where X is?”  Now this happened at least three times during the course of the day and it was completely obnoxious and a Braux Pas.

First, these assholes would just stop right in front of my grill.  I was clearly selling hamburgers and every second they had their God damned SUV in front of me, I wasn’t selling hamburgers.  I was talking to some lost asshole.

Second, the gym (like the inside of a comic book convention) was in a very busy area.  Now in this busy area, there are plenty of places where you can stop and get directions.  In a convention, the place to get them is at the front door, to ask one of the many staff or to look at the fucking convention guide and figure out where your target artist is located.  In this case, on a busy highway in North Jersey, there were gas stations, rest areas with maps, GPS in a car or GPS on a phone.  So with all these available options, these lost assholes are clearly too lazy or too impatient to even think of the more direct way to get the answer they want.

Finally, the way they ask for directions.  It’s that tone of voice like they’ve been looking and they’re in a hurry and you should be in a hurry too because of that.  Like at the convention, a guy who really has to go to the bathrooms walking up, without say “Hi” or “Excuse me” or anything, just walks right up and says, “You know where the bathrooms are?”  Really quick and impatient.  A tone that really says, “You, hurry up and tell me where the bathrooms are.”

Now I am making hamburgers at a fucking grill, underneath a tent.  There’s also a table, paper plates, ketchup and a sign with prices of the hamburgers.  Plus we had coolers of beverages.  Nowhere underneath my tent did it say, “Hamburgers and directions.”  Plus there were a lot of other people in the parking lot there for the crossfit competition.  Competitors (mostly) and spectators—  But these three assholes wouldn’t ask any one of them because they weren’t working.  Since I’m working, deep down these assholes know I won’t tell them “No”.  I’m vulnerable, since I’m in need of sales.  I can’t afford to alienate anyone, including some lost asshole in an SUV, so they pick on me.

Fortunately, each time I was asked, I could say, “I’m not from around here.”  Which is basically saying, “How the fuck should I know where that thing is you’re looking for?  Get the fuck away from my grill please.”

Bros, this is the 21st century.  If you get into a vehicle, especially if you’re in NJ (the second most densely populated state in the country), and you don’t know where you’re going, fuck you.  Fuck you and your fucking question, you lazy fuck.  Look it up on your phone or don’t leave the house without a Google map in your hands.  Because the next asshole to stop me, while I’m standing behind a grill or a comic book table, and ask me for directions is going to get lied to.  I’m going to making up some ridiculous fucking directions for you to follow.

And I hope you follow them straight up your own asshole.