Gatsby's Mailbag: Witches, Bitches, and Professors

Gatsby in the house, mofos!

Seriously, how fucking cute am I? Answer: Very.

Well, Mum has a house inspection tomorrow morning, so she woke up today, suddenly started swearing, and shoved me and all her questionable/dangerous/illegal belongings into a giant bag and hid us all at her brother-in-law’s place. Fortunately, that includes her laptop. So while she’s frantically cleaning the apartment before heading to dinner service, I can answer my MAILBAG!

Dear Gatsby,

So there I was, waiting for my meal at the local fish and chippery. When guess what? The girl brought out a battered barramundi, when I asked for grilled! I informed her of this mistake, and demanded the dish I had ordered and paid for. I gave my companion the mistake meal (as she hadn’t ordered anything yet), but it was some time before they delivered the correct one. When my grilled barramundi arrived, I remarked, “FINALLY!” just to hint to the girl that this was not acceptable. Do you think I was too subtle?

Sincerely, Fishwife

Dear Fishwife,

I guess all that time on your broomstick really affects the old senses, huh? Well luckily for you, I happen to know exactly why this mishap occurred. Did you notice, dear lady, that there were people sitting at the table next to you? No? Then I don’t suppose you noticed that they were… missing a meal?

That’s right, you dumb old bint. Your greedy friend sat there and stuffed her fat face with SOMEONE ELSE’S MEAL. Your order arrived precisely when it should have (“FINALLY!” my blue feathered arse). But someone else had to wait an inordinate amount of time for their food because you’re too senile to say something sensible like, “No, I ordered the grilled barramundi, perhaps this is not mine.” It’s a fish and chip shop, for fuck’s sake. You don’t just assume that whatever comes over the counter is yours, then stuff it down your friend’s gob if it isn’t. Although that would explain her generous proportions. Maybe instead of pissing off the general public at fish and chipperies, you guys should build a giant gingerbread house and attract your next meal in that fashion. Make sure the oven is nice and big, now!

Sincerely, Gatsby

Dear Gatsby,

I am a high-ranking faculty member of a city-based learning institution, who frequents certain bars with my colleagues. On one such visit, I ordered a glass of wine. I noticed that the bartender poured up to a certain line on the glass, but for a woman on the other side of the bar the wine was poured at a higher level. I inquired about the discrepancy. After several exchanges, I realised that the woman had simply been given more wine than me because she was a regular, and I was outraged. I promptly composed a wordy complaint to the proprietor, full of personal attacks and paltry accusations, in an attempt to have the insolent bartender fired. I then referred the matter to an even higher-ranking faculty member, who apparently has nothing better to do, and he personally called a meeting with the owner on my behalf. The owner has since placated me with an apology and a bottle of wine. Do you think I succeeded?

Sincerely, Professor Petty

Dear Professor Petty,

It is quite a feat to have reached your station in life and still be nothing but a worthless wank-stain on society. Congratulations, pin-dick! You do realise you unleashed this ludicrous theatrical shit-storm over one centimetre of wine? Is your work and life so utterly devoid of meaning that you would seek to destroy someone else’s over something so unbelievably trivial? Of course it is, you pathetic excuse for a vertebrate. I’m a more worthwhile person than you, and I’m a two-year-old budgerigar.

Here’s what I don’t get about you, and other turds like you: academics who in the same breath they trumpet on about social justice, treat servers like absolute shit. Often servers are earning lower than the lowest threshold, are something other than White and Christian and Upper-Middle-Class, are working their arses off to put themselves through the same undergraduate degree you earned back in the day, or are people who are just being people. You’re more than happy to use them as statistics in your latest self-righteous paper, but you get enraged over a standard glass of wine and shit on them by trying your darndest (wasting company time in the process) to make them lose their livelihoods and royally fuck up their lives. Smells like privilege, don’t you think?

Oh, and just so you know. The bartender didn’t lose his job for pouring you a standard glass (his wife and baby will be happy to hear that) but he did lose hope in humanity, and the entire staff body has developed a healthy suspicion of anybody associated with the institution you represented so crappily. Well done, Professor Petty, you upstanding mothball-scented citizen.

Don’t worry, next time your wineglass will be filled to the brim – with spit. On the house!

Sincerely, Gatsby

Dear Gatsby,

My boyfriend and I had just finished a hard day of wandering around Windsor’s shopping precinct, and we decided to pop into a nice-looking restaurant for a cup of tea. Unfortunately, while we were waiting for our order, we noticed the terrible music! We asked the waitress to change it. It was still unbearable! We asked her to change it again. The next song was just as bad! Finally we walked out without paying, snapping, “We just want to drink our tea in peace.” Can you believe that place?

Sincerely, Searching For Zen

Dear Searching For Zen,

Here’s an idea, you whiny little bitch. Go to a fucking supermarket, buy some fucking tea, and go the fuck home where you can control your surroundings to your heart’s fucking content. That way, you get to pick the music, and only your equally-miserable boyfriend has to see your face. Win-win! Don’t go out to restaurants and demand every aspect of the environment to meet your every idiotic whim. Who the fuck do you think you are, Jesus? No-one’s going to lose sleep over losing your patronage since the other less-obnoxious customers were actually spending more than $4.

Even if the music in a restaurant is not your cup of tea (see what I fucking did there?) this is the kind of thing you can discern BEFORE you sit down and order. That is, unless your sense of entitlement is so disproportionately huge that if it was made of seeds it would eliminate World Budgie Hunger (an issue close to my heart). A useful exercise you might like to try in future is to put on your Listening Cap before you waste everybody’s time with some irrational tantrum after you’ve sat down in a restaurant and ordered. Fucking crybaby.

Sincerely, Gatsby

Well hospo kids, it's been real. But for some reason, whenever I chew the tasty, tasty power cord on my mum's laptop, the thing craps out on me, so I better go. Catch you on the flipside!

Gatsby

Gatsby's Mailbag

Wazzup mofos? Gatsby here.

Well, the Fool Critic AKA my mum can't be bothered updating today - she came home on break and curled up in a hungover little ball on the floor over there. Luckily, she printed off some mail from Whine Loving customers and lined my cage and common hang-outs with it this morning. After ripping off little pieces and chewing them up a little, I decided to answer these letters for her!

Dear Gatsby,

Last night some girlfriends and I were enjoying a quick lolly-water at a local pub before our date at a nearby theatre restaurant. I noticed a cocktail on special and ordered, draping my pristine white coat over the bar while waiting for the bartender to work his magic. The idiot then proceeded to squirt orange juice on my coat! I of course protested, marching around to the dining room to clean it off, all the while muttering and huffing. The bartender offered me soda water but the damage was done. What do you think of this appalling behaviour?

Sincerely, Deborah K

Dear Deborah K,

What the fuck is wrong with you, dimwit? You place a white fucking coat on the workstation side of a busy bar – signified by chopping boards, discarded lemon wedges, spilled Angostura Bitters and melted ice cubes – then crack a hissy fit when a busy bartender gets shit on it? Would you also leave your cat on the road in Chapel Street and get pissed off when some green p-plater runs it over? I have more sense than you, and I can’t differentiate between a closed window and open air! Order whatever candy-arse crap you’re drinking and get your shit out of the way. In the event you can’t stop being a complete idiot, here are some things to consider:

1.       The coat is not Chanel.

2.       Orange juice is not red wine.

3.       Pre-drinks at a pub is not high tea.

4.       Storming around disturbing the civilised customers in the dining room with your histrionics will not endear you to staff.

5.       The bartender is already attending to forty-odd pub patrons, and it was kind of him to take the time to offer help during service.

6.       Napisan Oxi Action Plus exists.

7.       So does sterilisation.

Sincerely, Gatsby

Dear Gatsby,

Some months ago, a party of 11 family friends and I had successfully landed a table at a fancy-looking restaurant in Prahran one Saturday night, despite not having a reservation. However, once we were seated and given menus, we were informed by the waitress that a $10 corkage charge applied to the BYO wines we had popped on the table! I had never heard such an outrage and let her know this in no uncertain terms, shrieking, “I have to pay to drink my OWN wine? Screw her!” And with that, I opened the bottle with a defiant twist while my gentleman companions cheered me on. In the end they waived the ridiculous charge so we would stop making a scene. “Corkage” – have you ever heard anything so ludicrous?

Sincerely, Passion Pop

Dear Passion Pop,

Well, aren’t you the classless little harpy from hell? First time in a city or something? I have better manners than you, and I think everywhere is a toilet.

Paying corkage is a pretty well-known concept, at least amongst people who get out occasionally. Even at my mum’s crappy first job when she was fifteen at a local pizzeria in a tiny town there were corkage charges in place. It’s a simple idea – restaurants are businesses. Customers bringing their own alcohol means businesses lose money. Charging a fee for BYO is a way for them to discourage this or recover lost revenue, effectively justifying the space your cheap fat arse is taking up. But I wouldn’t suppose a group of thirty-somethings who carry on like they just got out of a barnyard, cruise Chapel St with 11 other nitwit friends/inbred relatives without having the courtesy or forethought to ring up a restaurant and book a table, and scream abuse the young girls waiting on them, to be capable of intelligent thought. Should I translate?

DERRP, EATING PLACE NEED MAKE MONEY. DERRP.

Drink your goon at home, shit-for-brains.

Sincerely, Gatsby

Dear Gatsby,

A friend and I ordered lunch and drinks at a busy pub earlier this week, paid at the bar, and found a table where we patiently waited for our meals. As the harried waitress brought them over, I quickly asked her for another beer; in response she politely directed me to the bar. She expected me to get it myself, as I had done with my first drink! I snapped, “Nice to see the service is good here.” That’ll show her.

Sincerely, Snubbed

Dear Snubbed,

Look here, you lazy fucker. Just because you see someone in an apron doesn’t mean it is table service here on in, especially in a damn pub. Were you not paying attention when you ordered and paid at the bar? Did you happen to notice everybody else in the pub was ordering and paying at the bar? Have you noticed that, in general, the average pub does not have bloody cocktail waitresses, and the common procedure when you want drinks is to go to where they are dispensed, like, I don’t know, AT THE BAR? Even I know all this, and I’m a fucking budgie.

Well, hope that clears things up, and that those chips clog your arteries.

Sincerely, Gatsby

Dear Gatsby,

I was having a lovely dinner with two lovely ladies in Melbourne this evening, and as the waitress brought our main courses I felt compelled to speak up for them. The two glasses of sauvignon blanc they had ordered had not arrived yet! When I reminded the girl to check on the wine, she mutely pointed to the already-filled wineglasses on the table which we had somehow failed to notice. One of my companions pointed out to her that the white wine looked like water in this dim lighting. The waitress mutely pointed at the water glasses, also filled! Is this underhanded glass-filling a common problem?

Sincerely, Short Sighted

Dear Short Sighted,

You really are just a freaking idiot, aren’t you?

Sincerely, Gatsby

Ok, people, it's been fun but I better get back to chirping and nibbling Mum's headphones before she notices my adeptness with her computer keyboard. Catch you on the flipside!

Gatsby