More Luck Than Brain Cells
9/21/20267 min read
Vegas was fun! I wish I could say I became a billionaire after a random win, but then you probably wouldn't have heard from me again. Actually—you would have heard from me too often, because that would mean I had way too much time on my hands after being able to quit my job.
But would I even quit my job? Probably at some point, I assume, but I also like having things to complain about (shocker), and I like being around people. Quitting my job would deprive me of both.
I like to joke that if I won big at a casino, people around me would never hear from me again. Oh, they so would. The first thing I would do is take everyone I like on a trip. And I like an unreasonable amount of people. Some would politely decline, I imagine.
I arrived in Vegas sleep deprived, and what I did most there was—sleep. Amazing. Would recommend, even to my worst enemy, who probably has me blocked and is holding a grudge over some dumb shit I don't even remember.
When I went to Vegas, my plan was simple: see my mom, go to In-N-Out, lose some money. Instead, I built some furniture. I am gay, but I am not a butch lesbian. I don't know how furniture works. Hire a builder.
Well, when I got to Vegas, my mom announced her huge plan for the weekend was to get the new iPhone—burgundy, and it had to be just that. Like she's not going to get a case that's a different color. She ended up getting the iPhone and then a matching fur coat.
The woman misses winters. She works as a tour guide, planning her tours around wherever summer is. But she has a secret burgundy iPhone hidden under the case and a fur coat to match now. But the point of the trip was that she got a house.
Her main announcement was that she has two living rooms. One is for people she doesn't like. The couch is uncomfortable and it's close to the door, so when someone she doesn't like comes over, she will tell them to sit there.
The concept of having someone you don't like inside your house is crazy enough, I think. But I guess for someone who doesn't like just about anyone, that's a very real issue. And so my mom has found a solution. The other living room, down the hallway, has a nicer white couch, which is reserved only for people she likes—but only when they're clean.
She likes five people. Three of them are her children. Dirty? Yeah, I would say we are probably dirty by her white-couch standards most of the time. So I don't know what that couch's purpose is.
She also got a giant dining table with one chair. More to come, apparently. You know, for the many friends she will have over, once she makes them.
When I came downstairs the first morning, it was like Christmas with all the boxes, except they all had furniture for me to build instead of gifts. Again, not that type of a lesbian. What's next? Cutting my hair? No, thank you.
Interesting thing about my mom: she owned restaurants in Poland, and she was my first boss. And she was maybe the strictest boss I've ever had.
She was not the type to say, She's my daughter, therefore she gets to do whatever she wants. No. I had to set an example. I had to be there way before my shift, I had to have everything perfect, and if not—oh boy, was there yelling.
On family vacations, she would check the cameras on her phone to make sure nobody was stealing a bottle of sparkling water. God forbid. To this day, she takes full credit for my work ethic. She told me I wouldn't be so hireable if she hadn't been so strict with me. I'm not really looking to be “hireable.” I quit a lot. But apparently, that's no longer her jurisdiction.
My last year of high school, I had to pick up so many shifts I failed math. I would have failed math anyway. I am terrible with numbers. One, two, three—yawn. Boring. But it was nice to have it over her, sort of. She really didn't argue with me about failing math. She's probably not entirely wrong, though. I did learn how to work from her. What I apparently did not inherit was her management technique.
What I did inherit was the clown gene. My mom is a boss-ass bitch. Don't get that wrong. EVER. But she is also hilarious. Even when she doesn't mean to be. At one point she opened a pack of gum, offered me one, took one for herself, chewed it for approximately one second and spit it out. “I hate gum.” I said, “You opened it. It's yours.” She said, “Well, I don't like it.” Okay. She also recently informed me that I have “more luck than brain cells.” This was about nothing in particular. At some point over the weekend she also told me I was more annoying than when I was twelve. “I hope so. I have more experience.” I've been putting in the hours.
My mom is also capable of turning absolutely nothing into a full-scale emergency. A package arrived. She opened it. Yoga pants. “I didn't order yoga pants.” She said this approximately a thousand times while continuing to examine the yoga pants. She opened them, stretched them out, held them up. “They're not even my size.” Okay. Nobody is making you wear them. We went to dinner, and when we came back she checked her Amazon account and discovered that she had, in fact, ordered something. Tape. She needed tape to put up a calendar. Amazon had sent her yoga pants instead.
She was furious. To her, I think genuinely furious. To me, one of the funniest things that had happened all weekend. She threw her brand-new phone at me and told me to contact Amazon because she was not accepting yoga pants instead of tape and, perhaps most importantly, she had paid three dollars for express delivery. Calm down, woman. You just got a house. What's three dollars? Apparently, a lot. So I got to watch my mother explain to some poor customer service person that returning the pants to Whole Foods would cost her more in gas than the pants themselves were worth. How did she know how much the pants were worth? She didn't. But in her mind: cents.
Anyway, Amazon refunded her, sent the tape immediately and told her she could keep the pants. The tape arrived about two hours later. And upon further examination, the pants actually weren't that bad. She'll keep them, thank you very much.
The next day, she asked me to check her mail. “Where's the mailbox?” I asked. “Somewhere on the left. Few houses down. You'll find it,” she replied. Great. She was never good with directions. I remember one of our first trips to NYC when we were supposed to be walking uptown and I watched the streets go from 40th to 39th, then 38th, then 37th. “Hey, Mom?” I finally said. “I thought we were going the right way,” she said. Sure. Maybe 36th would turn things around.
As I was walking out to get her mail, she yelled after me to bring a bag because she hadn't checked the mail in months. A bag. Among approximately four thousand pieces of mail was a notice for a court hearing because apparently she hadn't trimmed her palm trees.
She was furious. She just got the house. Why should she be responsible for the palm trees? And she's not “among monkeys” to climb up there and trim them herself. I suggested hiring someone. She doesn't have time for that. She also doesn't have time to go to court. She'll be in Hawaii. Fair.
Meanwhile, while I was in Vegas making fun of my mother for checking restaurant cameras on family vacations, things at my own restaurant back in New York were apparently on fire. One of the people I manage got written up. Again. The last time she got in trouble was when I went to Los Angeles. Apparently I cannot leave her unattended.
And somewhere between getting updates from work while sitting in my mother's five-bedroom house and remembering how she used to monitor bottles of sparkling water from family vacations, I had a slightly horrifying realization. Maybe I inherited more of her management style than I thought.
She screamed at employees and checked cameras. I call employees queen and check on them from Vegas.
Completely different. For now.
Anyway, I went to Vegas planning to see my mom, eat In-N-Out and lose some money.
I didn't eat In-N-Out. I didn't gamble once. I built furniture, argued with Amazon, retrieved several months' worth of mail and learned that my mother may eventually be taken to court over a palm tree. There are plenty of other things she should be taken to court for. America just picks and chooses, I guess.
I still have no idea where I got the hospitality gene from. The clown gene, however, has been located.