The Odd Ball

I have never felt more conventional and boring than while working at the restaurant. For example, the other day I learned that my barista left home at 16, apprenticed as a piercer for a year, got hooked on LSD, moved to Ashville, North Carolina to grow and sell pot, left that booming enterprise to squat on Lisa Beniot's (Lisa from the Cosby Show) property in Hawaii, got pinworms from drinking sewage water, went to rehab, started a coffee training company, lost all his money, married a girl and moved to Venice, California. And just when I thought I had heard enough, another girl chimed in and said she too left home at an early age and became a professional belly dancer and worked little kid birthday parties as Cinderella. Cinderella? Crap, I finally found a card that trumped my Mongolian Card. I can't out do that.

So, there I sat, wondering what to say. Do I make up a cool story about a brief brush with prostitution and how I once spent an entire year in Tanzania learning how to make a pot out of cow dung and straw? Or do I just shoot from the hip and talk about my functional relationship with my parents, my 3.9 grade average in high school or the fact that I can count on one hand the classes I missed in college? I know it was a tough decision. Finally, I decided to go with option 3: Grip a knife, look off into the distance and mutter, "My parole officer said this would be difficult." What can I say I want to remain "mysterious."