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The Negative Placebo
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2009
And there's X, a regular - daily - who comes into the restaurant. Occasionally, more seldom, we talk above the light and polite banter of service and customers.
"You look tired" he tells me.
It's possible, it's Christmas, this schedule, this job, who isn't tired? I agree. I'm not particularly, but, really, overall I am.
Every other day now, he comes in, tells me how tired I look. Sometimes I am, more ofter I'm not, but to him I look tired. I worry, less that I look tired, everyone here looks tired, it's the job, the season, there are countless excuses, but I worry about the Placebo Effect.
By which I mean that somehow - or other - he's reinforcing a deeply held unconscious belief that this job is killing me. Not the job, really, but the belief.
A sort of negative Placebo effect.
We all know that cigarettes are bad for you, smoke them and you'll die any one of a thousand nasty deaths. But there's no research published on the effect of all the dire warnings posted on packs, the perpetual reinforcement of the negative effects of tobacco, that must - sooner or later - in their own right - lead to an early demise as well. The warnings may well be as bad, may even be worse, than the product itself. No one considers this.
Every time he tells me how tired I look I think to see a doctor. I'm feeling fine, or tired, some days he's right, a stopped clock is right twice a day, but mostly I think it's just his way of making conversation, of expressing some empathy for a grueling schedule - not empathy so much as trying to get the most out of the service, pretend to be a good guy, I could ignore it as I do so many other things, but always I'm wondering if somehow this isn't some sort of negative Placebo, an incentive to be sick, develop a terminal illness simply as a result of an idea that lodged itself in your brain and gestated until it bore malevolent fruit....
There's not so much research on this - the negative placebo - no one in good health wants to volunteer for an experiment who's outcome can only be unpleasant, but I wonder as to the cumulative effect of negative beliefs or observations, lifestyle warnings, an opportunity there for some young and budding scientist or graduate student to write upon the Negative Placebo.
NY Eve - 2011
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1908
Technically this is the end of the nightmare holiday season.
The week between Christmas and New Years, slow lunches, busy dinners, NY Eve marks the return to business as usual.
The night, normal, busy, but not so, no great dramas or scenes in the kitchen, a late but otherwise peaceful night.
I'm hungover - again - the waiter's New Years having been celebrated the evening before, days off are too rare to be squandered with a bag of ice pressed to one's forehead, I'm hungover and not so well, but this job, well, let's be truthful, I do it better hungover. I'm pleasanter, more tolerant of the customers, I'm just focused on survival.
And it's New Year Eve.
By 10:30 all our tables have left, less a couple - 2, and there's a brief flash of hope that perhaps we'll all be free by midnight to go and celebrate elsewhere - anywhere else.
It's only a hope, and brief, those tables, they're settled in.
The staff, they sit on the chairs around the bar, pull out their cellphones and text their friends. The tables hang on. Staff start to drink, me, I'm not drinking tonight, not again, but it doesn't matter. Everyone is in good spirits. The customers, they toast with the waiters and their cheap champagne the New Year. The waiters, the kitchen, we all hug and wish each other the best. For a moment, sober as I am, I almost believe it.
The customers eventually leave, I find cabs for the remainder, the New Years, proper, is now ours, and we all find our separate destinations. It's 1:00 AM, 2012.
Xmas - 2011
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1942
And the season passes, with nary a tree or ornament, it's everyone else's holiday, not mine.
Xmas Eve the last minute filling in of gifts I'd purchased for family at the Liquor store then drunk, Xmas day, a nasty hangover, then trip to Edmonton with the boy for the festivities...
I'm not even slightly in a festive mood.
The boy, however, he's got 2 weeks off of school, a week or more of snowboarding in Fernie to look forward to, he's in a festive mood. And he's gloating over my hangover, I'm painfully human, I can't be bothered to hide it....
Xmas dinner, family & friends, the boy is poured a glass of wine by family to celebrate.
I top it off. Again and again. I want him to learn the hangover lesson early. I want him to understand that there's no harm in drinking - in moderation - but find your level, know what's acceptable, this he has to find out for himself, I can't tell him this....
The family is a little aghast, it's not us, a glass is fine, more is -well, white trash....
It's not really, it's the learning of acceptable drinking with family, not friends, in a safe environment...I have countless justifications, research I could present, but it doesn't matter. Let him enjoy himself, if he goes too far he'll pay the price later.
The boy's taking the bait, drinking too much, not really but he's not a practiced drinker.
But I watch him, and he's good with the water. He's getting drunk, settling into the sofa, laughing at the family dynamics, seeing things through a lens similar to mine, only his is filled with good humor. He's a merry drunk. This is good. And I keep topping up his drink, but he's too slow to push it away....
He's a glass of water, big, that he's nursing. A trick he learned from Mom, avoid the hangover, I'm impressed, I wouldn't have taught him this - not until later, and his mom doesn't give him wine, strange conservative morals that tell him to wait until he's 18, physically he's almost as big as me, perhaps bigger, but this arbitrary age, arbitrary association of maturity, it's the other side of the family. Mine as well, I don't deride his mother's point of view, I only know that those cultures that have no prejudice against wine, alcohol, imbibe less, have lower binge drinking, lower alcoholism in general, and this is what I want him - my boy - to learn, a taste, an appreciation, a respect for what he's drinking. It's a healthy part of life, to be merry, to be drunk, to see things in a different way, to enjoy life - occasionally - with others, with that liquor, that bond, that leveling of intellectual snobbery and arrogance, of class and ten thousand other vices I see him becoming prey to....
I'm impressed with the water. The family, they're not so impressed, he's not holding it so well, obviously tipsy, and perhaps - me aside, he should cut himself off. He hasn't done this. I should teach him this - later - know where you are, the limits, and conduct yourself accordingly - here, given the level of tacit disapproval, he should have cut himself off earlier. But it's Christmas, we'll discuss this later.....
He survives.
Xmas passes, gifts exchanged, return to Calgary, some slight rest and relaxation, then back to work....
The Bosses' Nephew (4)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1537
For the village idiot he has rare moments of utter, supreme clarity.
Not that he's stupid, not by a long shot, but his intelligence isn't of the sort that's conventionally measured, he wouldn't pass an IQ test. But socially, well, for a guy that eats with his fingers and is more than willing to *uck anything that moves, well, he's not quite as easily pinned down as all that.
Sometimes, at the bar, making a drink or passing time until it's busy, he tells me shit. Shit he doesn't tell anyone else, because, really, who else would get it?
He's talking about his cousin, Fredrica, who "Is such a whore, I'm not kidding, such a dirty fucking whore, she'll fuck anything.....she's like me, only a woman..."
This is the joke, only he's not joking, her damning trait not being that she's like him, or indiscreet or a slut, no, it's that she's like him and she's a woman. Women aren't like that.
And he's telling me about the business cards of the car dealers - today a slow day, but for some reason we have the owner of a Toyota, a Chrysler and a very fine Luxury car dealership in for lunch. They're not talking, different tables, but the nephew is telling me what their business cards should say:
"I sell cars" for the Chrysler and the Chrysler and Toyota dealers.
For X, the owner of the Luxury dealership - he's got the card worked out - "I don't sell cars, I sell dreams....", and it's funny, because it's right, every adolescent who's done well and saved their money finds their way to this dealership to fulfill their childhood dreams, too sadly they don't usually get there until their in their 40's or 50's....
And he brings up another, the character who sold the owner of the restaurant the imaginary luxury car that never arrived - it just says "I sell dreams" - it's brilliant, in it's way, but he has to tell me this in a lowered voice, cautious of eavesdropping, this is still a sore subject no one dares to broach...
In a way he's the Shakespearean Fool, the jester or idiot who somehow speaks truth to power, in all other aspects an idiot, but in some other ways he's dead on the money, but here, of all places, he can only speak his mind to me, his talents are squandered....
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