MILLI VANILLI BREAKS UP AGAIN

It’s official, according to the Green Bay Packers.

THE POLITICS OF PANCAKES

One of my many “get me through higher education” jobs was working as the weekend host at a family-style restaurant. (The pay stunk, but at least the working conditions were terrible.) I learned a lot about human nature in that job, mostly about how you should never serve chili-covered omelets to anybody who’s drunk.

But mostly what I learned was that our clientele fell into distinct classes. There were the Saturday-evening people, who were mostly early empty-nesters who would put on the golf shirt and khakis and come to our place for chicken-fried steak or a mushroom omelet before going home to watch Diagnosis Murder. There were the Saturday-night folks who rolled in at bar close after a hard night of trying not to go home alone (and failing). And there were the Sunday-morning folks, a distinguished-looking crew who came right from church or at least dressed like they wanted you to think they did.

The hardest to serve were, of course, the Saturday-night folks, many of whom had to poured into their booths, told which end of the menu was up, informed that the waitress wasn’t going to pick the beans out of the bean soup for you, then gently instructed that, even eight years ago, $20 won’t buy late-night breakfast for nine people. I was tempted, when seating these folks, to ask,”Would you like to see a menu, or shall I just spill some eggs and syrup on the floor for you?” But I never did, and if you want to know why, refer back to the first sentence of this piece.

The Sunday-morning folks were next on the list. They knew exactly what they wanted, exactly how much it cost, exactly how long it should take to prepare, and exactly when was the wrong time to ask me if I could get their waitress for them. The Saturday-evening folks, by contrast, were just glad to be out of the house for a while. You’re out of the Chicken Cordon Bleu? Well, then bring me a bacon cheeseburger instead. No big.

Since that time I’ve learned that, basically, everybody is one of these three types of people. I’m a Saturday-evening married to a Sunday-morning, for instance. And knowing this typology has helped me suss out people in a hurry. When you’re dealing with a Saturday-evening person, you give them as much time as they need for everything you possibly can. If we want to drink four cups of coffee after dinner, and the restaurant’s not crowded, who suffers? Saturday-nighters, on the other hand, need boundaries, guidance, and an audience. They’re nice people until they start making fools of themselves. The Sunday-morning folks want information, and they want to know that they’re being heard.

Bill Clinton was a Saturday-nighter, as if you couldn’t guess. Bob Dole? Sunday-morning. Al Gore? Sunday-morning trying to pretend he was a Saturday-evening.

John Kerry’s a Sunday-morning’s Sunday-morning, however. I can just see him sending back an omelet because it had too many onions, or complaining that we didn’t have orange marmalade on the tables. And George W. Bush? Totally a Saturday-evening kinda guy, he and Laura in a corner booth each hoping the other would be the first to order dessert.

(John Edwards, of course, is a well-known Wendy’s enthusiast, and therefore exempt from this debate. As for Cheney, I’m sure his doctors won’t let him anywhere near a deep-fryer.)

Does this help me make up my mind about who I’m voting for? Not really. Except it reminds that there’s no question which candidate I like better as a person: Bush. If he’d announce two little Cabinet changes, my mind would be made up right now. Of course, those two changes would totally change the tenor of his administration, so I’m not holding out much hope. I don’t think John Kerry and I could ever be friends, though. And that’s fine; we’re electing a president, not a next-door neighbor.

That’s what’s so troublesome about the 2004 election, though. I’m not totally in love with the direction the country is going right now, though I note that the US hasn’t exactly turned into the Six Flags Over Jesus that many pundits predicted it would about four years ago, and nobody from the FBI has called up to ask me how I liked the Dan Jenkins book I checked out from the library a couple weeks ago. But at the same time, I’m not certain how radical of a course change is needed. I know John Kerry is running against George Bush; I just don’t know if he’s running for anything. “I’ll undo 80% of everything that’s happened in the last four years” doesn’t make me feel safer, smarter and sexier. What will you do?

But this is a season of political scorched-earth tactics, from both professionals and amateurs. (See this post where, in the comments, I make an observation that was hardly unique to me, and a couple posts later, I’m accused, I think, of being George Soros’ sockpuppet. ) I mean, you readers responded admirably to my challenge about the positive reasons why you support whomever you support, and many of you had some great things to say. But since then it’s been nothing but “Bush lied, Kerry cheated, CBS makes stuff up, and so does Fox.” All this stuff just leaves me cold and makes me think that the Blogosphere is destined, in about five more years, to become what USENET is now: a cold, indifferent, alternate universe where anger and offensiveness are the only means of exchange, and it’s OK if I don’t win, so long as you don’t, either.

And I wonder, in 2016, if even 20% of the registered voters will bother to turn out at the polls. Or if we’ll wind up electing a failed poster-maker who may be out there a little bit, but hey, at least he stands for something . . .