Almost There

Some stores have the absolute lowest IQ help they can find without plumbing mental institutions, yet manage to make a pantsload of money because they're cheap and convenient. The guy at Staples is helping me look for a copy of Adobe Photoshop, after I have already exhausted every software aisle available to the common shmuck off the street. So instead of using the powers vested in him by his red Staples polo shirt and looking up the SKU on the store computer to see if one is in stock, he scans all the aisles again with me, staring at the shelves as if it had never occurred to me to do this. What powers of observation does he think he might possess, that I do not?

Finally, I suggest to this genius that perhaps the shelves will yield no different results than when I searched them, and perhaps we coud head toward a store computer and solve this Mystery of the Missing Photoshop. Elementary, Watson. "The computer tells me we have one in the back," says the man who could quite possibly be matriculating at Watson Elementary. Off to storage, at which point I estimate the time I'll spend waiting for him to return emptyhanded, and abscond the premises.

Some businesses, on the other hand, need to go out and get more such simpletons to tone down their belligerent and irritating workforce. ATTENTION JAPANESE HIBACHI RESTAURANT OWNERS! Please, tell your cooks to back off the monologue. The quick and slick cooking is fine, but I don't want to play "Catch the Shrimp With Your Mouth Game" anymore. And the line about how soy sauce is Japanese Coca-Cola is a classic in the wrong sense. I like the whole "Wall of Fire" bit and the "Onion Volcano," but that's enough. Just cook, goddammit. Especially when the 9 month-old at our table went monkey-shit when the pyrotechnics almost melted the binky out of his mouth, and we never heard the end of it. Almost the youngest suicide ever. Bad enough we have to eat barefoot and sit with strangers at our table, you could get on with it and minimize our suffering. Your food isn't THAT good. At least the waitresses could take guys in the back, for a reasonable fee, and give the meal a nice happy ending.

Remember, the Japanese restaurant is the only restaurant where the customer is in charge. You can't do stuff to a complaining customer's food as easily when you're preparing it in front of them. Like my pal, Joel, who once stuck his scrotum into the meal of an elderly woman from whom he was taking orders, and swirled his bag around for a few seconds. I don't know what she did to deserve that, but seeing as how she probably hadn't enjoyed a young man's scrotum in decades, she may have ordered it that way. I don't know.

And speaking of swirled scrotums, I have all the Paris Hilton phone numbers from when the memory contents of her Sidekick -- what, what? yo yo! -- was hacked and spilled across the Internet a while back. I tried a number that was supposed to be Lindsey Lohan's, but by that time the owner of the number had put up a new voice mail greeting angrily disavowing any connection to anything Lohan. Actually, it was probably was Lindsey Lohan, the way she carried on. If it's that upsetting that you have to yell and scream on a recording, than you just change your number. But if you're Lindsey Lohan, you change your number, and it's a big pain in the ass to contact all your sweet sex and drug hookups to tell them your new digits.

No, I'm not publishing the numbers here, because they are handily available everywhere else on the Net, and I don't want to answer a bunch of stupid FBI questions. Just in case you feel like calling anyway, let me save you the trouble:

Agent: "Where did you get the numbers?"
John: "On the internet, dumbfuck." Click.

But I called a few to report back my findings so you don't feel left out of the whole drama.

• Christina Aguilera --no longer in service (her phone number that is, not her juicy mouth)
• Rite-Aid Pharmacy, Beverly Hills -- I inquired as to whether Ms. Hilton had any prescriptions there and they said they were not at liberty to discuss.
• Devon Aoki (daughter of Rocky Aoki of Benihana, the man who started the whole trend of Japanese cooks trying to be comical) -- Ms. Aoki's voice mail expressed regret that she was unavailable to take my call and her mailbox was full, which was a durn shame because I was still upset about the Japanese restaurant experience last evening.
• Elijah Blue, son of the ill-fated pairing of Cher and Gregg Allman -- Alas, Mr. Blue's number has been retired.
• Blu Cantrell (singer of urban hit single, Hit 'Em up Style, a tune urging young women to become whores - as if they needed coaxing) -- The other Blu in Paris' life (that's three if you count Elijah, and Rick Solomon whom she fellated on the Internet). Ms. Cantrell's number has been temporarily disconnected. But I'll keep the number, because it looks as if it has a chance of coming back. I so want to tell her what a horrible song that is.

That's all for now.