Showdown in Paradise

Schadenfreude: delight in another person’s misfortune.

There are moments in life when you are rewarded for your patience.  You are rewarded for putting up with busy bodies and pundits who claim to be experts and make judgments on entire generations of people.  We all deal with this.  At one point or another, we all have had to sit and listen patiently while some older person explains to us why our generation sucks.  It is the same explanations; kids today are too entitled, too spoiled, don’t know the value of a dollar, and don’t know how to work hard.  The worst part is that we get this speech from a person that we cannot argue with.  We have to sit there and listen to them with that shit eating grin on their face.  Fret not!  There is hope.  Karma rewards patience.  Life will provide you exceptions to the rule and when it happens, it is glorious. 

A while back, I was at a Paradise Bakery picking up some take out.  Inching my way to the cash register, I overheard a customer telling his order to the kid behind the counter.  The customer was this old man who looked liked Kenny Roger’s stunt double.  Kenny wanted the low fat chicken noodle soup.  I know this because I overheard him chewing out the kid behind the counter for not having chili (which they never do) even though a sister restaurant of paradise does.  This was one of those conservations where it was somehow the kids fault for them not having chili.  This break from logic encouraged me to overhear some more.  After settling on chicken noodle soup, Kenny had a further request.  He did not want a lot of juice in his soup cup.  For Kenny, “a lot” was a nebulous term, determined entirely by his liking.  Like the tower of Babel he wanted it built to heaven, with chicken.  Hand to God, one scoop had barely any juice and that was too much.  The result was that he was getting far more chicken and noodles and it was depleting the stock of soup.  After the seventh time he said that it had too much juice and he wanted him to start over, the kid remarked, “Sir, if I keep doing this then there will only be juice left for everyone else for the rest of the day”.  Kenny replied, “Are you giving me attitude son”?  Now there’s trouble in river city.

That simple request for understanding started a shit storm.  Kenny started mocking the kid and saying that we can’t have only juice in here!  No, that wouldn’t be good!  He eventually called the manager and explained how this minimum wage jockey was giving him attitude and that the customer is always right blah blah blah blah.  He was playing the victim role to such an extent, I was convinced he would plant a gun on the kid and claim that he had threatened to shoot him.  To make his point that he was right, he left the restaurant without his order.  That will show’em!  At this point, I started hysterically laughing. 

Now, recall what this kid said to incur the wrath of this village elder.  He politely explained to a customer that his request would result in other customers not being able to order a certain dish.  This resulted in an old man throwing a temper tantrum like a baby and leaving before the manager could do anything.  I was not laughing with Kenny, I was laughing at him.  He had exhibited all the symptoms that I had been told were reasons for why MY generation was no good.  He was selfish, arrogant, rude, and refused to understand the other person’s situation.  Kenny had picked a fight with someone who was not allowed to fight back, if he wanted to keep his job.  His needs were not met and he reacted childishly.

I am more than aware that some people will side with Kenny on this issue.  They will side with him because he was a customer (not a paying one) and an elderly citizen.  Many people think that if you are old then you should be able to say what you want, but what has he done to deserve to treat someone else like that?  Did he earn this distinction by not dying?  I do that every day and where’s my parade?!  The simple truth is that no generation is better than the one that came later.  Each generation has groups of winners and losers.  Anyone who disagrees with me should keep in mind, the generation that came before you does not think too highly of you.  Can’t we all just get along?  Where have I heard that before?  I am sure it will come to me later and maybe it will be hysterical as well.