So, over the summer, I found some things that I thought were funny, but not necessarily worthy of a full blog post. I think collectively, they might be worthy. So, here they are... in chronological order.
Little JohnnyBack in late June, Kevin and I went for a walk along the breakwater in Provincetown. This is a large jetty of rocks which is very pretty and relaxing for an afternoon jaunt. Or sometimes for a morning, evening, or late night one as well. Oftentimes, you can see lots of wildlife on these excursions.
On this particular day, we happened upon a seagull. We'll call him Little Johnny. It's actually quite rare to NOT see seagulls here during the day, as the seagulls tend to feed by the breakwater, picking crabs up out of the tidepools and dropping them from heights of maybe 50 feet or so onto the rocks to crack their shells. Usually as you walk towards the seagulls, they fly away. Not Little Johnny though. We thought he was very brave.
We got real close to Little Johnny to take some pictures of him. As I went in for a snapshot... Little Johnny took a big ole shit on the rocks.
As we moved past Little Johnny, we turned around to see if he still stood in the same spot. He did. We noticed his wing was broken.
So, poor Little Johnny wasn't so brave after all. He was hurt. And it seems that we scared the shit out of him. Literally. Get it? Do you get it? We scared the SHIT out of him.
You probably got it.
Seamen's BankSo, by the title of this one, you probably have guessed that the funny part of the story is that the bank is called Seamen's Bank. Nope. That one's old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Provincetown's main bank is called Seamen's Bank. Now that that's over, I'll let it be known that I was the proud customer of Seamen's Bank. Yes, I banked at THE Seamen's Bank.
I received some mail from said Seamen's Bank late in July. It seems I made an error in my ATM deposit, and I was off by ten cents. That's not the funny part either. It's not funny that a math grad student at NYU can't add. That's actually more sad than anything. Here is that piece of mail.
What's funny about it is that Seamen's Bank paid 40 something cents to mail me a slip saying that they were going to deduct ten cents from my account because I made an error. So basically, to correct my ten cent error, they were going to spend 30 something cents more in postage, not to mention the cost of the paper they printed it on and the envelope they mailed it in (or the staple... it all adds up). It sounds a little silly to me.
Not to mention it's a little silly to have paid that money when I lived right across the street from the bank and I was in there every week.
Okay, so maybe it is a little funny that I made deposits into THE Seamen's Bank every week. Sometimes more than once a week.
To the owner: (aka cocksucker)In August, Ptown starts to get really busy. This August was no exception. As most people know, in August, the weather tends to get really hot as well. So people are looking for hydration.
Now, most bars in Ptown, and I think in a lot of other cities as well, will not give out tap water. The bar shared a space with a fantastic restaurant called Frappo66, which sold probably the cheapest bottled water in town.
Because of the open atmosphere of the restaurant and bar, people would come in off the street to use the bathrooms or to just sit on the comfy couches in the middle of the place. Ordinarily, it wasn't a problem. However, people would often come in off the street lookng for free water, which wasn't free or even cheap for the bar because the price of the cups went up qutie a bit this year (from what I was told). So we charged $1 for a cup. If someone asked me to fill their water bottle or something, I would never charge them. Or if they wanted more water, I'd put more in their cup.
One afternoon, my bartender was asked by a customer for a cup of water. I don't know what kind of response she gave him. I imagine it may not have been pleasant based on his reaction, but I don't know for sure. The next day, I came in to work and she told me that I should read a letter that a customer left at the restaurant.
For those of you who have a hard time reading chicken scratch, this is what the letter said:
"To the owner:
(aka cocksucker)
To charge a dollar for ice water (especially to a customer who has already purchased an overpriced glass of highly mediocre wine) is rather criminal!
To justify this practice because this is a tourist town is incredibly cynical
Avariciousness will lead you eventually to the sixth circle of Hell (see Dante).
May you burn (rather reform!)"
I thought this was a little unnecessary, as well as absolutely hysterical. It is insane for a tourist to come to a gay resort town and condemn business owners to hell for common business practices.
If, for some strange reason, the author of that ridiculous note, happens to be reading this, he'll be happy to know that we changed our policy and started giving out water. The owner of the restaurant thought it was a poor reflection on his business. Which it was. Since the note was left for him.
For the record, the owner of the bar is actually not a cocksucker.
View from the BarI think this one might speak for itself. This was during Labor Day weekend when I was at work. I took it to send to Kevin to show him what fun he was missing in Provincetown.
Clearly, he was jealous. Who wouldn't be?
