There was this one time when I was twelve and I walked into a bar somewhere in Alabama, sat down on a stool and asked for a drink. The woman behind the counter glared at me and told me to leave, so I did, but not before I stuck my fist into the peanut dish and walked out with all of the peanuts.

There was this other time on the same trip when I walked into a bar and sat down at the counter. I just sat there for a while. Finally the bartender came up and looked at me and I grunted, "I'll take a lemonade in a dirty glass."

Not too long ago I was driving-thru a Whataburger with a friend. I asked him what he wanted and he said, "I'll take a cheeseburger with no pickles." So a person finally came on over the intercom and asked, "What do you want?" I said, "I'll take a cheeseburger with no pickles and..." The intercom interrupted me, "So you want the number one with cheese?" I said, "Yeah, I guess." The intercom: "What kind of drink do you want with that?" I asked my friend, Seth, and he said a Dr. Pepper. So I said that I wanted a Dr. Pepper. The intercom: "So you want a number one and a Dr. Pepper. Anything else?" I said, "Yeah, but make sure you don't put any pickles on that." The intercom: "You want a number one with no pickles?" I said, "Listen lady, if you put a pickle on that burger, you're going to be in a pickle!"

Not too long after that I was driving-thru a Dairy Queen. I was riding shotgun in my friend's car. While he was ordering I saw a big sign on the window that said "Happy 40th Anniversary" and there was a picture of a blizzard (not a storm, but that faux ice-cream that they put in a cup and tump upside down). I leaned over and looked out the window and asked the young lady helping us, "Is it the 40th anniversary of Dairy Queen or the blizzard?" because the sign didn't specify. She looked at me and said she didn't know but that she could find out. She closed the window and through the glass I saw her asking all of her managers. No one in the entire store knew what it was the 40th anniversary of. So I demanded a free blizzard.

There's a coffee store in College Station called Sweet Eugene's. They're great and I go there a lot to drink tea and eat cinnamon rolls. Sometimes I get hot chocolate but I don't drink coffee. Anyways I was there with my friends one night and when it was time for me to order I said I would have a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll. The girl behind the counter looked at me real weird. I must have been talking too fast or something because she obviously didn't understand what I had said. She told me that they didn't make those. I was like, huh? "No, I want a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll," I said. She said, "We don't do that." I was thinking about what I was saying wrong. I said it again really slow, "All I want is a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll." Something finally clicked. She said she thought that I said I wanted a chocolate cinnamon roll. I said that I just wanted a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll. Then she said that they didn't make those anyways. I said, "Well, you should!"

I was being served by this really pretty waitress one time at On the Border. She was doing a great job, too. She was being really conversational and filling the waters at the table and all that great stuff. I had ordered the Ranchiladas with black beans. I'm not really one of those people who makes waiters get the order perfectly right. I'm not going to make them take my plate back to the kitchen or anything and most of the time I don't even bring it up. But the girl brought out my Ranchiladas and instead of black beans on the side it had refried beans. She set it down on the table and looked at it for a second. I was about to dig into it when she burst out, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. You were supposed to have black beans not refried beans." I looked up and smiled at her and then said, "Hey, that's all right. I'll just take it out of your tip." I didn't really. Boy she was great though.

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Now that I've said a few things about myself I would like to throw out a few nuggets of advice. The first is this; keep an open mind about things unless it's just plain obvious that something is wrong. I believe in "right" and "wrong" and consequently I believe that not everything can be right. Eventually you have to form a set of convictions and stick to them no matter what other folks may throw your way.

My second nugget of advice is this; take a job if it brings you great satisfaction not a lot of money. Although, it wouldn't be bad at all if it brings you both. But I would much rather earn less and be happy at what I was doing than earn more and not be happy.

My third tip is this; guys, give girls a break. They don't know what they want. And girls, you give guys a break because we don't know what you want either. I mean, holy crap!

Oh, and when someone throws a punch and it is obvious that there is no way to avoid it, you might as well just lean into it and get it over with. It will make you a stronger person.