My Crazy Dad!

[Jixby Phillips]

This guy is basically so scrambled he has no concept of chronology; he'd usually ask us if we were playing movies that have long since been out of theaters. Hostel, Psycho, Platoon, and Star Wars have all been requested by him. So I figure that probably extends into current events and he still holds onto his grudge with Ralph Nader for making seat belts mandatory in cars.

When I wrote that part, I for some reason thought of another incident that happened with some other batshit crazy people who used to come in. They were a husband/wife team of heroin addicts from new york, and they were both anciently old. Dealing with them was always a nightmare because the husband would do all the talking, and he had a habit of just dropping out of reality and just staring at you for about a minute before answering or doing anything. One slow weekday night I was working concession and I asked if he wanted butter on his popcorn. He took an abnormally long time to answer, even for him, which was fine because they were the only customers I had at this red-hot moment, and his wife suddenly got really upset, as if she'd been needled into getting ridiculously angry, and she shouted, way too loud and almost border-line crying, "WELL, ARE YOU GONNA ANSWER THE MAN OR SHOULD I JUST GET ON THE FLOOR AND JUST N1GGER MYSELF RIGHT HERE??"

30 seconds after his wife yelled at him, he answered my question. They sat on a bench in the lobby for 45 minutes for no reason, and went into their movie way late. About a half hour after that, he came back and asked for a receipt, which I couldn't get him because it had been well over an hour since I served him.

So yeah, Ralph Nader and the N-word were both on my mind! It seemed like a match made in heaven.