The Avocado Anxiety-Management Method

            I had the worst anxiety attack of my life at a poetry reading. I was sitting near the back in an attempt to conceal the fact that I was alone. Generally speaking, being alone in public freaks me out, but t hat feeling is nothing new. It’s garden-variety anxiety, so to speak. I was fine until a pretty artsy girl came in late and sat down in the chair directly to my right (Next to me! When there were like thirty other seats for her to choose from!).

            Pretty artsy girls absolutely fry my motherboard.

             Now, occasionally, people in life-or-death situations speak of time slowing to a crawl. Extreme amounts of adrenaline can cause one’s perceptions to become so keen that everything seems to move incredibly slowly in relation to a racing mind. I shit you not, this happened to me within seconds of Pretty Artsy Girl’s decision to sit next to me. Like sprinter coming out of the blocks, uninvited adrenaline rudely coursed through my veins, and the rest of the reading unfolded in bullet-time. The poet (an older woman with white hair and a pleasant, grandmotherly tone) suddenly sounded like James Earl Jones, with each poem resembling a guttural heavy metal 45 being played at 33 1/3 rpms. I spent the remainder of the reading sitting bolt upright and staring unblinkingly at the front of the room, breathing in deeply through my nose and exhaling through my mouth as quietly and slowly as humanly possible. 

            It is truly a mystery why I have difficulty meeting women.

            The second the poet finished her last poem, I speed-walked to the door, made haste for my car, and drove home at a mildly-unsafe speed. I finally stopped sweating and began breathing normally once the door was safely closed behind me.

            Social anxiety is helluva drug, and I am constantly tripping balls. Unlike most people, who are able to feel “at-ease” or “okay” or “chillaxed,” I am constantly in fight-or-flight mode. My neurons are always on pins and needles, ready to go to DEFCON-1 at a moment’s notice. I’ve been dealing with it ever since the first day of sixth grade, when, confronted with a teeming mass of faces I didn’t recognized, I ducked into a bathroom to take an unnecessary piss. I sought solitude in this manner so often that one day my English teacher asked me in front of the entire class if I had a bladder infection.

            Thankfully, I got more skillful at dealing with my rogue nervous system as time passed, mainly by dint of sheer repetition. The cerebellum, wonderfully adaptable mass of noodles that it is, is always trying to troubleshoot itself. Unbeknownst to me, my subconscious was toiling away deep within the bowels of my brain, wearing a white lab coat and observing every interaction while making notes on a clipboard. High school presented lots of opportunities for trial-and-error, and, by virtue of being jammed together with the same people for eight years, I was able to develop oodles and oodles of neurological algorithms that helped me control my anxiety. Weirdly enough, I even became rather popular. By the time I graduated, I had high school figured out.

            But, as I hunted for a summer job, I quickly realized that life, at the height of its rudeness, would often place me in situations without giving me eight years to get comfortable. My course of action was clear: subscribe to Netflix, purchase several dozen cats, program Jimmy John’s into my speed dial, and become a hermit.

            Unfortunately, this plan didn’t pan out because, as a human, I am hard-wired to seek out other humans. Living in community is nice, even if it’s terrifying. So, I was forced to engage in one of the most singularly unpleasant, nasty tasks known to man: coping. There are many ways to cope with anxiety. Some well-established pathways to peace-of-mind include meditation, medication, and the old stand-by, drinking heavily. However, I eschewed these tried-true-methods and confronted my anxiety using the most ancient, revered method of them all: by making enough guacamole to choke a herd of medium-sized elephants.

            I didn’t consciously set out to achieve enlightenment through guacamole-production. It just…happened. After graduation, several of my best friends began working at an overpriced tapas restaurant called Casa Bolero. At Casa Bolero, enough idiots were willing to pay $8.95 for table-side guacamole that the waitresses were unable to keep up with demand. My friends were promoted from dishwashers to guacamole-makers. After they put in a good word for me, I sat through a one-question interview (“When can you start?”) and became an official Guac Boy. That was my official, 100% real, honest-to-goodness job title that I put on my tax return.

            On my first day, I showed up wearing black pants, black shoes, a black shirt, and an expectant smile. Within an hour of guac-making, I regretted my decision to not become a hermit. Making guacamole is second only to landmine-diffusion in a contest of being the most nerve-wracking thing ever. It seems relatively simple: load a tray with ingredients, carry it out to the customer, guac the customer’s world, and then head back to the kaleidoscope of colorful square plates, white chef shirts and carefully plated Spain-ish food in the kitchen. 

            But things, in general, are not easy. Simply getting to the customer was a nerve-fraying experience. I have remarkably poor motor skills, so I was never able to get the hang of carrying the heavy trays. The dining room was also very cramped, and it was always a challenge to navigate the maelstrom of customers, chairs, and little children. I never dropped a tray, but I also never stopped feeling like a complete guacatastrophe was one misstep away. Also, numbers confuse me and I have the memory of a goldfish, so it was a complete crapshoot as to whether or not I would make it to the correct table. A word to the wise: there are few things more awkward than attempting to make guacamole for people who do not want guacamole.

            In fact, the only thing that’s more awkward is making guacamole for people who do want guacamole. This is because it takes about five minutes to make a proper batch. Minus the initial pleasantries, that left me with four and a half minutes to fill. Four and a half minutes may not seem like a long time to someone, but for someone that finds basic social interaction baffling, it can be an eternity. Needless to say, things weren’t pretty for awhile.

            I floundered. After initially greeting the table, I would throw out a barrage of questions (“How are you doing? Some weather, huh? Weather is good! How ‘bout sports teams? I like sports! Do you like guacamole?”). No matter how many different conversational tacks I took, I could never fill the whole five minutes.  The end result was always the same: me furiously mashing avocadoes under a deathly silence punctuated only by small bits of pulp squirting up and landing on my pants and shirt.

            After a few weeks of flop-sweat, I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to develop a shtick to use on unresponsive customers. I looked up a bunch of Fun Facts about guacamole and avocadoes on the internet and began rattle them off to customers. I decided that this was a pretty funny idea, and decided to take it a step further, adopting the persona of crazed tour-guide/guacamole-evangelist, enthusiastically educating my customers about the health benefits of avocadoes while giving them my personal testimony about how the Power of Avocadoes had changed my life forever:

            “Let me tell you folks a story: one evening, I was sitting there in this restaurant, just like you. I ordered the guacamole and it was just incredible. I applied to work here the next day, and I haven’t looked back since. I love my job. Nothing makes me happier than making other people happy with my guacamole. It’s the best damn food on the planet, that’s what I think. Some people in the food service industry get sick of food when they deal with it every day, but not me, no sir! Just between you and me, I sneak a few bites when I’m on break. And it’s good for you, too! Did you know that avocadoes are high in B, E, and K vitamins? They also have lots of good lipids and fats! There’s a lot of stigma in modern society about fats, but your body needs ‘em, and avocadoes got ‘em! They’re the ultimate superfood, Mother Nature’s gift to mankind, I tell ya!”

            Usually, the customers were so taken aback by my seemingly coked-up zeal that they actually interacted with me, albeit at arm’s length because I seemed dangerously unhinged. It was also nice to see people shift uncomfortably in their chairs as I battered them with my stream of chatter. As someone who is constantly uncomfortable, I take evil delight out of making other people feel as awkward and out-of-place as me. It’s always nice to level the playing field a little bit. 

            As hilarious as people’s reactions were, it became exhausting to wear such a hyperactive persona. Also, weirding out customers is not the best strategy for amassing tips. So, as I grew more comfortable and gave progressively fewer and fewer shits, I developed a new, cartoonishly douchey and arrogant character. After greeting the customer, I would say things like “Not to brag or anything, but I’m basically the Michael Jordan of guacamole making, if Michael Jordan was five times better at basketball and ten times as good-looking.” From there I would continue to up the ante, bragging about everything from my ability to eat jalapenos to my own humbleness. I would close with lines like “I hope this guacamole is as good-tasting as I am good-looking,” then throw out a guacamole-related pun over my shoulder I picked up my tray to leave. My favorite was “Have a good night, and rock out with your guac out.”

            I also referred to myself in the third person as Christopher Guacken.

            To my surprise, most customers thought this was hilarious, and I received far more money in tips than ever before. Valuable life lesson learned: act like a huge douchebag and people will reward you with money and adoration. 

            I also found out that older women find nothing sexier than a confident guacamole boy after they’ve had several shots of tequila. Some confined this to a few subtle flirtatious comments, but others were more overt. One fifty year-old woman trying to pass for thirty told me “I don’t want garlic in mine. I love garlic, but don’t put any garlic in there, ‘cause I’m gonna make out with someone tonight and I don’t wanna have garlic breath.” 

            “Very well, no garlic, ma’am.”

            She downed a shot of expensive tequila. “Would…you make out with someone who had garlic breath?”

            Without really thinking it through, I decided it would be funny to answer honestly. “Yes, that would be incredibly hot.” What can I say? I love garlic.

            Realizing what I had just done, I whipped up her guac at warp speed while looking at my shoes, then fairly sprinted back to the relative safety of the kitchen and informed the head chef that I was going to step outside because I needed some air.      

            Once the mortification began to fade, I began to notice an unfamiliar emotion swelling faintly in my chest. Triumph? The significance of what I had just done dawned began to dawn on me, and I began to grin like an idiot into the humid August night. Given my history, accidentally hitting on a tequila-addled, garlic-loving cougar seemed like the equivalent of Ahab actually catching his white male. For a brief moment, I couldn’t have felt cooler if I was riding off into the night on a Harley with a leather jacket on while smoking a cigarette and blasting ZZ Top.

            So when a waitress opened the door and screamed “GUAC BOY! I NEED A GUAC ON TABLE 71,” my sense of crushing dread was lessened, diluted by a small measure of something else. Hope? Weird. It was only nine o’clock, and I usually didn’t start hoping until half an hour to closing time. There were five tickets waiting for me in the kitchen, five more trials in a seemingly-endless series of experiments. A faint glimmer of a grin caught the edge of my mouth, looking a little bit like a line graph on the rise.    

Reading Response for Fifth Week

All the reading for this week was extremely interesting, but Telling True Stories was especially revelatory. It was honestly such an interesting read that I got caught up and read beyond the assigned pages and totally screwed myself in another class. Oh well. It was worth it. As such, I'm going to focus on it in particular.

Honestly, I think this might be one of the most valuable books I've ever purchased. The clear, concise formulas that Franklin presents are already changing the way I approach writing. His readable prose really demystifies the process of constructing a story. There are a lot of insights and truths that seem forehead-slappingly obvious now, but were never clear prior to my reading.

His chapter on outlining is particularly helpful. I don't need my toes to count the number of outlines I have made, because they seemed kind of constricting. In fact, I took perverse pride in my ability to write without one. I see now that this was misguided, mainly because his description of "spaghettieing" hit close to home. My mental outline is usually good enough to prevent a catastrophe, but I do struggle sometimes.

The simplicity of his outline model is marvelous (and much less painful than the "ETR" model), and I can't wait to try it out.


Also, his chapter on structuring stories based on "focuses" is a mind-blow, too. I would have never noticed this, but all good stories pretty much follow the five-part development that he outlines. This should prove enormously helpful in my own writing.

Also, reading about structure made me think of another interesting mdoel for storytellign espoused by Dan Harmon, the guy behind the first three seasons of Community: 

1. A character is in a zone of comfort,
2. But they want something.
3. They enter an unfamiliar situation,
4. Adapt to it,
5. Get what they wanted,
6. Pay a heavy price for it,
7. Then return to their familiar situation,
8. Having changed.

Food for thought. Anyway, I think I'm going to read the entire book, and i would encourage others to do the same, because it's worth it.

Reading Response for 3rd Week

These two pieces provided me with some really useful food for thought in considering my story pitch for the upcoming profile assignment. Specifically, it has me thinking about the various techniques of interviewing.

A lot of interviews/profiles about interesting people wind up being really, really boring, and I think this is mainly the fault of the interviewer/profiler. After all, it's his job to make the subject seem interesting, even if it's not. I've noticed that this happens a lot in the typical celebrity interview. Because he only has only fifteen minutes of the Famous Person's time, the journalist is forced to ask a bunch of  cookie-cutter questions that he prepared ahead of time. The artist, having answered these questions a million times, usually gives the interviewer a bunch of short, sullen responses.

Both Orlean and LeBlanc present alternate models of "profiling" that are far more effective. In reading their articles, I have gleaned the following general tidbits:

1. It is necessary to invest a lot of time in a profile if you want it to be successful. LeBlanc's profile of Trina was three years in the making, and Orlean spent a solid couple weeks with Colin. Spending time with your subject allows the interviewer and subject to grow much more comfortable together, facilitating genuine conversation. LeBlanc presents an extreme example of this, getting intertwined with her subject to the point that she becomes almost like a parental figure to Trina. Furthermore, the more time you spend researching writing, the greater depth you are able to achieve. 

2. Actually have a conversation with the subject. If anything, these two pieces prove the inefficacy of showing up with a list of questions hoping to dictate the pace and length of the interview. I think it's necessary to have an idea of what you want to talk about, but I also think that having a genuine conversation with the subject allows for an interview that goes much deeper while remaining much more organic.

I think Marc Maron does an excellent job of this on the WTF podcast series. He never seems like he's asking questions, but he always gets fascinating stuff out of his subjects.

Case in point: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_338_-_j_mascis Here, he interviews J Mascis, one of the most legendarily sullen musicians of all time. Maron's conversational style turns J downright garrulous.

I also love Orlean's approach to finding subject matter. I am inspired by the way she finds the fascinating amidst the mundane. Reading her little author's blurb was an eye-opener, and has made me think

Finally, in thinking about interviewing technique, I was reminded of a TED talk that Nardwuar gave. It's pretty ridiculous, but I think it also contains some interesting insights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkSUazeI2nM

Confessions of a Guac Boy Turned Guac Man (FINAL DRAFT)

            I have made over a thousand batches of guacamole in my lifetime. I have made enough guacamole to fill an entire swimming pool (which would undoubtedly be highly unsafe but would also present swimmers with an opportunity to die the most delicious death imaginable). This information probably raises many questions and possibly a few alarm bells. Why did I make so much guacamole? Am I some kind of sick freak who gets his jollies from mashing avocadoes? Am I one of those fanatics destined to appear as a curiosity on some TLC show alongside people who are sexually attracted to bridges?

            The truth is nothing as pedestrian as that. From the summer after high school to the spring of my freshman year of college, I worked as a guacamole boy (often shortened to “guac boy”) at an overpriced tapas restaurant called Casa Bolero. This was my 100% real, honest-to-goodness job title. I had to put it on my tax form. Note: writing the name of a fruit or vegetable on the line marked “job title” is a sure sign that something has gone horribly wrong somewhere.

            I received this illustrious job title because enough idiots were willing to pay Casa Bolero $8.95 for table-side guacamole that the waitresses couldn’t keep up with demand and the management had to hire four college-aged guys for the express purpose of guacamole production. I was lucky enough to be initiated into this elite fraternity, mainly because two of my friends already worked there. I quickly discovered that guacamole-making is not a career pathway to be undertaken taken lightly; in fact, it is more of a lifestyle than a job. It requires hours of intense preparation, immense focus, and a single-minded dedication to craft.

            Ha ha! Just kidding. Guacamole-making is such an idiot-proof task that even a complete fucking moron can do it well, meaning that I was (just barely) qualified.  

            Basically, it works like this: the ticket would come out of the printer, and I would load a tray with one and a half avocadoes, a basket of chips, and seven black bowls with chopped tomatoes, onions, cilantro, jalapeños, garlic, salt, and lime. I would strategically line these bowls around a large stone bowl with squat, stubby legs called a molcajete, which weighs roughly nine hundred pounds and is supposedly a replica of a traditional Aztec serving dish. If this is true, I believe the molcajete was probably responsible for the downfall of the Aztec civilization, as it is nearly impossible to fight off conquistadors when your wrists are cramped.

            Clad in my uniform of black pants, black shirt, and black shoes, I would carry the tray through the dining room, which was always an exercise in terror. Because I am sorely lacking in basic motor skills, I was never able to get the hang of balancing the heavy tray in one hand, and the tray was so large that it blocked most of my view, so each trip into the cramped dining room was a blind flirtation with disaster. Would I trip over a chair leg and fall face first into the red tile floor, forcing me to quit and flee to Canada to avoid the humiliation? Would my aching wrist fail me, sending the molcajete tumbling onto a customer’s head, giving them a concussion and me a pink slip? Thankfully, much like Atlas holding up the stars in the sky, I kept my vegetables from crashing down on the patrons’ faces for the entirety of my employment. But it never stopped being scary. A complete guacatastrophe was never more than half a second away.

            After navigating this minefield of customers and chairs, I would set my server’s stand next to the table and greet the customer, hoping that I stumbled my way to the correct table. Because numbers confuse me, and I have the short-term memory of a goldfish, I would set up my guac-making apparatus at the wrong table at least four or five times a night. A word to the wise: there are very few things more awkward than attempting to make guacamole for people who absolutely do not want guacamole.

            Sadly, one of those things is making guacamole for people who do want guacamole. Making a batch of guacamole takes about five minutes. It takes about thirty seconds to ascertain what ingredients people want. This would usually leave about four-and-a-half minutes of one of the most terrifying tests of internal fortitude I have ever endured: human interaction.

            I suffer from severe social anxiety. This essentially means that my body is always in flight-or-fight mode, meaning that the slightest situation can send adrenaline racing through my bloodstream, putting me in a state of high-strung, nervous awareness. As a result, my palms are constantly sweating, and social situations often make me feel like an academic vainly struggling to read an inscrutable, forgotten ancient language. Thankfully, over the years, I have developed a bunch of coping mechanisms that allow me to appear (and even feel) like a normal person. But that anxiety is always bubbling below, waiting for a vent in the surface so it can come rushing forth.

            These avocado-filled minutes were filled with many such vents. Like a lot of other socially anxious people, I fear silence. Unfortunately for me, many of my customers had never learned to be polite or were devoid of basic social skills. They were therefore either unable or unwilling to talk to me. This wasn’t so bad when the people at the table would continue their conversation, but some people would shut down all of my go-to questions (“How are you doing? Some weather, huh? How ‘bout that one sports team? I like sports! Do you like guacamole?”). They would then either avoid my gaze and look around the room until I finished, or stare at me intently as if I was solving a differential equation. Either way, the end result was always the same: me furiously mashing avocadoes as fast as fast I could with the deathly silence punctuated only by small bits of pulp squirting up and landing on my pants and shirt.

             After a few weeks of this, I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to develop a shtick to use on unresponsive customers. I looked up a bunch of Fun Facts about guacamole and avocadoes on the internet and began rattle them off to customers. I decided that this was a pretty funny idea, and decided to take it a step further, adopting the persona of crazed tour-guide/guacamole-evangelist, enthusiastically educating my customers about the health benefits of avocadoes while giving them my personal testimony about how the Power of Avocadoes had changed my life forever:

            “Let me tell you folks a story: one evening, I was sitting there in this restaurant, just like you. I ordered the guacamole and it was just incredible. I applied to work here the next day, and I haven’t looked back since. I love my job. Nothing makes me happier than making other people happy with my guacamole. It’s the best damn food on the planet, that’s what I think. Some people in the food service industry get sick of food when they deal with it every day, but not me, no sir! Just between you and me, I sneak a few bites when I’m on break. And it’s good for you, too! Did you know that avocadoes are high in B, E, and K vitamins? They also have lots of good lipids and fats! There’s a lot of stigma in modern society about fats, but your body needs ‘em, and avocadoes got ‘em! They’re the ultimate superfood, Mother Nature’s gift to mankind, I tell ya!”

            Usually, the customers were so taken aback by my seemingly coked-up zeal that they actually interacted with me, albeit at arm’s length because I seemed dangerously unhinged. It was also nice to see people shift uncomfortably in their chairs as I battered them with my stream of chatter. As someone who is constantly uncomfortable, I take evil delight out of making other people feel as awkward and out-of-place as me. It’s always nice to level the playing field a little bit.  

            As hilarious as people’s reactions were, it became exhausting to wear such a hyperactive persona. Also, weirding out customers is not the best strategy for amassing tips. So, as I grew more comfortable and gave progressively fewer and fewer shits, I developed a new, cartoonishly douchey and arrogant character. After greeting the customer, I would say things like “Not to brag or anything, but I’m basically the Michael Jordan of guacamole making, if Michael Jordan was five times better at basketball and ten times as good-looking.” From there I would continue to up the ante, bragging about everything from my ability to eat jalapenos to my own humbleness. I would close with lines like “I hope this guacamole is as good-tasting as I am good-looking,” then throw out a guacamole-related pun over my shoulder I picked up my tray to leave. My favorite was “Have a good night, and rock out with your guac out.”

            I also referred to myself in the third person as Christopher Guacken.

            To my surprise, most customers thought this was hilarious, and I received far more money in tips than ever before. Valuable life lesson learned: act like a huge douchebag and people will reward you with money and adoration.

            So, I was able to triumph over anxiety with silent customers. But I never really figured out how to deal with those who sat at the opposite pole, the ones who talked too much. Because my job was so fucking weird, I think some people interpreted my avocado-crushing as an open invitation to cast aside all social norms and engage in complete conversational anarchy. “This guy makes guacamole for a living,” they thought. “That means it’s time to do some really weird shit. I’ll tell him all about my divorce and/or my bowel movements.” 

            Once, as I was sprinkling cilantro, a very drunk woman who was sitting with a large group informed me that her friend Jeff, a regular, was unable to attend. “So, I made a cutout of his face and put it on this Popsicle stick,” she explained. She pulled out a startlingly professional-looking head-on-a-stick.“Say hi to Jeff, Guac Boy. Here, why don’t you take a picture with me and Jeff, Mr. Guac Boy? I miss Jeff. Here, say cheeeeeeeeeeese…great picture. I’mma upload this to Facebook. I’ll tag you as… Miiiiiisster…Guac…Boy. Done.”  

            I also found out that older women find nothing sexier than guacamole after they’ve had several shots of tequila. Some confined this to a few subtle flirtatious comments, but others were more overt. One fifty year-old woman trying to pass for thirty told me “I don’t want garlic in mine. I love garlic, but don’t put any garlic in there, ‘cause I’m gonna make out with someone tonight and I don’t wanna have garlic breath.” 

            “Very well, no garlic, ma’am.”

            She then downed a shot of expensive tequila. “Would…you make out with someone who had garlic breath?”

            Without really thinking it through, I decided it would be funny to answer honestly. “Yes, that would be incredibly hot.” What can I say? I love garlic.

            Realizing what I had just done, I whipped up her guac at warp speed while looking at my shoes, then fairly sprinted back to the relative safety of the kitchen and informed the head chef that I was going to step outside because I needed some air.  

             Standing out behind the restaurant, I shivered out of sheer mortification even though it was the middle of July. But as I listened to the two dishwashers on their hourly fifteen-minute smoke break talk about all the various household items they’d MacGyvered into bongs (PVC pipe, an empty two-liter, the cardboard from a roll of paper towel), I began to feel a strange, unfamiliar, glowing sensation in my chest. Slowly, it dawned on me that I had, however unintentionally, successfully interacted with a member of the opposite gender.

             This was a big deal. I am very anxious in most situations, but girls utterly fry my motherboard. Once, I went to a poetry reading alone, and sat near the back of the room. I was fine until a pretty artsy girl came in late and sat next to me (Next to me! When there were lots of other empty seats all around!).

            Now, occasionally, people in life-or-death situations speak of time slowing to a crawl. Extreme amounts of adrenaline can cause one’s perceptions to become so keen that everything seems to move incredibly slowly in relation to a racing mind. I shit you not, this happened to me as soon as she sat down. Unwanted adrenaline involuntary coursed through my veins, and the remainder of the reading unfolded in bullet-time. Each poem sounded like a 45 RPM record being played at 33. I sat bolt upright and stared at the poet unblinkingly, trying not to freak out. As soon as she finished her last poem, I made haste for the door, speed-walked to my car and drove home. Without a doubt, it was one of the scariest experiences of my life (and, thankfully, it was the only time something like that ever happened).

            Because my life has mainly consisted of awkward moments punctuated by fleeting instances of normalcy, I’ve learned to take my triumphs where I can get them. Given my history, accidentally hitting on a tequila-addled, garlic-loving cougar seemed like the equivalent of Ahab actually catching his white male.

            I stood outside for awhile, half-listening to the dishwashers jabber on about pot, half-wondering if I had rounded some sort of bend, until one of the waitresses poked her head out the door and shouted “GUAC BOY!” I returned to the kitchen to find five tickets with block letters shouting “GUACAMOLE” hanging limply on the range, waiting for me.  I grabbed a molcajete and started setting up my tray, feeling slightly less dread than normal. 

Reflections on the Thing I Wrote About Making Guacamole

All in all, I am happy with this as a first draft. It could have been better, but it could have also been much worse, considering the circumstances--I wrote it after a marathon bus ride/train ride/drive from Columbus to Chicago to Michigan City to Kalamazoo that got me home, bleary-eyed and tired, at 4 AM. Life lesson: when traveling, plan things. Anyway, I had a super gnarly headache when I woke up a few hours later, but I powered through it and focused super hard for around four hours and came up with a pretty solid piece of writing. I'm trying to become a more efficient, disciplined writer this quarter, and I did pretty well with this assignment. I only used the internet once for like thirty seconds the whole time, which is noteworthy to the point that I believe I deserve a medal or trophy of some sort.

Some other thoughts:

I am dissatisfied with the first couple sentences of the first paragraph. I think that's the weakest area of the piece.

There are several typos and omitted words. I failed to nail it in the proofreading department.

Upon reading it a few times and getting a comment from Kelsey, I realize that I'm probably going to change the ending. To be honest, I didn't know how to end it, so I just copied a paragraph from earlier in the piece that was funny and had an air of finality to it and decided to end it there. I see now that I accidentally wrote this piece with a theme (coping with anxiety and whatnot) so I will probably write a different ending that ties up this thematic thread and put the paragraph about the apocalypse back where it was.

I  used the words "guacamole" and "avocado" and "mashed avocados" so many times that they began to lose all meaning, kind of like when you say a word out loud too many times. I need to find more creative synonyms.

I also have no idea who would publish this thingamajig.

Ultimately, I think this was a character-builder of an assignment. I had some really nasty circumstances that probably would have sent me into a tailspin of failure (a failspin, if you will). However, I was able to buckle down and write a good first draft despite all of that. I think that part of being a good writer means digging in and producing good work no matter the circumstances, and I think I learned something about that this week.

Confessions of a Guac Boy

            I have made over a thousand batches of guacamole in my lifetime. This may be hard to believe, and it may seem like hyperbole. After all, who on Earth could ever be possessed to make that much guacamole? But, I assure you, it is completely true. I have made enough guacamole to fill an entire swimming pool (which would undoubtedly be highly unsafe but would also present swimmers with an opportunity to die the most delicious death imaginable).

            This information probably raises many questions and possibly a few alarm bells. Why did I make so much guacamole? Am I some kind of sick freak who gets his jollies from mashing avocados? Am I one of those fanatics destined to appear as a curiosity on some TLC show alongside people who are sexually attracted to bridges?

            The truth is nothing as pedestrian as that. From the summer after high school to the spring of my freshman year of college, I worked as a guacamole boy (often shortened to “guac boy”) at an overpriced tapas restaurant called Casa Bolero. This was my 100% real, honest-to-goodness job title. I had to put it on my tax form. Note: if you ever find yourself writing the name of a fruit or vegetable on the line marked “job title,” that is a sign that something has gone horribly wrong somewhere.

            For the uninitiated, tapas restaurants are vaguely Mediterranean/Mexican places that charge exorbitantly high prices for extremely small quantities of food. They cover up the smallness of the portions by serving them on large plates, a psychological tactic that tricks the customers’ brains into thinking that they are full despite having only consumed roughly two bites of food (I am giving away zealously-guarded trade secrets here. If I die under questionable circumstances, that probably means that the Tapas Mob has silenced me. Please tell my family that I love them). The smallness of the plates also encourages customers to buy multiple entrees and share them, meaning that everyone leaves hungry and unsatisfied with thoughts of a second mortgage dancing in their head.

            This is where I come in. At Casa Bolero, enough idiots were willing to pay $8.95 for table-side guacamole that the waitresses couldn’t keep up with demand and the management had to hire four college-aged guys for the express purpose of guacamole production. I was lucky enough to be initiated into this elite fraternity, mainly because two of my friends already worked there. I quickly discovered that guacamole-making is not a career pathway to be undertaken taken lightly; in fact, it is more of a lifestyle than a job. It requires hours of intense preparation, immense focus, and a single-minded dedication to craft.

            Ha ha! Just kidding. Guacamole-making is such an idiot-proof task that even a complete fucking moron can do it well, meaning that I was (just barely) qualified.  

            Basically, it works like this: the ticket comes out of the printer, and you load a tray with one and a half avocados, a basket of chips, and seven black bowls with chopped tomatoes, onions, cilantro, jalapeños, garlic, salt, and lime. These are all strategically lined around a large stone bowl with squat, stubby legs called a molcajete, which weighs roughly nine hundred pounds and is supposedly a replica of a traditional Aztec serving dish. If this is true, I believe the molcajete was probably responsible for the downfall of the Aztec civilization, as it is nearly impossible to fight off conquistadors when your wrists are cramped.

            This tray is then carried through the dining room to a table (not always the correct table, in my case). Then, you greet the customer, ask them what they want, and get to guacin.’

            Making the guacamole is the easy part. It’s really hard to fuck up guacamole, but customers consistently told me that I was better than the other Guacafellas, so I must have been pretty good at it. As far as I can tell, there are three rules to being a Guac Star: 1. Use all the ingredients listed above (or it will be super bland). 2. Put lots of salt in it (avocadoes are a very watery vegetable, and salt will soak up the water and make for a less-soupy final product). 3. Don’t fucking mash it into a paste (it’s always better when chunky).

            As you can see, I am a certified Guacamole Expert. But despite my ability to make bad-ass motherfucking guacamole, my job proved to be quite difficult, mainly because I had to make it at tableside. You see, making a good batch requires three to five minutes, and the potential for awkwardness contained within this short window of time is infinite. I suffer from a great deal of social anxiety, and, over the years, I have developed a bunch of coping mechanisms that allow me to appear (and even feel) like a normal person. But that anxiety is always bubbling below, waiting for a vent in the surface so it can come rushing forth.

            These avocado-filled minutes contained numerous such vents. As with many socially anxious people, I fear silence. Unfortunately for me, many customers were devoid of either politeness or social skills and were therefore either unable or unwilling to talk to me, leaving me floundering and sweating as I mashed avocados in silence. This wasn’t so bad when the people at the table would continue their conversation, but some people would shut down all of my go-to questions (“How are you doing? Some weather, huh? How ‘bout that one sports team? I like sports! Do you like guacamole?”). They would then either avoid my gaze and look around the room until I finished, or stare at me intently as if I was solving a differential equation.

            After a few weeks of this, I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to develop a shtick to use on unresponsive customers. I looked up a bunch of Fun Facts about guacamole and avocados on the internet and rattle them off for customers. I decided that this was pretty funny, and began to adopt the persona of crazed tour-guide, enthusiastically educating my customers about the health benefits of avocados (high in B, E, and K vitamins) while professing my undying love for the food I made. Usually, the customers were so taken aback by my seemingly coked-up zeal that they actually interacted with me, albeit at arm’s length because I seemed dangerously unhinged. 

            As hilarious as people’s reactions were, it became exhausting to wear that particular persona. So, as I gave progressively fewer and fewer shits about my job, I developed a new, cartoonishly douchey and arrogant character. After ascertaining what the customers desired, I would say things like “Not to brag or anything, but I’m basically the Michael Jordan of guacamole making, if Michael Jordan was five times better at basketball and ten times as good-looking.” From there I would continue to up the ante, bragging about everything from my ability to eat jalapenos to my own humbleness. I would close with lines like “I hope this guacamole is as good-tasting as I am good-looking,” then throw out a guacamole-related pun over my shoulder I picked up my tray to leave. My favorite was “Have a good night, and rock out with your guac out.”

            I also referred to myself in the third person as Christopher Guacken.

            To my surprise, most customers thought this was hilarious, and I received far more money in tips than ever before. Valuable life lesson learned: act like a huge douchebag and people will reward you with money.

            So, I was able to triumph over anxiety with silent customers. But I never really figured out how to deal with those who sat at the opposite pole, the ones who talked too much. Because my job was so fucking weird, I think some people interpreted my avocado-crushing as an open invitation to cast aside all social norms and engage in complete conversational anarchy. “This guy makes guacamole for a living,” they thought. “That means it’s time to do some really weird shit. I’ll tell him all about my divorce and/or my bowel movements.” 

            Once, as I was sprinkling cilantro, a very drunk woman who was sitting with a large group informed me that her friend Jeff, a regular, was unable to attend. “So, I made a cutout of his face and put it on this Popsicle stick,” she explained. She pulled out a startlingly professional-looking head-on-a-stick.“Say hi to Jeff, Guac Boy. Here, why don’t you take a picture with me and Jeff, Mr. Guac Boy? I miss Jeff. Here, say cheeeeeeeeeeese…great picture. I’mma upload this to Facebook. I’ll tag you as… Miiiiiisster…Guac…Boy. Done.”  

            I also found out that older women find nothing sexier than guacamole after they’ve had several shots of tequila. Some confined this to a few subtle flirty comments, but others were more overt. One fifty year-old woman trying to pass for thirty told me “I don’t want garlic in mine. Don’t put any garlic in there, ‘cause I’m gonna make out with someone tonight and I don’t wanna have garlic breath.” 

            “Very well, no garlic, ma’am.”

            She then downed a shot. “Would…you make out with someone who had garlic breath?”

            Without really thinking it through, I decided it would be funny to answer honestly. “Yes, that would be incredibly hot.” What can I say? I love garlic.

            Realizing what I had just done, I whipped up her guac at warp speed while looking at my shoes,then fairly sprinted back to the relative safety of the kitchen and informed the head chef that I was going on break.

            I am far too much of a wiseass to ever make it in the service industry.  

            Guacomole-making is a business fraught with pitfalls and dangers. As such, it is a young man’s game. I was forced to retire after I developed a serious illness, and I was not welcomed back when I recovered. I can’t say I was surprised. The owner was not a sympathetic man. He once fired the pantry chef, an Iraq War veteran, on the day he was scheduled to have surgery in order to remove a fragment of an IED from his back. 

            But I’m not bitter. As difficult as it was, my time as a guac boy did provided me with one moderately useful skill. I can rest easy at night knowing that if the whole “English Degree” thing doesn’t work out, I always have an incredibly marketable skill to fall back on.

            Furthermore, my time as a guacamole boy has given me my lone strategy for survival in a post-apocalyptic world. While everyone else scrambles for guns as the zombies come a-bitin,’ I will head for the produce section of the supermarket and load up on ingredients. I will then ingratiate myself into a group of burly survivalists with my delicious savory snacks, and use their dependence on the creature comfort I provide to eventually control them. If anyone has a problem with my leadership, I will cut them off. No more guacamole for them. I will make hard choices and live in a moral grey area but do my best to remain humane in an inhumane world, and my group will ultimately be the one that repopulates the Earth, planting the seed of life for generations to come, enshrining me as an avocado-wielding hero. Statues of me grasping my mortar and pestle in a victory pose will dot the countryside, and third-graders will memorize facts about me out of textbooks for centuries to come.

            Either that or I will die a horrible death because I have no actual life skills beyond a narrow area of vegetable manipulation. 

Intended publication: some humor magazine.