A Swiss Chalet Adventure.

Last week, my friend Gerdie posted this photo on her Facebook profile with the caption "classy!"

...To which I commented, "Using a straw IS classy. I usually drink the leftover sauce directly out of the container."

Gerdie said "Pics or it doesn't happen."*

I said "buy me dinner and I'll give you the live show."

She said, "Only if cameras are involved."

And so we negotiated that Gerdie would feed me Swiss Chalet in exchange for being allowed to take photos and/or video of me drinking my leftover sauce.  Sweet deal.

We went for that dinner a couple of nights ago.  As we sat on a bench in the foyer and waited for a table, some little kid, maybe six or seven years old, openly gawked at me.  I gave him a questioning look and he grinned at me and said "I like your hair."  D'awwww.

A few minutes later, the kid's family sat on the bench, too, and the kid ended up next to me.  He kept side-hugging me and nuzzling his head into my shoulder until his mom noticed and surreptitiously made him stop.  Awwwww yeah.  My mohawk brings all the boys to the yard.  I would shear you, but I'd have to charge.

Anyhoo, dinner was prompt and reliably tasty, as usual (Swiss Chalet consistently finds the most attentive, awesome servers ever.  I don't know how they do it).

After we'd finished our entrées I craved something sweet, and dug through my knapsack in search of the chocolate bar I knew I had in there.  Except I couldn't find it and I saw from Gerdie's face that she'd stolen it off me at some point.

"Where's the chocolate?!" I demanded.

Gerdie said "I'll only give it to you if you ask in Klingon."

I am perfectly aware that "where do you keep the chocolate?" is indeed a phrase you can say in Klingon - many of my friends have told me this.  But I'd never memorized how to actually say it.  So I tried to bluff by making a series of random guttural noises.

Gerdie responded by giving me a quizzical look and lifting up her shirt.

I was all, "Wow.  I had no idea 'where do you keep the chocolate' sounded so similar in Klingon to 'TITS OR GTFO.'"  You learn something new every day.

After I finally got my paws on some of that chocolate, it was time for the main event: The Drinking of the Leftover Sauce.  At first, I went to drink it like I usually do.

In most photos of me, one or both of my hands is clenched into a fist.  This is a subconscious stress reaction to having my photo taken because I know said photo will make me look like a fourteen-year-old boy with bad skin.  I don't care that I'm doing something disgusting in the photo; that doesn't embarrass me at all.  I just wish I looked like Heidi Klum doing something disgusting.

Gerdie stopped me and insisted  I drink the sauce with a straw, instead.  And she took a video of it so y'all can see the sauce level drop - thus proving that I really am drinking it.  I have to say, though, I think Swiss Chalet has made their sauce spicier recently or something...it kinda burned my throat and it was difficult to get through it without coughing.

Here, with no further ado, is the video Gerdie took.  Enjoy.




If anyone else wants to buy me something in exchange for a short video of me being a shameless glutton, make me an offer.  WILL EAT SPOONFULS OF MAYO FOR CASH.

No, no, I'm kidding.

Unless I actually do get a lot of lucrative offers.  Then we'll see.



*Which is patently ridiculous because she's seen me do this with Chalet sauce on numerous occasions.  She's also seen me eat Swiss Chalet butter on its own, scooping out the little plastic packets with my fingers.  And drink the tiny containers of cream that come with other people's coffee, if the coffee drinker isn't using them.  My relationship with condiments is...complex.

This is why I can't have nice things. Like conversations.

Not too long ago, my laptop's brain went kerplooey and I called the company's tech support line to see what I should do next.  A nice young man from a call centre in South Carolina walked me through some steps to see if the laptop was having a hardware problem or a software problem or what.

To my admittedly ignorant and untrained ear, he sounded like Kenneth from 30 Rock, so that's who I imagined for the rest of the call, even though I knew that this man was not in fact Kenneth at all.



The first step Not-Kenneth talked me through was to bypass the Screen of Death and gently coax the laptop to connect to the internet.  A status bar came up on the screen, showing how far along the connection process was.  It went ludicrously slowly.  Like I think it took around 20 minutes for the laptop and router to "find" each other.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting there with Not-Kenneth on the line, just...silently watching my laptop's status bar not move.  Feeling like a giant dork for not knowing how to make pleasant small talk to fill in the time.  I guess Not-Kenneth wasn't being chatty either, but still.

So at around the twelve minute mark of this mostly-silent phone call, I decide that I can totally turn it around.  I can be one of those casually chatty people!  Why the hell not?  I was gonna just adopt a whole new personality.  A fun, vivacious, effortlessly social personality.

And so, in a light, conversational tone, I said "Y'know, the frustrating thing about this is that the laptop and router are sitting literally inches away from each other.  I just wanna make 'em acknowledge each other, y'know?  Just, like, mash 'em together like a little kid making her dollies kiss."  And then I made a blarrrrgh sound, which I believe is Megalomaniacal Toddler-Speak for dance, puppets, dance.

The customer service rep gave a tiny, panicked chuckle and the call lapsed into a whole new vibe I like to call Silence: Now With 3,000% More Awkwardness!

So that went well.