Karma

The past few days have been a whirlwind of adventure, disappointment, and joy.

Saturday was the first annual "Shit on Andrew" Day here in the Midwest. It started out with my beloved Hoosiers football team racking up over 500 yards of total offense and forcing 5 turnovers, yet still finding a way to score only 19 points and lose the Old Oaken Bucket game to Purdue. Then again, how could IU be expected to win given the overwhelming stench of manure, burnt plastic, rotten pigeon corpses, and damned souls that hangs over West Lafayette. The Purdue players are used to it, but when you come from Bloomington -- a town whose only smells are those of hope, promise, and freshly washed breasts -- it's quite a shock to the system. But anywho, so help me God, if we don't go to a bowl next year, then dammit, I will wait another year. Because IU will be going to the Rose Bowl in 2008. I ain't scurrred.

To add to it, Ohio State beat Michigan. I hate both teams, but after having lived in Ohio for 2 1/2 years, I hate Ohio State fans as a whole more than any other fanbase in the world (luckily, my friends at my old firm who are OSU fans are exceptions to the rule and were actually civil). Anyway, you may have heard that those two teams were playing Saturday. Aside from the result, it was a great game, hopefully setting up a January 8 rematch for the national championship.

Sportswise, it only got worse when I found out that the IU soccer team lost in the 3rd round of the NCAA tournament in a shootout to the mighty Broncos of Santa Clara. For those of you who don't know about IU soccer, they have 7 NCAA championships, and I expect them to win it all every year. Thus, a loss in the tournament is unacceptable, especially given the IU football team's egg-laying up in West Lafayette.

It couldn't get worse, could it? Oh hell yeah.

My brother and I took my mom and my aunt (and Jessie and Reed's special ladyfriend Sarah) out to dinner at Merlo for my mom and aunt's birthdays, both of which were last week. Merlo holds itself out to be a nice Italian restaurant, touting such pretentious crap on their menu as "rabbit ragu," "black truffle carpaccio," and "hard-boiled quail eggs." Nonetheless, it received pretty good reviews, and it's a block from my house, so it just made sense.

I can't remember a time when I've had a worse overall restaurant experience. We get seated and our waiter -- we'll call him Dildo -- tries to cajole us into buying various expensive bottles of wine. We pass on the wine in favor of various cocktails. I order a vodka martini, since I was feeling like an asshole. Once it came, I took a sip of what I believe to be straight dry vermouth. What a piece of shit drink this was. At that point I wasn't too pissed off, so I stopped Dildo then next time he came by the table -- which was about 15 minutes later -- and asked for a Manhattan. It was fine, athough the cherries had the consistency of wet dog food and tasted like they had been accidentally fermenting in someone's basement for the last 30 years.

Dildo also really pushed us to get some appetizer sampler that wasn't on the menus, but (as you probably guessed) combined a few of the appetizers. None of us wanted appetizers, so we politely declined. The result was that Dildo visited our table only thrice more throughout the night: once when I flagged him down to get bread, once when I flagged him down to bring us our check, and once when he brought our check.

At one point, we looked around and noticed that every other table in the restaurant had bread. My first few attempts to flag Dildo down were futile, as I had temporarily turned invisible. Eventually we got bread. An hour after we sat down.

I haven't had a nice fat portion of really good Italian food in a while, so I figured I would order the pasta with meat sauce. Simple, but it seemed like it would hit the spot. Apparently, what they pass of as "tagliatelle al ragu bolognese" on the menu is actually a meager portion of pasta covered in Grade D ground beef with no flavor or spices. It reminded me of when non-Italians try to make meat sauce and forget to put tomatos, onions, garlic, oregano, basil, etc. in it. Seriously, it tasted like someone just took a hamburger patty, chopped it up, and put it over some noodles. For $18, I at least expected something more than what a preschooler could have put together.

And then -- because I hadn't had enough shit rained upon me -- they automatically add an 18% gratuity to the bill because we were a party of 6. While the busboys and hostesses were very nice, Dildo was, well, a dildo. I'm usually a pretty decent tipper. My baseline is 20%, and you have to really be an asshole to get lower than that. Dildo deserved no more than 4%.

As we were passing Dildo on the way out, he stood there and let all of us walk right past him while he looked at us. No "bye." No "thanks." No "have a nice night." No "sorry I'm such a dildo, but that's actually my first name." No nothing.

Then Sunday, a slight shit reprieve was granted as the Bears shut out the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets. However, any joy that I took from the Bears victory was turned into anger as I learned that Donovan McNabb -- the starting QB on 2 of my 3 fantasy teams -- tore his ACL and will be out for the rest of the season. In case you haven't been keeping tabs (and you shouldn't be), in my other league I had the 1st pick of the draft. I took Shaun Alexander. I could have taken anyone. In case you haven't been keeping tabs, LaDanian Tomlinson is having one of the best seasons in NFL history. But I took Shaun Alexander, who broke his foot a few weeks into the season, who I traded a few weeks ago for Bernard Berrian. Yes, the very same Bernard Berrian who got injured after the first pass he caught in the first game he was on my team.

So here's what I got out of this weekend: no bowl or NCAA soccer title for IU, happy OSU fans, low-grade dog meat for $18, and no more McNabb. Holy Mother of God, how could I possibly dig myself out of this one?

Dig I did, my friends. Dig I did.

At 9:58am this morning, I got a call from a guy named Tom, although his name might as well have been Karma or Sweet Justice or Captain Justice Karmasweet. He is a partner at a fairly big law firm here in town where I had interviewed twice unbeknownst to my current employer. It was a firm where I really wanted to work, which in the past has pretty much meant a ding letter at over a 99.9% clip. The conversation started out with him telling me how "impressed" he and the other people who interviewed me had been with me. I took this to mean that I was in the midst of a phone ding, which I'm not sure I would have been able to take without a razor blade and a bathtub. My fears were allayed when he uttered eight words I never thought I'd hear again: "we would like to make you an offer." Sweet redemption, thy name is Tom.

For those of you who don't know, I have been largely unhappy at my current place of employment. I have had to endure long hours, several socially inept co-workers, an area of the law that is slightly less interesting than BookTV, and a near-constant bombardment of the worst dragon breath this side of that dude who said "I am the last one." The lurid details will eventually come to light in a limited-edition tell-all book, tentatively titled after a popular grass substitute.

So anyway, I put in my notice this morning. It was met with unabashed indifference. Luckily (and oddly), no one asked me why I was leaving. I've just about packed it in mentally. I pretty much plan on being hungover every day for the next two and a half weeks.

And finally, Happy Birthday to loyal GMYH reader Lynn "1/2 Pint" Hilao. Your birthday pretty much rules.