Inside A Support Group For College Town Late Night Restaurant Workers

Rob Fox11 years ago

*A group of depressed, jumpy fast food workers sit in a circle in an empty YMCA gymnasium. Among them sits a counselor.*

Counselor: Welcome, everyone, to this week’s group therapy session for post-traumatic stress sufferers of late night fast food restaurant staffs in college towns. Before we begin, sadly, I have some tragic news. Jerry, our Jack in the Box employee, is no longer with us.

Taco Bell: Oh my God. What happened?

Counselor: The other night, a group of drunk college kids came into his store, bought $100 worth of tacos, and proceeded to have a taco fight right there in the dining area.

Gumby’s Pizza: (bitterly) Sick sons of bitches.

Counselor: Apparently one of the tacos hit Jerry in the face and he just lost it.

Gumby’s Pizza: Well of course he did! THERE’S ONLY SO MUCH A MAN CAN TAKE!

Counselor: Calm down. This is a happy place, remember?

Gumby’s Pizza: Happiness is a lie.

Counselor: Anyway, getting hit in the face with scalding hot ground meat made up mostly of livestock afterbirth and dirt from abandoned softball infields was apparently the last straw for Jerry. He tied up all the drunk kids who were throwing tacos and burned the Jack in the Box to the ground with them–and himself–inside. Witnesses claimed they could hear Jerry’s maniacal, crazed laughter even over the roar of the flames and the screams of the six drunk college kids who burned alive in there with him.

Whataburger: (sighs) He’s in a better place now.

Counselor: Well he’s certainly at peace, but I don’t think you go to a better place after murdering six people and taking your own life.

Gumby’s Pizza: Even if he’s in hell it’s better than here! And if you can take a couple of those bastards with you into the abyss, fucking fantastic. But I don’t believe in heaven or hell or God anymore. I’ve worked this job for too long to buy into that fairy tale crap. I welcome the black nothingness of death, and if the lullaby that sings me to my final sleep is the agonizing screams of those who’ve wronged me, well, let’s just say I’ll be sleeping even happier.

Whataburger: Man, that’s pretty dark.

Counselor: Clearly you’ve had a bad week and have something you’d like to get off your chest, so let’s start with you today.

Gumby’s Pizza: (stubbornly crosses his arms) I got nothin’.

Counselor: I know that look. That’s the same look you had after the weekend you took a customer’s dog hostage because he tipped you with a used condom and a coupon for Gumby’s.

Gumby’s Pizza: Fine. FINE! Alright, I had a pretty bad weekend. I was delivering some pies to Greek Row and I’m walking down the sidewalk with a pizza in hand. Big pizza. And group of guys, they walk up to me. I knew they were gonna be trouble. They say to me, with evil smirks on their faces, they say, “What kinda pizza ya got?” And I tell ‘em, “A Stoner Pie.” They ask, “What the hell’s that? Sounds like it’s for fuckin’ geeds.” I knew I shoulda just kept going, but I don’t know. I was scared. So I told ‘em what was on it. I said, “It’s a pizza with pepperoni, bacon, mozzarella sticks, French fries, cheddar, and mozzarella cheese.”

Whataburger: Oh no…

Taco Bell: Are you crazy!?! You might as well have said it was topped with cocaine and strippers. Why didn’t you tell them you had a small veggie supreme with no cheese?

Gumby’s Pizza: I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know! They heard the toppings and they started closin’ in. Lookin’ at me and then the pizza, then the pizza and back to me. They looked right at me. Right into my eyes. You know the thing about a drunk, he’s got–he’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like dolls’ eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t seem to be livin’, at least not until he bites your delicious pizza and those black eyes roll over white.

Taco Bell: I know that look. Seen it in a group of sorority girls tearing through a half dozen chicken quesadillas just last week. Their eyes were soulless, and they were tryin’ to fill the void with food, and, later I assume some dick too.

Gumby’s Pizza: Then, one of the guys, he held me down. Pinned me on my back. And…he made me…

*The Gumby’s delivery driver starts weeping*

Gumby’s Pizza (CONT) He made me watch! He made me watch them eat it all!

Counselor: Hmmm. That’s terrible. How does that make you feel?

Gumby’s Pizza: Like I wish I was brave, like Jerry.

Counselor: Okay, guys, Jerry wasn’t brave. Jerry was crazy. Jerry murdered people with fire.

Taco Bell: They made us crazy! And when we snap it’s their own sins comin’ to repay them.

*Everyone nods*

Counselor: (To Taco Bell) Anything you’d like to tell us about today?

Taco Bell: Ugh, where to start? We were out of chalupas last Friday night, and this drunk girl comes up to the counter. It looks like she had a rough night, and for some reason I feel a little sympathy for her.

Whataburger: Huge mistake.

Taco Bell: I know, I know. So I ask her what she wants, and she says, “I just want, like, three chalupas. I’ve had a long night and I could use a treat.” So I get a little nervous, because I know we don’t have anymore chalupa shells, but I don’t want to tell her that.

Gumby’s Pizza: You tell her that you might as well just put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Hell, might as well just do that anyway.

Counselor: You know what? You’re bringing everyone down.

Gumby’s Pizza: I WAS FOOD RAPED! I’M ALLOWED TO BE SAD!

Taco Bell: Before I can think up some lie to tell the girl, LaHonda, our drive thru operator, says, “Craig, tell her we don’t got no more chalupas.” The face that girl made–it was like rage combined with hunger combined with desperation. Somehow her stare was filled with fire as she started crying. I swear to God at one point the realization that she wouldn’t be eating chalupas actually made her tears boil and steam. Freakin’ psycho. Within a span of 47 seconds, she threatened to both stab me in the neck with her heel and have sex with me.

Whataburger: She threatened to have sex with you?

Taco Bell: I don’t know how else to describe it. It was really aggressive, and I felt like by the end of it I was more likely to be bleeding than cumming. It seemed like a threat.

Gumby’s Pizza: What’d you do?

Taco Bell: I told her I’d check for some in the back. Then I frantically ripped off a few pieces of cardboard from a box and deep-fried those. Thankfully she couldn’t tell the difference. She was hammered and just wanted to eat, and there is a certain amount of paper pulp that go into the chalupa shells so it was more or less the same thing. That girl was willing to murder and/or fuck me over food I have literally watched raccoons throw back into the dumpster.

Counselor: Powerful stuff.

Taco Bell: Not really, she’s just sort of a drunk bitch I tricked into eating cardboard in order to avoid both sexual and physical assault.

Counselor: Well one way of looking at it, but okay.

Taco Bell: It’s the only way.

Counselor: Does anyone else have anything to add?

Whataburger: Thankfully I wasn’t attacked. At least, not this week. However, I was working the drive thru on Thursday and some frat guy pulls up in a Tahoe, clearly getting a blow job from some girl. As if my seeing her head bobbing up and down on his shaft wasn’t enough, he then proceeded to say, “Dude check it out, I’m getting fuckin’ dome in the Whataburger line! You ever seen that before?” I think I ruined his excitement when I informed him that, yes, only five cars earlier the exact same thing had happened, but at least they were trying to be discreet about it. In the earlier car, the guy put his North Face over his lap. I mean, it was still completely obvious what was going on. I could see the lower half of the girl’s torso in the passenger seat, and she was working it pretty hard. The jacket kept falling off. Then the guy, pissed that he wasn’t the first person who ever thought of getting head in the Whataburger drive thru line, says, “Fuck you, just gimme my fuckin’ Monterey Melt.” Then later I broke up two fights and found some guy passed out in the bathroom. He had puked and crapped on the floor.

Gumby’s Pizza: Pretty uneventful night.

Whataburger: I know, you thank God for quiet nights like that one. Oh, right, sorry, I forgot you don’t believe in God anymore.

Gumby’s Pizza: My job has cost me both my faith in the Lord and humanity, as well as my pride.

Counselor: So what can we take away from the things we’ve heard here today?

Taco Bell: A hatred for college students?

Whataburger: That drunk kids are terrible people who are really more like wild animals but more dangerous because they’re able to operate machinery?

Gumby’s Pizza: (distantly) That Jerry had it right and we should burn them all.

*Everyone nods*

Counselor: Wow. Well, I’d suggest you all seek medical help and get some anti-depressants or something, but none of you have health insurance, which is why you’re seeking counseling at a YMCA from me, a part-time, Internet-certified counselor. So, uh…please just don’t kill anyone? Please?

*Everyone gets up and leaves*

Counselor: (to himself) This is why you work at Chick-fil-A…like me.