News of the Stoopid

Beverly Hills 12015

Westminster, Colorado [NotS]

I was hoping that it wouldn’t come to this, but now it has. I’m sitting here at Perkins, in nonsmoking, waiting for the cleaners to finish shampooing the carpet in the Smoking Oubliette. For those of you just joining us, I’ll explain that.
Recently. Perkins here at 12015 Melody in Westminster, Colorado–a semiaffluent suburb of Denver–shut down for a week to dump an alleged three hundred thousand bucks into remodelling the place. Exactly where the three hundred thousand was spent is a bit of a mystery; anyone who knew what they were doing could’ve accomplished a lot more with a lot less. But the purpose of this is not to suggest that any of the funding might have been diverted into a numbered account in Zurich; I was actually hoping to explain precisely how idiotic the powers that be have become.
Once upon a time, this place wasn’t too bad. The smoking section was smaller than non–tables seventy-one through seventy-five and eighty-one through eighty-five were officially in smoking, though, realistically, the entire place went smoking at night, spilling over into the rest of the restaurant. That’s because, from two in the morning until about five, no nonsmokers really come into this place. So no one really cared.
Though, apparently, someone cared, or was assumed to have cared. Now that this place has been remodelled, the Smoking Oubliette–a disregarded cell in the back of the place–contains two booths and six tables. Let’s have a look at the psychology. Why not? I majored in psychology before switching to a major in marketing; so I might know a little about this.
The room is, I’m told, red. There are times when it pays to be colourblind. Only an idiot would paint a room red. Red, psychologically speaking, inspires animosity. Who, exactly, thought that cramming smokers into a tiny, insufficient room might work out even better if the colour scheme just happened to be the most warlike in the spectrum. Red. The Horseman of War rode a red horse; Mars, formerly the god of war, now describes a red planet. Red red red. Only an idiot would use it. Unless, perhaps, the idea is to discourage smokers from coming in here.
If that’s the case, it fits in nicely with the rest of the room. Candles, glued to a curio shelf, their wicks a mere ten centimetres from the ceiling, prompt us to notice the utter lack of sprinklers above us. The doors open to the outside, fulfilling the minimal requirements to avoid a firetrap; and giving us lots of exercise as we’re expected to get up and let the servers in, since they typically have trays of food in their hands on entrance. More psychology: it’s easier to leave the Smoking Oubliette than it is to enter. Coincidence?
Not that anyone’s likely to light the candles and get away with it. There are eleven cameras recording the restaurant at all times. The monitor in the lobby just happens to display the Smoking Oubliette to the rest of the world. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you haven’t got a bloody good reason for it.
The real question is: why? Why would any idiot want to make this place so inconducive to smokers? Simple: the Brightonoids are beginning to migrate south to Westminster once a week to eat at restaurants like them rich folk on the TeeVee, and they seem to expect the place to be a nice smokefree environment. Apparently, Perkins are trying to change their corporate slogan from Hey…we’re open, okay? to Yo, Clampetts: y’all don’t gotta move t’Beverly Hills t’live the good life.
The truth of the matter, from what I can tell, is that whatever idiot is in charge of this isn’t technically an idiot. That is, in contrast, and not as an opprobrium [though the mere fact that ninety-six percent of the population would have to look up ‘opprobrium’ to understand what I’m on about here kinda suggests that the word ‘idiot’ is due to be redefined as ‘normal’]. This, I have to assume, is intentional.
So: every other Sunday night, these labourers come in to shampoo the damned carpets, which, from what I’ve been led to understand, exactly fail to match the red walls in the first place. Fine. So they leave the place open [adhering to their general Hey...we’re open, okay? slogan] but then expect we the smokers to abandon our tables, move out to nonsmoking, and freeze to death without cigarettes as they leave the front doors wide open to allow the hoses in from the gyrating shampoomobile out in the carpark. Even with the doors open and approximately zero nonsmokers out there, we can’t smoke unless we’re sitting beneath the air filtration din set into the ceiling of the Smoking Oubliette. That the thing is powerful enough to recycle the air in the Mall of America must not have seemed at all satirical to the idiots in charge of remodelling this doomed place.
And it’s not just here. The word on the street is that this–the ‘Leiberman Look’–is the prototype for Perkins nationwide. Amazingly, this is a corporate manoeuvre, and not limited to Vista–the holding company which runs the franchises here in Colorado. And in a way that’s unfortunate–partly because the damage is about to become a national tragedy, and partly because I happen to know most of Vista since I got involved in a mess a few years ago in which the assistant manager here was selling drugs on location, and the general manager–a small arms dealer–was selling AK-forty-sevens. Not that drugs and Soviet weaponry are directly related to the Smoking Oubliette, but it does kinda give you an idea what the Brightonoids might be looking forward to. I could warn them, but I’ve never seen any evidence that they have computers in Brighton.
Man I hate Brighton.
See, Brighton is one of those little cowtowns which close at night because some deity or other once separated the light from the darkness and if we weren’t meant to be afraid of the dark, we’d have sonar, like bats have. Or something. I don’t know how stoopid people think; I just observe their brainless actions.
The problem is this: although a few Brightonoids seem to be venturing out after sunset, which leaves them only Perkins or Denny’s to visit to achieve their calibre of affluence, it’s not going to last. Perkins are well aware that the majority of nocturnes in this place are smokers, and that the majority of smokers are insulted by the Smoking Oubliette and are finding better places to go. All part of the plan. This is a secret, so don’t tell anyone: Perkins are planning to shut down at one in the morning within the next year. That will solve the problem completely. Daylight hours means diurnal nonsmoker Brightonoids. No more intelligent, smoking writers and college students shall darken the doorway after 1999. Soon, the only customers to this place will be even dumber than the people who own it. For the first time in the history of the food chain, the end user will be even dumber than the source of the snacks.
At this point, you’re probably wondering why I bother to come here if it’s so bad. The simple answer: Hey, they’re open, okay?. And the more accurate answer: though the idiots in charge of this place are dumber than the cheese sticks, the street-level staff are cool. Of course, a lot of them have quit or moved to days, where they can actually get more than eight tables’ worth of tips per hour. And I can’t really blame them much. Servers, statistically, are more likely to develop high blood pressure and other stress-related disorders than stockbrokers. Meanwhile, Perkins–and most restaurants in America–refuse to give them more than three bucks an hour. Their income is literally in tips. Especially when you consider that the IRS assume that they’ll make at least ten per cent of their total sales off we the redroomers and generally garnish it out of their cheques before they ever see them.
So I’m back in the Smoking Oubliette now. I got my table back, once I got the damned chairs back onto the floor. I don’t wanna sound ungrateful for my watered-down coffee and the Mall of America Flowbee above my head, but I don’t remember a sign in the lobby reading ‘Please Seat Yourself; for That Matter, Please Construct Your Own Damned Table’. Then again, I don’t remember seeing a sign reading ‘Smoking in Designated Areas Only’.
I do remember, vaguely, a sign reading something like ‘Dissatisfied? Call 1-800-GUEST-02’ [they've since taken it down--apparently they were afraid that someone might feel like calling it], which I called a few minutes ago. I got a computer asking me to punch in the proper extension. Surprise. So: if I ever get hold of these idiots, I’ll just refer them to gremlin.net, and wait for their reaction to this article. Factoring the growing popularity of this site, they’ll get to it after two hundred and fifty thousand other people have read it. Maybe it’s time to make it easier for dissatisfied customers to get through to them. Even better, maybe it’s time to fix the damned problems before I pull out my phone.
Great news: I just called 1-800-GUEST-02 again, and actually got past their computer to a REAL LIVE PERSON [neat; I've read about those] who listened to me as if it were her fault that I’m having to scream into my Motorola to be heard over the damned turbine above me and promised to have someone whom I can have nailed to the wall EMail me at admin@wastedinc.com within the next week or so. Perfect. So: a week after everyone has read this, someone in charge of getting sacked for this idiotic decision should be happening across it. Hi there. And yes, I am the same guy who had one of my attoneys get the good Mister Christiansen sacked for selling drugs and harrassing my [ex] girlthing back in 1995. Miss me? Never, ever, assume that a vespertine smoker shall go gentle into that good night >:)
That’s just my opinion; too bad they made me go public with it.

–Gremlin

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