Portrait of a Restaurateur

With the squinty eyes of Mr. Magoo and a nose not unlike that of a proboscis monkey, he struts around his failing restaurant as though he were the cock of the walk, his chest puffed up like a family-sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, a grin aptly described as shit-eating smeared across his contemptible face.

For legal reasons, I'll refer to him as Rick, which I swear on my life does not rhyme with his real name. (Actually, it does.) Due to my loose affiliation with a woman he once dated, Rick decided that he did not like me the very first moment we met. The feeling turned out to be mutual.

He sports baggy jeans and fashionable button-down shirts in a vain attempt to appear youthful and hip and distract people from the fact that he already has an entirely grey head of hair, and the four-and-a-half decades he's spent on Earth being subject to the forces of gravity have really done a number on his face.

To try and carry on a conversation with Rick is to subject oneself to an experience so unpleasant that activities such as slamming one's head in a car door and sticking a sharpened coat hanger in one's eye seem endlessly enjoyable in comparison. To describe him as ignorant and vacuous would be an affront to such great American luminaries as Paris Hilton and Snooki, who take their ignorance quite seriously, and whose intellects appear immense and towering in comparison to Rick's. The only subject he is able to discuss with any degree of expertise is basketball, and we all know how insightful and rewarding conversations about tall men playing with their balls can be.

One would think that a restaurateur might have an interest in learning the ins and outs of his own restaurant to ensure that things run smoothly, but in this instance one would be very, very wrong. To think that would be to seriously overestimate Rick's capacity for intelligent thought. Occasionally he has trouble remembering where the entrance and exit to the establishment is situated and needs to be rescued after inadvertently locking himself in the walk-in refrigerator.

Rick seems to believe that his restaurant will be a resounding success simply by virtue of his being the owner. Satisfied that his mere presence is enough, he contributes nothing to the place aside from obstructing the paths of those actually working. He spends endless hours standing behind the bar with his foot propped up on the liquor rail in a stance reminiscent of Captain Morgan, hitting on any female customers who have made the unfortunate decision to come in for a drink, while provocatively thrusting his genitals at them. He also has the peculiar habit of sitting down with diners for extended periods of time whether they seem eager to speak to him or not, which has put a damper on a great deal of dates.

Rick owns a cat that he affectionately refers to as The Baby. To be blunt, The Baby is a mangy creature completely and utterly devoid of personality whatsoever, the kind of cat that you just want to kick, which seems to support the theory that pets take on traits of their owners. Rick will enthusiastically ramble at great length about how The Baby spent four and a half hours the previous evening batting a ping-pong ball around, oblivious to the fact that no one finds either the cat or Rick interesting in any way whatsoever. "Wow, that's... uh... cute," the miserable person being forced to listen to this drivel will respond, hoping that the subject changes soon, only to find themselves stuck listening to an additional twenty minutes of Rick describing how he leaves his television on whenever he's out of the house, along with a detailed list of the programming The Baby likes best.

The most obnoxious aspect of Rick's personality is his rather poorly concealed alcoholism. He believes that he hides it well, but anyone who knows him knows he doesn't. Indeed, after only a drink or two his face flushes bright red, his eyes go from squinty to fully shut, and he assumes the sloppy, uncoordinated mannerisms of a bobblehead doll. With a few drinks in him, he can quickly turn the most innocuous of conversations into a heated confrontation, as he relentlessly denigrates anyone unfortunate enough to be within the six foot radius of his blurred field of vision. At the end of any given evening, he is invariably asked by the management to leave the establishment he has been drinking at. He then staggers home, vomiting on his L.L. Bean button-down and urinating in his Gap jeans. When he finally arrives at his house, he gives his only friend The Baby a detailed report of the evening's exploits before falling asleep facedown and fully-clothed on his couch.

Rick is rather frugal with the truth when describing his past. He tells everyone that prior to becoming a restaurateur he sold medical malpractice insurance, which is technically true, though he conveniently glosses over the fact that he failed miserably in this venture and only turned to it after a lengthy tenure working the registers at Costco. He boasts about the women he once dated, several of whom I must admit were surprisingly lovely and in no way deserving of such a horrible fate, and all of whom eventually discovered the truth about Rick and hit the bricks, feeling an overwhelming sense of shame for having been duped into dating such a pitiful piece of trash.

In conclusion, it is my opinion that Rick is quite possibly the most despicable and detestable human being to have ever existed. If you are ever in Portland and encounter a severely inebriated, trendily-dressed proboscis monkey, my advice is to spray Mace in his eyes and go along your merry way.