A Side order of beef at PF Changs

In this glorious age of self promoting snake-oil salesmen blaming all societal ills on two turntables and a microphone, and people acting like banning a racial epithet would be a feat tantamount to Brown vs. The Board of Education - as a black man I know how important it is for me to spread nothing but positive messages to my young readers, countering all of the negative imagery that they are bombarded with on a daily basis. That being said, I've been barred from at least 60% of the local drinking establishments over the course of a decade - an otherwise troubling statistic that I happen to wear like a motherfucking badge of honor. I know, I'm a 34 year old man who has no business fighting, I should be starting a family and acting like most responsible adults equipped with a penchant for diaper changing and hanging out with Sunday afternoon golf buddies - but the sole fact that I subscribe to the rationale that anyone is eligible for an ass-whipping, embracing said philosophy has turned my government name into a curse word for a handful of local bar owners. Believe it or not, bar owners frown upon one of their patrons choking someone the fuck out with a pool stick, them putting a cue ball in their sock and mercilessly hitting his would-be dispatchers with it - they really don't care if it was provoked or not, see how fast you will get banned from a bar if you happen to have a monthly habit of smashing bottles over the heads of miscellaneous douche-bag's while weirdly proclaiming "Don't ever say anything against my mother!!"("Malcolm X" reference)

Its not like I actively go out and try to decrease my drinking opportunities, I'd rather have people thinking that I practiced civil disobedience on some Gandhi shit when I wasn't preoccupied with ruining my liver - but because of my criminally low levels of tolerance when it comes to people talking slick, I either find myself on the business end of a bouncer attack or a scathing diatribe where the words "Get The fuck out and never come back!" are strategically placed somewhere at the end of said rant. But being that most of the drinking establishments I'm banned from happen to be of the dive bar variety, watering holes where only career alcoholics and women whose methadone treatments have left them virtually toothless dwell - that very special moment where I do find myself banned, I usually clap very slowly while letting out a very sarcastic "You know you're doing me a favor, banishing me from a shitty bar and all.. Bravo!" closing salvo.

That being said, I never thought that I'd ever get banned from a place like PF Changs - a fine establishment that doesn't violate any health regulations, a respected eatery where I can pick up a woman and not worry about her possibly selling one of my kidneys on Ebay, leaving me laying unconscious in the fetal position in a bathtub full of ice. But I am banned, and here are a few reasons why.

Bruce Leroy: One of the things that I thank god for each night before I meet deaths cousin, outside of him giving me a faulty moral compass and my mother beating cancer like it had stolen something - is the fact that I was never cursed with the burden of having any younger sisters. I'm saying, I've heard so many horror stories from women concerning their ex-boyfriends, everything from having dagger-shaped words being hurled in their direction to being victims of the most heinous acts of violence imaginable - I always find myself asking these women, "Where in the fuck is your daddy/brother at?" Not for nothing, but that's why I'm glad that I don't have any younger sisters - my backyard would be filled with the skeletal remains of every detestable waste of semen who took it upon himself to physically harm or even talk sideways to my sister - I hate to reference another Denzel Washington movie, but I can see myself burying some douche-bag in my wife-beater, looking around at all the unmarked graves and screaming "Saddam ain't got shit on me!!". I brought all that up because the woman I recently went on a date with has a disgruntled ex-boyfriend whose mind-state is as flimsy as a soup sandwich, most of the phone conversations we had in the run up to the date had to deal with his physical abuse, his stalking, and him unexpectedly showing up at her job throughout the day - the "nuttier than squirrel shit" trifecta. So after a few weeks of convincing she finally agreed to go on a date with your friendly neighborhood pre-ejaculator at PF Changs, and everything was going well - that was until I returned from the bathroom to see some disheveled looking gentleman attempting to take my date away against her will. It had to be the ex-boyfriend. So, because I've been watching a shitload of videos like this lately - I took it upon myself to run to the table full speed and leap with all the might that a fat man could muster - catching the mentally disturbed gentleman flushly in the face with the phat lace part of my shell-toe Adidas. As the disoriented gentleman crashed into a lovely couples meal for that night, I noticed an elderly black woman shaking her head in disapproval, which led me to ask her "I know, I just set our people back 20 years didn't I?" In which she responded, "Sure, but I was just wondering how your "latenight snack having" ass managed to get off of the ground like that?"

Zsa Zsa Gabor-ing the wait staff: I'm not exactly sure how the local PF Changs treats their black staff members, it has to be akin to slave labor or indentured servitude based on how miserable they seem all of the fucking time - but they tend to comfortably wear looks of anguish and despair on their faces like it was a trusty pair of house slippers. Not only that, when said staffers aren't making you think that they're a bad day away from swallowing a bullet, they mean mug you to death making you feel as if you're trapped in one of those cliched Kung Fu flicks - a Karate gui-less fellow planning to exact his revenge on me for cutting his twin brother's life short, or consensually sodomizing his sister to the point that she was unable to sit down for a week. Even before the episode where I tried to knock out some douche-bags bicuspids with my shell toes, I found myself on the business end of many cantankerous stare downs - I never acted on it mind you, just slowly turned to whoever I was having dinner with at the time and openly wondered "What in the fuck is that guy staring at?"

Fast forward to last week. I was taking my mother there for a bite to eat, I love her dearly, I'd die for the woman without weighing my options - sure she is one of the only people to unconditionally have my back from day one, but I'd take a bullet for her based on the fact that she can identify everyone in "The Symphony" and she happened to use the phrase "Nappy Dugout" in a conversation recently. Anyways, as we are strolling down the sidewalk en route to some early evening eats - I notice a staff member of said eatery sitting at a table on the patio portion, staring me the fuck down like I was the grim reaper about to snatch up a loved one. His eyes never broke from me once, my mother even noticed it and asked "Do you know this young man?" - by the time we had reached him I'd had enough and decided to ask the guy what his problem was. Apparently my right palm has issues with authority, simply ignoring my brains request for a verbal altercation - and I proceeded to open hand slap the shit out of the gentleman, me exhibiting a violent arm motion that only fast ball pitchers would recognize. My poor mother, all 120 pounds of her trying to restrain me like a bouncer - me feeling like Nino Brown shooting someone in the head in broad daylight, I kept screaming "Don't ever fuck with a dude silly enough to start fights in front of his mother!!!" The dude ran inside and within a few moments a manager came outside and told me that I was banned from the restaurant - my mother just shook her head, smiled, and said "I was warned about drinking all that wine when I was pregnant with you.."