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The Candle that Didn't Need Wind Friday, October 5, 2007 • read strip Viewing 219 comments:

Only Todd brings down the gray underline to really get his crudeness across.

And I can't think of a better, faker, tackier location than Vegas for Fiesta Mex.

Todd belongs in Vegas.

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i've seen csi. i know man, i know.

Wait - are there people who think CSI reflects reality? OHH SHIIIITT

No, Tim Simmons was justly mocking me for my very early, very lame assertion of knowledge about Vegas. Since everyone's been to Vegas, and everyone has observed the extremely creepy cops, my assertion of knowledge was the very definition of hoi polloi, thexeroxmachine.

"Burning the locals. Abusing the tourists. Terrifying the help. The only chance now, I felt, was the possibility that we'd gone to such excess that nobody in the position to bring the hammer down on us could possibly believe it."

nice

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el yayo del mar

sorry guys im completely all punked up on Jupiter oil

Heyo!

How deep, on a scale of 0-50, would you say that you roll?

Why don't I think you mean this stuff ?
I am willing to stand corrected and that you are, in fact, talking about that, and not a euphemism for something less legal.

Ask Lyle!

"Philosophical Month- one month and a day"- laughing out loud

The added day is for hella philosophisin'.

I've been served by so many Jai in the Skys

I've worked with so many Jai in the Skys. They're always so goddamn proud to get their pictures in the little employee of the month window.

Those pictures are something to be proud of though. Don't be sad, Jai will someday be moved up to trainer or assistant manager and then will be your time to shine, my freind.

Yet another thing I can hear Tom Waits saying. varnish, your avatar brings great joy to my heart.

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i don't see any on him.

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I wonder how you pronounce "dumase"... would it be dumb-ace or dume-ah-say or what?

It was meant to be the misspelling of "dumb ass." This was hilarious when i was about 12.
Now it's just an easy to remember username that usually isn't already taken.

Well bravo nonetheless. I like the name.

Okay wow I got lamed for this. Can't a gay dude be reasonable about his own dang degrading language?

No. Faggot is not a word you are not allowed to use. I don't use it and I am gay. If you use it you are a crazy hate-filled Nazi. I'm not against curse words in general, but nigger and faggot and two whose use should be largely withdrawn.

I'm not sure whether to scream at the world for being so PC-crazy at the wrong dang moments or just wander away, my hands balled into tiny miserable fists of shame.

Clearly, the Internet and I have some talking to do.

(Seriously, did you really mean to call me a crazy hate-filled Nazi, because that is pretty rich)

No, not really. But you can't even begin to understand how that word makes me feel. (Hint: It makes me want to kill you.)

Aw. I think we'd get along pretty well otherwise.

Dangit man don't say faggot.
Why do I let you talk me into taking you places if you can't behave yourself?

Yes, there is no more passive-aggresive phrase than "No prrrroblem!"

you have my av'

So does alejandroadam

And my axe.

Just saying that dooms you to a future cut short by a 31 victim murder-suicide in a subpar mexican restaurant.

he looks like weezer had a baby with an iMac had a baby with roast beef

Jai is extremely pleased to be taking verbal abuse from a squirrel doing cocaines.

In reality, Jai, and every man who has as deep seated a disgust with his necessary career situation, has a deep seated loathing of you and everyone who seeks sub-par tex-mex at exorbitant prices. He wishes that you would die by sliding naked down a banister made of a rusty, chipped razor blades with a stream of lemon juice constantly covering it, emptying on to a mile long cheese grater that is doused by a light mist of sodium hydroxide rain. When your twitching, meaty corpse reaches the bottom of the hellish torture that has been his fantasy he will wish you to



Have a nice day!

The check will have this FURIOUS lookin' drawing of a ding dong

Christ fucking two asses, Juniper Oil makes me say 'deep seated' too often.

yeah I know what you mean. Onstad writes about the waiter who hates life but masks it by strictly adhering to company policy to an annoying degree like Fitzgerald wrote about being a drunk. Oh man I think I just found a comparison topic for my thesis.

It is Nice Pete in a Disguise.

I predict you will get chubbies for this, and my comment lower down the page will get lames because it says much the same thing, even though it was posted the day before. This is life, but it is not a thing.

Rocking thong, dude.

I should have guessed that I wasn't the first to observe the similarities (especially in the final frame).

May you be greeted with many chubbies.

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Don't watch MTV. It is silly to watch MTV.

Really, though, I have no idea what show you're talking about. Doesn't your awareness of something that godawful reflect on you?

It totally does.

Glances around.

Gormster! You got told.

Runs from the lamers.

I don't know, it'd be hard to fake Roast Beef eyes. The thing about Nice Pete, he's got lifeless eyes . Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at you, doesn't seem to be living. Until he bites you, and those black eyes roll over white.

...Nice Pete, dear. Nice Pete.

Except when he gets angry.

I caught the similarity as well. Maybe a long lost cousin/brother/familial branch?

He is what would have happened if Nice Pete had never discovered killing .

I always thought Jai kind of looked like Nice Pete.

Jai is holding out for a decent-sized tip for his troubles.

12 percent, at LEAST.

I thought 15% was like a general basic tip for Times and Occasions. Wouldn't 12% would be a little light?

Some people go ten percent. Some people are cheap.

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OK, fine, but watch out for Lyle and the busboys on your way out to the car. They get a cut of that tip.

You wouldn't perhaps be a big fan of Ayn Rand would you?

Atlas Shrugged: the Bible for people born on third base who think they hit a triple.

One could argue that Ayn Rand probably tipped well if the service was good. She wasn't against giving money to lower class individuals (as long as they were working their way up); she was against giving to faceless collectives. Viva capitalism.

Although I do agree with your ending quote. :)

Do not read Ayn Rand. It is silly to read Ayn Rand. Do not be an airship dweller. It is silly to be an airship dweller.

I do not miss the future.

A comment left by tetsujin was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by DR_MANFLESH_DESIRES_ANAL_PLAY_IMMEDIATELY, leatherpants, Nictusempra)

only if you can distinguish between the server's fuck-ups and the kitchen's/management's fuck-ups.

But usually you can't.

"If someone is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, then they are not a nice person." (no idea who originally said it, but many have repeated it)

If they're really nasty to you, that is the only situation in which it is appropriate to skimp on the tip. Everything else is probably the fault of Someone Else in the Restaurant.

Given this comment, though, the server who is really nasty to you is reacting to the fact that you are an asshole.

You are hereby sentenced to tip twenty percent in any situation.

God bless you jrpigman. That's just...beautiful.

I think it was actually Jim Hightower (D-Texas) who originally coined that phrase in 1988.

Nice appropriation of it though I guess.

Truly spoken like someone who has never been a server.

So, I have spend a good deal of time in Europe since I first read this comment, and I feel like another comment might be necessary here? I wonder if some people truly don't understand the setup that servers have in the US. In England I was LAUGHED AT for tipping my cab driver, but I tipped him anyway. Let me break it down for people here who weren't born in America and/or have never been servers.

When I was a server at IHOP, my hourly wages were $2.15/hr, which is a curious number that equals somehow 2.15 and also 0 at the same time. If I work for an hour, flat out running between 8 tables, scalding my skin on your plates (while forcing a smile when I gracefully set them down), getting oil splattered on my clothes, cleaning up after your children (or yourself) who leave their table places looking like a small landfill, doing the best I can to prettify what I've been handed by the kitchen, and I come back to your table to find that you have decided that the hour of hard work/physical pain I put in was worth Nothing?

Let me tell you something. If you have the balls to show your face in my restaurant again, you will receive excellent service. But you will also be eating my spit.

(I have not been a server for 6 years. But Tetsujin's comment still gets to me.)

Serious christians don't tip. Waitresses HATE sunday afternoons post-bible feeding time.

This comment is like a really amazing Achewood strip: it sets a new standard.

A really amazing Achewood strip, for example, makes me want to rate it 6. This comment makes me yearn to give it four lames and mark it as Pornographically Offensive.

Do you understand that servers do not prepare a meal?

Do you understand that servers do not control when your meal is served?

Do you understand that these are human beings, often with miserable lives?

DO YOU SEE?

Some people don't live in your screwy country, and think that 10% is a big tip. You know why? Because our waiters actually get paid . By their employers .

Yes, in my country waiters get paid. Tips are extra.

And also shouting "MIT POMMES ODER BROT" repeatedly at customers does not merit 10%.

In some countries, I believe Australia is one of them, tipping is considered rude. Servers are paid well and when you leave a tip, it is as if you are saying that you have to give the server extra money because their boss isn't taking care of them. As such, it is considered an insult to the restaurant and generally frowned upon.

Yeah. That doesn't happen here.

Insert opening scene from Reservoir Dogs here.

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THUNK THUNK

Serious, man. They must put that menu thunk move in the instructional video all new servers have to work. The same one where you learn how to say "I'll be taking care of you tonight."

Whoops! I meant to say "watch" instead of "work." I'm a dumbass.

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"Guacamayo," as a contraction of "guacamole" and "mayonnaise," makes me quiver in existential fear.

Not only that, but it can refer to a male Macaw.

are you serious? because if so, that's kinda cool.

Save precious time with Mayostardaionnaise!

I invented a dressing called "Tabastard" - part tabasco, part hot English mustard. It's dreadful, so the name suits.

just wait till you taste "wasabonaise"

But... it's Double Chipotle .

And now I gotta order it. Dammit.

You think you're quiverring? Guacamayo has got the quiver down pat !

It's like Jello, but a little bit soft and runny.

So perfect. This guy has waited on me before. Last panel = 5/5 for me.

When I first read this strip I thought "where's the roulette or the texas hold em"? But then I realized the real gamble is the guacamayo. It is not a gamble, however, to say Heyo, because that diffuses any situation.

PS everyone gives Todd exactly the amount of respect he deserves, but I don't think it's enough.

Ha ha, look! CONDOMents!

i see what you did there, sir

It wasn't funny the first time, and I was really close to saying it's not funny the second time, but the last two panels totally made it for me.

I don't understand what is going on in the last two panels. I feel stupid.

I don't get it either. You are not alone.

That's the total perky waiter gesture. When they take your menus away, they always tap the menus twice. Then the super creepy smile makes it even better.

To me, it looked like he was chopping up a couple of lines for Todd...

maybe that's how they roll at Fiesta Max Vegas...

in celebration of "Cinco de Yayo"

Ah, I see. Maybe the fact that it's essentially frozen in time, a twisted rictus of shattered dreams and hopeless longing, that threw me off.

Maybe you're just brain-deficient from reading Ctrl-Alt-Del

i love how the coke residue was dusted off the menu.

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Someday, Pat and Rod visit the Fiesta Max. Afterwards they have a Discussion over who was flirting with whom.

I had to look twice to see that was an actual photo of Vegas rather than a drawing.

Have there been any advances in the field of creating a fiesta name generator? That is the kind of thing I would like to play with for a few minutes before growing bored with and forgetting about it. Ideally it would utilize principles such as rhyming and alliteration and would only return fiesta names with at least a certain minimum score on a jerkiness index. Also, every 100th result should be "pendejo".

Don't forget the tombstone result, which produces a Jpeg of a chokka wakka whatver the fuck junior sundae.

That Guest Fiesta Name Spinner, in full:

1. Paco Taco Del Chaco / Juanita Burrito Very Munch!
2. Chico Suave / Lola Getz
3. Professor Pinkus the Deadeye Don / Eula Moola LaHula
4. Cortez Tequila / Dr. QuinceaƱera, Love Medicine Woman
5. El Mariachi Don Chachi / Carmen Veranda
6. Sure-Shootin' Rex Dandycorn / Zircon Lil The Frontier Thrill
7. Big Beans McCoot / Olive U. Tapenade
8. Corona the Loner / Dolores Equis
9. Father Holy Mole / Sister Innocencia
10. Cesar Salad Chavez / Rigoberta Kachoo
11. Kid Bunions / Crazy Daisy Cleghorn
12. Django Durango Fandango / Tangy Margarita Del Mango
13. Tennessee Tex Tetrick / Mrs. Crabapple DeeLite
14. Brad Smith / Janet Jones (note to service associate: feign comic confusion, disappointment)
15. Viva Lope de Vegas / Frida Monte-Kahlo (Local Color Fiesta Names, customized by franchise)
16. Tombstone: Guest avoids indignity of Fiesta Name, is comically shamed by complimentary offer of menu item under $3.99.


Service Associates have permanent Fiesta Names, chosen by the manager upon completion of in-store training from a secret list in the franchise operations manual.

Chubbied for Dolores Equis.

i like how the name "steak and queso grilla-dillas" implies that they intentionally mispronounce the spanish part

oddly enough, in my mind i was pronouncing it "gree-ya dee-yas" instead

Ha, you're right! I read it that way in my head the first time without even thinking about it. Grilla-dillas. heh!

In my brain, it went "Grill-a-Dee-yas"

that is the same way i read it. this may have to do with guessing how novelty tex-mex chains pronounce their menu items when drunk on boones farm in high school. all strawberry fields and tortilla strip nachos. saying "i'm cool" over and over again while picking off the black nail polish after watching episode one premier.....

The burning question in my mind is whether Jai is pronounced like jai or high?

High. High In The Sky.

Yes, that makes the most sense, but however will Fiesta Max patrons appreciate his oh-so- clever wordplay? Does he point to a name tag? Spell it out? Speak in visible word balloons? Or is it his private joke, a small reminder of the joint he will split with the dishwasher during his break?

Perhaps I am overthinking this?

He is a waiter at Fiesta Max. In Las Vegas. That doesn't say much for his cleverness.

He probably just pronounces the "J" like he's hocking up phlegm.

"KHai in the sky"

i see todd winding up dead in a gutter by the end of this arc...

I see Todd running for governor at the end of this arc. We see different things.

This is Todd we're talking about here. He can do both!

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whoooaaa there, man, save some for the comedy club.

The head-tilt in the last panel reminds me of Nice Pete, describing his special cutting boards .

And hey, that's an Elton John reference in the title. I'm not sure why, but that surprises me.

Elton John didn't coin the phrase "candle in the wind." I can't figure out where it came from originally, but here's a Time article from 1970, 3 years before the song, that uses it. And here's a play from 1941. And then there's the T. H. White book from 1958.

I'm guessing all these things are referencing a single source, but I'm not sure what it is. I've wondered about that forever, in fact.

Chubby for researched inquiry!

Panel 3: Ray and Todd have menus
Panel 4: Jai in the Sky shows up with two more menus
Panel 6: two menus have disappeared from our narrative

Those were clearly the pre-appetizer-post-siesta menus. They give them to you at the door and consist of food they can throw at you from a cart that gets pushed around the restraunt. It wouldn't do to keep them around after the appetizergeizer-fiesta menu came.

I think panel 4 here is a modified version of panel 4 from the last Fiesta Max strip , and Onstad just forgot to take the menus out. It'll probably get fixed eventually; Onstad revises strips even after they're posted.

Moraiat's explanation is way better.

It's seems that Darin' Aaron Magoo's widow's peak has migrated south to his chin for the winter and transformed him into Jai in the Sky. Plus he got transferred to Fiesta Max - the Casino EXPERIENCE.

For Fiesta Max employees, a widow's peak earns double flair points.

The bad thing about any of the Fiesta Max! strips is that I'm always all reading Achewood at like 1 in the morning and there is a cheap Mexican restaurant that is literally IN MY BACK YARD AND OPEN UNTIL 2 AM and I am prone to hunger at early hours.

Unless you are allergic to Mexican food I see no problems with that, no problems at all.

last 2 frames make it

OH JESUS the 'thunk' means something!

I am more concerned about Ray than Todd!!!!!!

please love me, ovaries owners.

Yeah, is anyone else thinking a "double thunk" is the equivalent of tapping your shoe in an airport men's restroom stall?

Yeah, that and the earring in the right ear.

ask larry craig

"please love me, ovaries owners." Have you been drinking, Mr. Leffel? Drunk posting leads to terrible things.

P.S. I'm not the one that lamed you.

Yes, and I did not have whiskey dick achewood style. ;/
And drunk posting leads to saying 'I love you'. Yikes.
(p.s. not you)

The casino's about the size of a baby changing area and is in the back with the pay phones, just to meet zoning regulations.

Ray is showing a lot more tolerance for Todd's cocaine ideas than normal. He hasn't called him "a terrible bullshit man" or thrown him out of a car once.

thst last panel is gonna make me spraw my Bloody across the room

oh fuck NOT IN THAT WAY

Onstad is producing more creepy strips now.

When I saw the name of this strip I thought it was going to be the one where Todd kicks the bucket again.

I'm glad it's not, this storyline hasn't gone nearly far enough.

I swear to god, is it a law that if you have a soul patch you own a shirt like that? Is there a union or something?

If the patch is soulin', the shirt better be bowlin'.

There's a truth to this.

I started with the bowling shirts, then I started quiffing my hair and now I'm working on my patch.

It's a natural progression

It's okay now guys, the patch disappeared a fair while back. I don't know what I was thinking.

Crisis over

Is Jai signalling something to someone? Is shit about to go down? Am I just being paranoid?

I agree with you.

A minute speck of a motion line to the left of Jai's head in panel six is the only thing that gives away his inner turmoil.

Those last three panels are the truest panels ever to appear in Achewood. Bless you Jai In The Sky. Bless your heart.

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sprinkle some coke residue on your fajitas for extra special spicy flavor!

Thunk Thunk! Sounds like Todd has a case of the Mondays.

I could not be more thrilled to see Fiesta Max make its triumphant return. Here's to hoping for much more in the future.

It is important to remember that with Jai's fake accent, the "J" is pronounced as a "hard H." This is possibly foreshadowing to when Ray will take Todd back to Achewood in the Air Wolf, coked out of his mind.

It's not -the-%u3000Airwolf, it's just "Airwolf"... No definite article needed, 'cause everybody knows Airwolf...

Poor Ray is so distressed.

This is the only strip I've seen recently that actually made me laugh out loud:
"PISS OFF JAI! YOU ASSHOLE !"
It's funny because that's what I'd be thinking if someone forced me to take a retarded name if I wanted to eat, but only Todd has the balls to go there.

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I gave you a lame for >that .

Its a sneaky fuck you friday

Every day is "Fuck You Friday".

I refute you without obsenity.

I've always thought it would be hilarious if Mexicans flew around in sombrero shaped spacecraft. The lines shooting from the sombrero in the logo for Fiesta Max! makes me think that maybe they actually do.

with a rebel yell, she's crying "Mo, Mo, MO" Jitoes.

I don't get what's going on here, except that Todd's close to ODing on cocaine and the waiter appears to be Roast Beef in disguise

Or possibly Showbiz?

Oh, so All Cats Look The Same, huh? You heartless, cuilturally insensitive jerk!

First cat with an earring?

Except for Darin' Aaron Magoo, of course.... Oops

OK, last time.... Maybe Little Nephew had "earrings" when he was a goth . It's tough to tell.

that's enough.

don't know why you're talking about cats and earrings
phillipe had earrings when he was billy idol
and that was way cool
little dude could rock

He had wicked sack.

"phillipe had earrings when he was billy idol"
Not True.*

"little dude could rock"
True.

*In fact, no "living" creature before Aaron and Jai (and maybe LN) has had an ear piercing.

OK, joeyramoney, I'm done now and ready for my nap.

It LOOKS like an earring to me.

There is something terrifying about Jai.

Did anyone else realize that perhaps Ray lured Todd into this, working with Jai, and that THUNK THUNK is a secret signal to sting todd? He'd definately be tested positive for cocaine.

Ray's only sad because he hates seeing a dogg at the bottom of his game.

Jai's face in the last panel is the kind of thing that gives me nightmares

Is Belushi going to chop up Todd...?

Ray seems to want his Fiesta Name, but the coked-up squirrel insists otherwise.

Ray is starting to realise he made a bad investment.

Ray does not make bad investments. Ray is pretty much in control of the situation.

If you are in any kind of control of the situation you are not at the Las Vegas Fiesta max with a coked up rodent. If you are in any kind of control of the situation, you have time to find out your Fiesta Name.

Que es una COCAINE THUMP ?????

At the risk of being viciously proven wrong, I'm going to say that 'cocaine thump' is a general term for any self-induced trauma-type injury sustained while under the influence of the nose candy.

My guess is that it's a short and simple description of how your heart and lungs feel when you're on cheap cocaine.

I'm wowing about some cold tall mo mo MO jitos.

Is it just me or does it seem like Jai in the Sky has human proportions instead of cat proportions, body-wise? For a cat, those are some hell-of wide shoulders.

I think he just has fat shoulders.

Living in California, I have been served by too many Jai in the Skys. That alone warrants this one a 5.

the pain of getting yelled at by a coked up squirrel almost got to Jai, but he's too professional to let it effect him.

I think the Nice Pete look comes from the straight-on stare and that tilt of the head. Jai is an unutterably tragic figure, and I suspect his story is one worth hearing. It's just a shame he's a bit-player in the more interesting story of Todd coking himself to death.

Funny, I was almost wishing the story would veer off to follow Jai, leaving Todd to sniff snaff snoof himself blind in an alley somewhere.

I like Todd, don't get me wrong, but nearly two weeks of the little fucker and I'm wanting to pour out the beer and the cellar and sign up for straightedge.

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I just realized that Jai is Steve, the waiter who was strong but too nice to get ahead in life!

He just looks at you, and he knows what your Fiesta Name is!

For the longest time I thought that there was a manila envelope behind the menu in panel 9. It wasn't until today that I realized it was an optical illusion.

the best part about this strip? the part that made me laugh out loud?

*thunk thunk*

why do peppy waiters always do that?

last two panels killed me

Okay, I gotta say it. Todd is really my least favorite character. He legitimately makes me kind of uncomfortable, which is probably a credit to Onstad's writing, but still...he's really the only character I just don't enjoy reading. I like him as a concept, a tangent, as sort of a catalyst for other characters' discomfort (like the Phillippe birthday party one) but as a stand-alone character with his own arc: yuck. Sorry everyone.

Theres nothing likeable about Pat. At least I've known people like Todd, and he can be nice, he's just kind of a low-life.

The waiter at this restaurant makes me think of the the sqeaky-voiced teen from the Simpsons, in that there seem to be more than one of him.