Don't get testy now

What’s that, you say? You want to know why “balls in your coffee,” of all things, was adopted as the moniker for these tales of culinary adventure?

Fair question, and one that I realize needs addressing immediately.

One nondescript night, one when the whole staff was antsy to leave by about 6 p.m. and the minutes were dripping by like something out of a Salvador Dali painting, I seated a party of 12 people in the upstairs dining room. They arrived at a normal dining hour, most likely around 7:30 or so, but by 11, they were still there, and the upstairs server was slowly going insane from boredom.

It didn’t help matters much when the table turned out to be a collection of snobs who treated the server, James, horribly all evening.

Next to this table, there is a room that’s rented out for smaller parties throughout the year. It has it’s own bar set up inside, and shares a wall with the kitchen. When it’s empty, servers tend to congregate inside, waiting for tables, sleeping, bitching, carousing, you name it.

That evening, I wandered into this room, trying to find a server to take a newly sat table, and instead found James, another server Tom, and Rodrigo, one of the bussers, howling with testosterone-charged delight. James and Rodrigo were doubled over laughing.

“And what the hell is going on in here?” I asked Tom over the hysterical bouts of laughter. He was on his way behind the bar, shaking his head and clutching a water pitcher in one hand. James explained that he had more of less had enough with the table and was taking a very personal form of revenge.

Before I could ask what that even meant, I watched as Tom stood behind the bar, unzipped his pants, and daintily…dipped. James and Rodrigo exploded into another fit of hilarity as he zipped up with a stoic and determined look on his face, and left to attend to the table.

My jaw dropped and my eyebrows shot up to the top of my face like some kind of Saturday morning cartoon character, and all thought of the waiting table downstairs disappeared. It took me a shell-shocked moment to join James and Rodrigo at the small window near the table as we watched Tom solemnly refill all the water glasses…and then cringed with perverse joy as the table of evil diners began to take sips one by one.

Let’s just the say the incident occurred some time later with a cup of coffee (a different sensation than cold water, I would imagine) and the perfect twisted rebellion of the act has forever found immortality by entitling this memoir.

And if that, dear reader, hasn’t convinced you to be incredibly nice to every server you ever encounter and tip well for the rest of your life, I’m not sure what will.

Did she just say...super sperm?

Yes, you read right. Super. Sperm. The two words together have kind of a valiant quality to them, don’t they? Images of determined little swimmers come to mind, fighting the elements as they struggle to complete their life’s purpose, capes aloft, faster than speeding bullets…at least, that was what came to my mind when I overheard two girls conversing on the subject in the bathroom one evening.

It was a Friday night, and the music was already pumped up to a speaker-shattering level. Drinks were plenty, we were at capacity and the line outside the bar was getting longer by the minute. It was my turn to complete the much-adored bathroom checks for the later half of the night, and as I left my fellow hostess at the front of the house, I was blissfully unaware of the enlightening gem I was about to stumble upon.

I pushed open the bathroom door and was met with a long cramped line of women waiting for their turn. Needing a break from the loud crowds, I decided to stay in the bathroom and wait to clean up the few glasses in the stalls and on the countertops. It was a good choice.

The speakers in the downstairs women’s bathroom have two settings; way, way, way too loud, to the point where the music is obscured by the death rattle of the exhausted speaker, or off. Tonight it was quiet, and most of the women were silently sipping their cocktails and adjusting their hair in the mirror, except for two, somewhere mid-cluster. We’ll call them Steph and Brittany. Or maybe Brittanie. With a heart over the i.

“Steph, I have like, kind of a weird question.”

My ears perked up. So did the ears of every other woman in line. Steph, a blonde with too much mascara coating her eyelashes, turned to Brittanie.

“So like, I’m on birth control, obviously,” (insert a I’m-so-liberated-and-responsible-but-really-I’m-glad-I-get-to-sleep-around giggle) “so Matt and I can like, do it, without a condom. But I can’t remember if he can, you know...(giggle) cum and not get me pregnant! So I’m like, freaked to let him.”

Ohhh this should be interesting.

Steph gave Brittanie a big wide smile and an oh-thankgod-you-have-me-you’re-wiser-better-prettier-best-friend-to-answer-your-sexual-health-queries pat on the arm.

“Ohmygod, you TO-tally can,” she said. “It’s the whole point! I mean”—here she glanced around the bathroom like she was about to reveal top secret nuclear codes—“I swear when Ben came the other night, I could feel every, single, sperm.”

“Every one??”

“Yeah. I mean, maybe he has like, super sperm or something, but it’s totally crazy. It’s like the best feeling ever.”

A woman in front of me tried to hide her scoff and failed, attempting to make it sound like a cough as she hid her face with her glass. A stall opened and Steph stepped in, leaving Brittanie to contemplate the possibility of Ben’s mutant sperm.

I finished my cleaning sweep and left with a few wine glasses in my hands. A woman who had been washing her hands during the exchange exited behind me.

As we walked back to the bar, she snorted out a laugh.

“He better get that checked out!” she said. “Super sperm…jeeee-zus.”

Still shaking her head, she disappeared into the crowd, undoubtedly eagerly telling her friends, “You’ll NEVER believe what I just heard…”