The Stale Baguette

I’ve been to plenty of subpar restaurants in my time, but never have I had as unpleasant an experience as my first and only evening at the Stale Baguette. The name probably should have tipped me off, but my wife and I elected to give the place a chance based on a glowing recommendation from a friend of mine.

I’m still undecided on whether I want to speak to him again.

The Stale Baguette is advertised as a “serene slice of Paris.” Perhaps I’m uncultured, but I don’t associate serenity with deafeningly loud heavy metal, nor Paris with waiters wearing bamboo wind chimes as hats. The décor was similarly puzzling, and that’s assuming the empty liquor bottles scattered across the floor weren’t supposed to be there.

My wife and I were forced to wait fifteen minutes before being seated. Mind you, this was not due to a lack of available tables, but rather because much of the dining room staff were preoccupied with clipping their toenails while laughing at us and the other patrons. Once we were finally seated, we found that our cutlery was drenched in dirt, as though they had just been used to dig an opencast mine. When I brought this to the attention of a passing waiter, he spat in my face.

As far as I’m concerned, my wife and I had already been provided with enough reasons to write-off the Stale Baguette and seek dinner someplace else, but we’re a patient pair. Plus, when our assigned waiter came to take our order, he seemed far more pleasant than the rest of his co-workers.

Seemed being the operative word.

While I was relaying my order to the waiter, he lightly kicked me in the chin. I said nothing, simply presuming that it was unintentional. That explanation seemed less plausible after the seventh kick to the chin. I can only assume that injuring me for no discernible reason absorbed all his attention while he was taking our orders, because he got them completely wrong.

My wife was served a spicy veal and capsicum broth instead of the French onion soup she ordered, while I was simply given a bowl of salt. I promptly told our waiter that a mistake was made, at which point he scrambled into the kitchen. A few moments later, the head chef charged into the dining room brandishing sharp cooking utensils.

We only narrowly made it back to our car, which is now in dire need of repainting.

I give the Stale Baguette one and a half stars.

Temperamental Brakes

In all my years on Earth, I never once considered what I would do if my brakes were to stop working while I was driving down a steep hill. I had more frequently pondered strategies for evading or combatting a school of sardines armed with frag grenades and legs.

Unfortunately, fate cares little for well laid plans. The fact of the matter was that my car’s brakes were unresponsive, and I was rapidly gaining speed.

It’s often said you regret the things you don’t do, but in that moment, I regretted selling my handbrake for three dollars to that guy who was wearing nothing but a pair of underpants. I’m humble enough to admit that was a critical error, along with not getting my car serviced for sixteen years.

To say that my brakes failed at an inconvenient time would be an understatement akin to suggesting that a proton is somewhat small. The steep road I was hurtling down concluded at a T-junction punctuated by a brick wall. I got the distinct impression that I wouldn’t survive crashing into that wall, what with the lack of seatbelts in my car.

Selling my seatbelts was probably a mistake too.

Seeing as I was not the protagonist of a cartoon, I couldn’t rely on gravity momentarily ceasing to exist on my behalf. It was also doubtful that anybody would come to my rescue unless they had a jetpack on hand or were inexplicably omnipotent. Circumstance was forcing me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and find a way out of that situation all on my own.

I briefly considered bailing out of my car, but at the speed I was going, that felt like choosing to die longer and painfully rather than instantly upon hitting the brick wall. That idea was swiftly replaced with detailed mental plans to convert my car into a rocket and fly to safety Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time, nor the materials, nor the capacity to turn my car into a twin-engine jet, least of all while it was in motion.

After punching myself in the head a few times while shouting an array of profanities, I was suddenly struck with an epiphany. The solution to my woes had been staring me in the face the whole time. The road ended at a T-junction, meaning I could either turn left or right and thereby save myself. I would have jumped for joy, but I was sitting down, so I sat for joy instead.

With my plan hatched, I gripped the steering wheel, exhaled deeply, and prepared to do that which those of less fortitude and intelligence could never hope to achieve. Safely executing a ninety degree turn while traveling at nearly 150kmph is no easy feat.

The task is made even harder when you can’t decide whether to turn left or right.

I’m happy to report that I did learn something valuable from this ordeal. When in stressful situations, you must be able to make difficult choices quickly. Remember, indecision kills.

Then again, I probably would have died no matter what I did, so really, the moral of this story is give up. Nothing you do matters.

My kind regards from the depths of Hell.

Slaying Writer's Block

Writer’s Block is a terrible menace. A foul beast, one might say.

I’m by no means an extraordinary wordsmith, so I have to admit that when Writer’s Block kicked down my door, frothing from the mouth as it fixated it’s piercing black eyes on me, I froze. Silence filled the room, interrupted only by the heavy and wheezy breaths of the monster standing before me. The ensuing seconds felt like hours, but the only thing I managed to accomplish with that time was the saturation of my underpants.

Writer’s Block lunged towards me, leaving beneath itself a trail of saliva as it glided across the room with a rapacious look in its eyes. I’ll never forget that thing’s guttural roar, or the sight of its blood-drenched claws bearing down upon me.

My heart raced as I pressed my feet against my desk and threw myself backwards. The tumbling only stopped upon my hitting the wall. Writer’s Block clamped its ferocious jaws around my oak desk and reduced it to sawdust. By the time it was done devouring my computer, there was nothing left of it, save for a few scattered pieces of the motherboard.

Having extracted little sustenance from my desk, Writer’s Block turned its attention back to me. It dug its hind legs into my flooring, poising itself to pounce on me, though it did so without the grace of a tiger or the deliberateness of a hawk, for Writer’s Block didn’t have the bearings of an animal. It was much more of an angry, otherworldly thing.

I leapt to my feet and sprinted for the living room, with Writer’s Block giving frenzied chase. My sick parkour moves, which enabled me to traverse my house with the swiftness of a particularly nimble cheetah, did little to distance me from Writer’s Block. It tore through the furniture like it was made of butter.

As Writer’s Block crashed through the wall of my living room while letting out a blood-chilling howl, I grabbed the mat sitting between my couch and the TV and threw it across the room. I kicked open the small compartment built into the floorboards and retrieved my broadsword, which had been in my family for over a millennium. It glistened under the fluorescent lights dangling above us. One may argue it bore a mesmerising aura.

Alas, Writer’s Block was not mesmerised. Seizing the opportunity to strike, it took me by the leg and flung me into the TV. Shattered glass rained down upon my battered body as I picked myself up from the floor. Writer’s Block snarled as it pummelled the ground, punching clean through the floorboards. When I finally got to my feet, I charged towards Writer’s Block, swinging my broadsword over my head before bringing it down atop the beast’s. I managed to penetrate its leathery grey skin and wedge my sword into its skull, but that wasn’t enough to kill it. The beast continued swiping at me. It’s claws nearly tore through my chest several times as I desperately fought to pry my blade from its head. With one last firm tug, I drew my sword from the skull of Writer’s Block and a volley of blood was splashed across my walls. The monster shrieked as it lurched back and forth, wrought with rage and deliriousness.

I gripped my sword with both hands and pointed the blade at Writer’s Block’s chest. Sucking in a deep breath through clenched teeth, I charged the foul beast, screaming at the top of my lungs. Before I could fully comprehend the course of action I had just committed to, I came to a halt. My sword was poking through the beast’s back, soaked in its entrails. Writer’s Block crumbled before me, gargling on its own blood as it hit the floor.

Though the beast known as Writer’s Block was strong, ferocious, and determined, whether due to luck of skill, I ultimately prevailed.

And so you see, Miss Smith, I was far too busy slaying Writer’s Block this weekend to finish my book report.