Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Let Me Just Vent a Little

So this weekend Olga and I went with some friends to the "Awesome 80s Prom."

It's sort of like Tony and Tina's wedding, but only at a prom set in 1989. It was good, because Olga got to experience American High School in just under 4 hours. And the bully and the jock were really actors.

Not so awesome was the fact that I left my ATM card and driver's license there.

I figured, no problem, I'll just call up Awesome 80s and they'll, like, totally give me my license back.

Not.

I called Monday morning at 9 AM and Kevin answered: "Awesome 80s Prom this is Kevin."

I explained my problem and he said, "Oh that's too bad. You know, I have to go look downstairs to see if I can find it, but I'm working on a project now. I'll call you back."

He did not go and look for it, nor did he call back.

So I called again: "Ohh, you know it's downstairs and I just haven't had a chance to go and look. You probably really need your license and ATM card. Let me look and I'll call you back before 6."

He didn't call back.

So I called back the next morning. Pretty pissed.

I used phrases like "pretty fucking bad," "this is pissing me off," "Awesome 80s will not like what I will do when I'm pissed off," "are you fucking kidding me?"

The problem was that the bartender had probably put my card in the safe at Sangria's (another restaurant owned by the same outfit) and he didn't have access to the safe and the managers and owners (since Sangria is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays) weren't there.

I then accused Kevin of identity theft. He said "what, what are you talking about."

"Why else don't you want to give me my driver's license back?"

So he went to go call the manager.

He claims he spoke to a manager who looked in the safe and said it wasn't there.

Then I drove to Awesome 80s (illegally, because I had no driver's license of course). After knocking on the door for some time, I walked about 50 feet south on Freemont (the Awesome 80s ballroom is in N. Freemont) and hooked a right into the alley behind the ballroom.

I rung the doorbell of the "Bortz Entertainment Group." They let me in and I walked upstairs to find Kevin, the receptionist there.

I apologized to Kevin for my rude behavior on the phone and explained that I was very concerned about identity theft and asked if we could look one more time before I file a police report. (I learned this kind of "good cop, bad cop" routine from Lewis and Catone.)

He said sure, but that I'd have to wait.

While waiting, I started reading the framed newspaper articles on the walls in the waiting room which featured the owners of the Bortz Entertainment Group.

I then saw the owner (the one who's picture was on the wall) walk out of his office (you'll remember that Kevin told me the owners weren't in). Why the runaround?

About 20 minutes later a guy came upstairs with my driver's license, credit card and receipt for me to sign so they could collect their payment on the $6 of beer I drank.