Trust me, I'm a professional

What the hell is up with all these people wanting me to do actual WORK the week before Christmas?

Unfortunately, the quality of work turned in to those who run the word mills was set at 8 a.m. Monday morning, during an interview for a profile of a local sandwich shop.

This particular sandwich shop is open till 4 a.m. on weekends, nestled as it is among abso-fucking-lutely horrendous clubs with words like "monkey" and "sharks" and "shaft" and "beaver" in their names. The owner regaled me with a tale of a customer who, in a misguided, alcohol-fueled, late-night attempt to draw in more patrons, lifted up her skirt in the middle of the sandwich shop, removed her unmentionables, and placed them on the banana tree on the counter.

The owner, being the respectable AARP member he is, couched the tale in euphemisms and giggled whispers. We laughed. He then began telling me about an annual competitive-eating contest the restaurant stages to raise money for a worthy charity--none of which has anything to do with drunken whores hanging panties on banana trees.

"Did you like that segue?" he asked. "From the banana tree to..."

In a display of unjournalistic rudeness, I finished the sentence for him, eyebrows raised, smirk on my face. "To pickle-eating?"

I reached into the air to grab the words as they left my mouth, to no avail.

His eyes widened, he began laughing nervously..."no, no, don't go there..." Which, of course, I already had. And while that would have been the time to apologize profusely and blush in mock demureness, that is not what I did.

Instead, I offered, "And this is just on coffee--you should see me after a couple of drinks!"

The journalism profession is filled with courageous individuals who expose government coverups, report from war zones, ferret out corporate corruption. Today, I say to them, "Yeah, but have you ever tried to salvage an interview after making an oral sex joke?"