Broccoli: The Vegetable of Doom

[XCashier]

I hate it cooked, but raw, with Ranch dressing ... yum!

Raw with dressing, lightly steamed, stir-fried...as long as it isn't boiled to death, broccoli's just fine with me.

[NateTheChops]

Best part about the fat ass is that statistics say he can't have much longer to live.

[Jester]

He thrust a laminated newspaper clipping in my face. I quickly scanned through it. It was a small article on the SC, saying he had just completed a charity race around the area.

SC: So, I would like a free meal and drinks for my achievement.
Me: Well, congratulations on your achievement, but I don’t think we can do this.
SC: Yes you can. Have you read it properly? I’m doing work for charity, and if you don’t do this then you aren’t helping my sponsorship!

Oh, HELL no!

Listen up, Mr. Self Important. You don't do charity events to benefit yourself. You do them to help others. It's great that you did something to help others, but trying to play that up so you can personally benefit is disgraceful and disgusting. If it were up to me, every time you tried this shit, you would be dragged into the street and beaten mercilessly with two by fours, baseball bats, and hockey sticks. Perhaps even golf clubs for variety. Or it being the UK, maybe cricket bats.

Lots of people do charity work. Just this last Sunday, I emceed a charity fundraiser for the Oklahoma tornado victims, running both a raffle and an auction (for the bigger prizes). This fundraiser was organized on the fly by my coworker, because she wanted to help people she didn't know. I helped her by volunteering to go around to local businesses and ask for donations of good and services to be raffled or auctioned off, on my own time, and by helping to set it up and emcee it, on my day off. This event, put together at the last minute, raised over $3,000 in just 3 hours, on a holiday weekend where there were other major events going on. For my efforts, I asked for nothing, because that is what you do when you do charity work. (The organizer did get me a gift card to World of Beer for my efforts, but I neither asked for it nor expected it.) Did I try to parlay this into free shit for me? No. I talked about it to people only to make them aware of it, and because of the fact that I was proud of what she and I, and the community as a whole, had accomplished.

In 1995, I did a two day, 170 mile bike ride to benefit the MS Society. I got some nice little trinkets from the organizers for my participation and fundraising, but asked for none of it. Nor did I try to use my participation in it to get myself free shit from any one else.

This November, I will be doing a two day, 150 mile bike ride to benefit AIDS research. I plan on raising money by spending a lot of my free time going around and asking people to support me in this. And by "support me," I mean pleading funds to the charity, not supporting me directly. For my efforts, I will probably get a few trinkets from the organizers. If I don't, I won't care. And I won't try to get free shit from other people for my efforts.

Okay, wait....that last part is not true. I will be trying to get a free beer from my friend Skater Boy, as he will be participating in the same ride, and we have a bet going...whoever has a faster two day time gets a free beer from the other guy. That single beer is the only thing I will have ever tried to get for myself personally from any charity event I've participated in in my life.

And there have been others. Like the fundraiser for the local animal shelter I organized as a memorial to my late friend TD. The various fundraisers and charity cookoffs I've participated in over the years. And on and on.

And I am not special in this. We joke here on this island that we drink for charity better than anyone, as so many charity events down here center around or involve drinking. But do we think we are better than anyone else? No. Just drunker.

And there are thousands of other people that do charity work all the time as well, all over the world. Hell, my little sister is running naked through the London Zoo this summer to help raise money for Sumatran Tigers. And countless others do plenty of crazy and not so crazy things to help raise money and awareness for charities.

YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL!

Charity work is to help others, you selfish little shit. So enough with the posturing and the self-promoting and the glorification of the one time you did something to help others TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO.

The day I see someone try anything like this, I swear, if I'm not working at the time, I am going to rip them a new asshole ten ways from Sunday. And then I'm gonna get vicious.

Fucking idiot.

While this is my opinion of most beers (Hey, I'm allowed my opinion! I just prefer hard cider to beer), I get the feeling that this fuckwit had already had a few too many...

I disagree. I think he had too few. Brain cells, that is.

The guy with the laminated news stories ... has he been trying to cadge free food and drinks on the basis of this for the past decade??

It would seem so. Idiot.

(For the record, I love broccoli, but can't stand cauliflower.

With you on this one.

Best part about the fat ass is that statistics say he can't have much longer to live.

Sadly, the stupid ones tend to defy statistics. And tend to breed. Harvey Danger was right. The cretins are cloning and feeding.

[wolfie]

SC: Hey! Hey! Fucking serve me!
Me: No thanks. You know what you need to do to get a drink. So until then I’ll wait here.

He went wide eyed. He was shocked and walked up to a CW who was working the floor.

SC: I need a drink. Go behind the bar and serve me.

Maybe you should have served him - with fava beans and a nice Chianti. Of course, the health inspector and the police would not approve.

SC: What is THIS??

He picked up a piece of broccoli and shoved it about an inch from my nose.

Me: What?
SC: What is this? What is it? Why is it in my meal? It’s disgusting!! It’s ruined the meal!! What is it?!
Me: It’s broccoli.
SC: What is it??
Me: It’s a vegetable.
SC: Well I didn’t ask for it! I don’t want your fancy foreign vegetables! I want regular vegetables! This stuff is the worst!

If it weren't for the lack of a Secret Service detail, I'd think that President Bush Senior (1 term between Reagan and Clinton) had visited your pub. During his time in office, he publicly made the comment "I hate broccoli" - and political humourists (like Mark Russel) had a field day.

[Jay 2K Winger]

If it weren't for the lack of a Secret Service detail, I'd think that President Bush Senior (1 term between Reagan and Clinton) had visited your pub. During his time in office, he publicly made the comment "I hate broccoli" - and political humourists (like Mark Russel) had a field day.

It wasn't just that. Bush Senior said that now that he was President, he was no longer going to eat broccoli. Yes, the humorists alllll had a lot of fun with that one. (And local restaurants in the District all had broccoli specials on Clinton's inauguration day (aka the day that Bush Senior left office))

[Shalom]

Hell, my little sister is running naked through the London Zoo this summer to help raise money for Sumatran Tigers. .

He's not kidding, either.

Streak For Tigers

[pzychobitch]

Maybe you should have served him - with fava beans and a nice Chianti. Of course, the health inspector and the police would not approve.

The doctor and myself would greatly approve of that

[Jester]

He's not kidding, either.

Streak For Tigers

No, I wasn't.

[Rapscallion]

He's not kidding, either.

Streak For Tigers

You simply can leave the zoo at the end of the day and will be re-admitted a short time afterwards through the Prince Albert Gate for the opening of the event.

That was deliberate, right?

Rapscallion

[EnoughAlready]

That was deliberate, right?

Rapscallion

I was wondering if anyone else caught that.

[dalesys]

He's not kidding, either.

Streak For Tigers

And the slowest n entrees are lunch.

n = number of tigers being served.