Panera Blog

Why is there no one here

2005-04-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

At 512 by myself for dinner and I just looked around the rest of the restaurant and realized, I AM ENTIRELY ALONE. There is no one else in here, save for the high school workers. It's 5:30 PM on a Saturday night, this strikes me as very odd. Then again I've been spooked lately after the strange occurrences in my apartment and discovery of the weird crawlspace in my lab with the lonely, solitary chair. Paranoia: 3, Me: 0

Boring

2005-04-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

At 512 again, and I just realized that all my recent posts are the most boring trash ever. And I think I know the problem, this Panera doesn't seem to bring out the freaks like others do. Seriously, aside from the occasional bird watcher with their books and binoculars absolutely nothing exciting happens here, thus defeating the entire purpose of this blog. Also, the entire staff seems to be made up of high school freshman that are suffocatingly overbearing, always trying to clean up your trash while you're still sitting down (not that I'm complaining about that) and are incapable of getting your order right (tonight the girl says, "anything to drink?" i say "soda" she says "what?" i say "soda" she says "what?" i say "just give me one of those cups under the counter". she understood that). Also, they seem keen on giving you free lattes if you sit around in the dining room long enough as that has happened for the third time tonight. i win.

Revolving Door

2005-04-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

Back to new one again, much closer and more pleasant atmosphere, and so far hasn't failed me as miserably as others do on occassion. Tonight I went with two friends, as they were getting ready to leave got IM from someone else I know telling me to stay put as they were on their way and in interim saw a few other people walk in that I knew. My friends keep trying to name the poor goose that is nesting under the main bay of windows different obscene names. I keep forgetting we're "mature"

Twice

2005-04-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

Visit number 2 to new store on 512, mere hours after first time. I need a hobby or something

New adventure

2005-04-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

Not much to say, nothing particularly disturbing. However, this is my first visit to the recently opened store on 512 (much, much closer to school as well, which makes me happy). Smaller, stand alone, store, converted from some other restaurant. Nice touch is entire back wall is windows overlooking a body of water that is somewhere between a creek and river, not sure of proper terminology. Front corner of restaurant is actually stands over the water and is supported by beam on small pathc of land. Lots of wildlife, well, if you count geese and groundhogs, which is debatable. On the small patch of land one of the geese appears to have a nest. There's also an apparently retarded white duck that can never swim nor fly straight and appears to not be a bit of a loner. I think I'll be his friend, ha

Mmmmm....sample bread

2005-04-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

Long day of manual labor setting for tomorrow's concert and a few of us decided to goto Panera on 33 (not my favorite place in the world). As I get there first and there is a tremendous line and I am tremendously hungry, I find the sample basket which looks recently filled. Needless to say, by the time my friends arrive 5 minutes later, its empty. Class.

Not much exciting happened as we sequestered ourselves in a corner of the restaurant behind the bathrooms where no one else was sitting (well, save for one girl, who I think may have overheard my initial protests against sitting there that had something to do with sitting near someone who "obviously" had something wrong with them. granted, that would be me any other day of the of the week, but I was feeling mildly belligerent).

We were loud, i think, at least it seemed like anyone walking by the end of our room to get to the soda machine stared at us. Or maybe it just had to do with us all being dressed the same.

Maybe we shouldn't sit here

2005-04-10T17:44:00.000-07:00

Another less than interesting visit. At MacArthur, sitting same place as last Sunday. Minding myself, actually doing school related work (*gasp*), when an older couple approaches to sit at table next to fireplace. Husband puts down tray and starts to sit, when wife looks at me, and turns back to him and whispers, "Maybe we shouldn't sit here" and he looks over at me, nods to her and then go sit at same table, but on other side, with fireplace now between us. Great, I've been working a long time on pulling off an unsavory appearance and I guess I finally nailed it.

My name is Michelle

2005-04-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

Met a friend at Cedar Crest for lunch today. Nothing much exciting or worth mentioning happened. As was the case the previous two times I came here with someone they forgot to call that person to pick up their order. Only this time it took a bit more convincing for my friend to accept it was all right to go get his food.

They never actually called me either, instead calling a Michelle. I figured it was me. Went to get my food, saw my order, went to take it, girl asked if I was Michelle, I said no, Michael. She said well it says Michelle here, and I tell her its mine and she says oh well, they must've misheard you/misspelled it. She hands me the receipt. I walk away. It clearly says, "M-I-C-H-A-E-L". Brilliant

"Is that the one where all the guys just stand there?"

2005-04-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to break my own rules, just this once, of posting something that isn't currently happening as I sit in Panera, but this occured last Thursday and this blog didn't exist them so I'll allow myself an exception this once. Anyways, good illustration of how wonderful the service normally is.

So I go to Cedar Crest for dinner with a friend. Now I generally prefer this one since it's a bit larger than the others around here and generally has fewer rednecks. Right away, I notice two good signs that maybe they won't screw up tonight. There's a manager behind the counter (a real live grown up working is always a good sign as opposed to flitty 18 year olds) and following from that there's some samples out (which usually correlates to things going well).

I order and immediately get shot down. "I'm sorry, we don't have that soup" the girl tells me. It's 5:00 on a Thursday. I ordered Brocolli Cheddar. That's the most unremarkable soup I could order, how can you possibly have run out of it already. Oh well. We sit down.

"Michael, please come to the counter." I look at my friend and say, "oh hell no you don't." Manager type lady is waiting for me and says, "I'm sorry, we've run out of Sandwich Y, would you like another?". I laugh, relieved, and say, "No worries, I ordered Sandwich X." She says, "Oh yea, that's what I meant, we're out of that too." I give her a resounding, "Oh hell no you don't." She looks at me crossly and instead suggests something else, I say fine go back and sit down with my food.

My friend has curiously not got her sandwich yet and she starts to become agigitated as they tend to, um, forget her order. This has never, happened to me. Ever. And yet, last two times (I think) I've been with her they've forgot and this time they have as well.

While she's waiting at the counter I get to eavesdrop on the couple sitting next to me. College aged like us, guy looks decent enough, wearing a Polo button down. Girl looks like trash. Bar trash. Girl is batting her disgusting eyes at him and playing footsy while stroking his hand. For a moment I'm glad I was too preoccupied with my order to have taken this in. However, this isn't what irritates me, as normally I wouldn't find people like this worth mentioning. The best part is their conversation. You know the type, you don't really give a damn about what the other person is saying, yet you keep trying to ask thoughtful questions for the sake of appearing to have the same interests, and the other peson realizes this, and is dumbing down all their answers for the sake of getting back to the point of taking you to dinner: how to get into your pants with the least amount of effort. He's trying to explain basketball to her. Rather, I assume trying to not laugh in her face. It's not like she's asking for him to breakdown the merits of the 2-3 zone or something. No, she's struggling to rap her mind around the 3-point shot. It's just not happening, she can't fathom why just shooting from behind a line should count for more than inside the line. Then they get to foul shots. Wow. This one really baffles her. She doesn't understand why they just let him stand there and shoot while watching him without trying to defend him. Ok, whatever, I feel the urge to go over and tell him it's not worth it. It's obvious from the way she's raping your foot with hers and stroking your hand and deemed a dinner date to Panera as being worth the painted whore makeup look that you're gonna get whatever you want from her and that you can probably do better anyways.

Finally, my friend returns with her sandwich. She was excited to get away from studying when we left for dinner and to get her favorite sandwich. She sits down and tells me that officially, dinner has been ruined. Yep.

"Michael!!!! It's time for my massage!!!"

2005-04-03T14:56:00.000-07:00

So, this would be it. The first disturbing incident that compelled me to waste my time on a blog. I goto dinner at the 7th street one, sit down at a booth facing the fireplace and start eating. I notice on other side of fireplace are an exceptional amount of hyperactive, bratty 8 to 10 year olds boys. Lovely.

One of them decides to come lay across the leather chair directly in front of me and start flailing like a dead fish for no apparent reason. I ignore him. I'm enjoying the bliss of actually eatting the food I ordered (lately their track record hasn't been so hot with actually having the items I want in stock. Granted tonight they couldn't accept credit cards, but I guess something always needs to be wrong).

Out of nowhere, the infidel starts screaming, "Michael!!!! It's time for my massage!!!! Michael!!!! It's time for my massage!!!!" Over and over again. This is slightly disturbing for me, since I naturally assume that he's in fact pleading this of me with a young come hither look. Thankfully, not the case as soon his brother comes up and tells him to stop yelling. I assume these two are about to throw down, as I assume two brothers would, however, he just simply hops up on the chair, stradling his brother and starts to, um, give him a massage.

I look around and no one else seems to have noticed their indecent behavior. Yet. Soon I see good ol' Mom approaching. She sees me. I smile. She smiles. She sees her kids. I smile more. She stops smiling. She quietly says, "That's disgusting Michael, get off of him". The boys do not relent. I start laughing. She grabs Michael by the shoulder and drags him off the chair. I keep laughing. She gives me a dirty look. I go back to my sandwich.

Welcome!

2005-04-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

So this is it. Despite my own life being too mundane and music-centric to merit sharing with the world in blog form (not to mention a general loathing and contempt for blogs), I've finally found the reason to start one.

With 4 Panera Bread's within 10 miles of where I go to school, it tends to be a frequent dinner spot. Part of the draw is probably the free WiFi access, so I can delude myself thatI'm capable of being productive while leaving campus (a pipe dream, regardless). With my new laptop, I tend to spend a little extra time after eatting just surfing the web, etc, having found that this access is more motivation to be unproductive. At any rate, I've also started noticing that some really whacked out things go on around me while I'm here and some pretty strange, messed up people like to stare at me like I'm the freak.

And then, one day (today to be exact), as I was relaying what was going on in front of me to a friend, who replied with "wow, just wow. you are a strange, strange man," I realized I need to share this with more people. I also realized, that somewhere out there with at least 700 Panera Breads across the states (i'll verfiy that number later) someone else must be having the same time wasting experience as me, eatting dinner, surfing the web, and wondering what the hell is wrong with people around them.

So, on the off chance that anyone out there stumbles across this while at a Panera, please join me. It's not like we have anything better to do