POPCORN, PUSSY & PRESTIGE

Intro

“What's up nigga?
Ay yo, I know you ain't talkin 'bout me dog?
You, what?
You been on my dick nigga,
You love my style, nigga”

Nas – Ether


The other day I caught Nas’ song Ether on XM Radio. Talk about a great “battle rap” song. Such venom, such animosity. Hard to believe Nas and the boy Hova is chumming it up these days. All I know is that if a dude slutted out my girl (let alone my baby moms) we wouldn’t be cool for any reason. But getting back to Ether, that is one angry / condescending song. Listening to it, I was reminded of a time when I lost my cool during a date and went ape shit over a situation.

My cousin Rick’s girlfriend was having a cabaret in Baltimore. For the uninformed cabaret’s are like “clubs on wheels.” You can rent out a hall somewhere, throw one anytime of the year and charge heads a fee to come up in the spot. But here’s the real kicker…shit is B.Y.O.B. No breaking your pockets at the bar, you can come in with a keg if you like.

Now back in B-More, cabarets are really few and far between. Things might be different now since I’ve been gone for a while, but back then they were a rarity. Now in my new home of Detroit (yeah, yeah, I know I said I live in Southfield, but I can claim this pothole invested city if I like) cabarets are like galas or some shit. People live for cabarets in The D. You can probably find several of them poppin’ off on the weekend. And people like to dress up to go to them. Cabarets back east – straight jeans and sneakers. That’s my flava. ;o)

This particular cabaret Rick’s girlfriend was throwin (for her birthday or some reason or another) was taking place near Edmonson Village. It was a little hall right up the street from that old thugged out nightclub called the Underground. Rick asked me to come, so I came through with a six-pack in tow.

The spot was okay, the food was hittin’ and the music was cool, so I went out on the floor to get my two-step on. When I came back to our table that’s when I saw HER. She was short, brown skinned, attractive and dressed kinda fly. I asked Rick’s girl if she knew the girl and she was like yeah, that’s my cousin. “Technically, her people married my people and now we all family,” she said. “But she cool and single, want me to introduce you to her?” I was like bet, do that. She introduced me to the girl (well actually she was a grown ass woman, while she looked to be about 28 or so, she was actually about 39 years old – I was also shocked as hell to learn that she had two daughters not that much younger than I). At the time I was around 29.

Ms. Older But Sexy and me actually hit it off pretty well. We danced and then later exchanged phone numbers. She made me promise to call her. A few days later, I did just that. Over the phone she was feelin’ a dude a lil sumpthin’ so I invited her over to my place for dinner during the week. Around that time, when I was really trying to impress a woman, that was my usual modus operandi. Get ‘em on the home turf, fatten them up on dinner and then go in for the kill shot (lol).

She came through, got her grub on, got her drink on and then I “piped her” to close out the evening. After getting smashed off she tried to pull my playa card.

Ms. Older But Sexy: So is this how you do with all the ladies?

Serial Dater: What do you mean?

Ms. Older But Sexy: Get them over to your place, feed them and then get ‘em into bed?

Serial Dater: Naw not at all (lying). That would imply that I planned all this. All of this happened spontaneously. I thought we was feeling each other?

Ms. Older But Sexy: We are. I’m just saying…We ain’t even go anywhere but to your house and already we fuckin’. Dinner was cool, but I like to go out too.

So there you have it. She wasn’t really concerned about the time span for giving up the panties, but more so the fact that she ain’t got no “event memories” to show for it. I swear women love to quantify things or measure things out on a barter and commerce scale. Quid Pro Quo (hey that’s two Latin references in the same story) – I gave you something, so now you give me something. I think DMX said it best in the song, What these bitches want from a nigga? – “I gave you what you gave me boo…a nut!”

So that weekend, I took her out to the movies. It was Saturday night, November 25, 2000. I remember distinctively because of the events that unfolded that evening. Two movies had come out that I wanted to see: Unbreakable or The 6th Day. Normally I would’ve traveled to one of my favorite theaters, either White Marsh or Owings Mills, where I always had a good experience. But on this occasion I was in the area and decided to catch the movie at Hoyts West Nursery 14.

We get there and things are going wrong from the start. The lines were hella long (for a holiday weekend) and there were only two ticket sellers, it took me damn near a half an hour to get tickets, the theater ran out of popcorn and the concession area was disgustingly dirty. I was not a happy camper and my date kept trying to tell me to not worry about it. But I’m black and the shit was festering, so I was gonna have to unload on somebody. That somebody would be the kid at the counter.

Counter boy #1: Can I help you sir?

Serial Dater: Does it always take 20 minutes to get service at the concessions?

Counter boy #1: What can I get you today sir?

Serial Dater: Seeing how you are a movie theater without popcorn, I’ll take two orders of Nachos and one box of Rasinets (dude rings up my order but then his partner behind the counter adds his two cents).

Counter boy #2: Don’t forget to charge him extra for the cheese.

WTF!!!!

Now I’ve been out to a lot of places and ordered nachos and never did I ever have to pay extra for the cheese (maybe for the hot peppers but never the cheese). This was asinine to me.

Serial Dater: What the hell do you mean, charge him extra for cheese!?

Counter boy #2: Cheese is an additional charge.

Serial Dater: I ain’t paying extra for cheese yo. That shit comes with it.

Counter boy #1: Sir there isn’t a problem. I’m not charging you extra for cheese.

So now Counter boy #2 is pissed because the other dude circumvented his authority and made him look like he didn’t know what he was talking about, which he didn’t. So he begins giving me mad ‘tude. Counter boy #2 slams my nachos on the counter knocking some of them onto the filthy counter. I look at him like he’s crazy and say to him, “You need to replace the nachos you dropped from my order.” What he did next pushed me over the top. He took his bare hands picked up the dislodged nachos from the dirty counter and put them back into my order.

Serial Dater: Yo you must be out of your fuckin’ mind!

Counter boy #2: What are you complaining about?

Serial Dater: You bitch! How the fuck you gonna touch my food with your dirty ass bare hands.

Counter boy #2: Aw man fuck this!

Serial Dater: Fuck this? Fuck you nigga!

And with that, I tried to grab him from over the counter and pull him over. My date grabbed me to pull me back. Counter boy #1 grabbed his boy and sent him away. He then tried to squelch the whole thing before someone got fired. The only thing fired was me. I was fired up and tryna set it off up in that camp.

We eventually made it to the movie theatre but I was too upset to even enjoy watching the 6th Day. After the movie, I dropped ole gurl off and tried to forget about the events that had transpired. That was until Monday when I went in to work.

I had actually put the theater incident behind me, but then a co-worker asked me how my weekend was and it drudged up all those angry memories. So I took a page from white people and I wrote a scathing letter to the theater’s management and emailed it. I got a call back within 10 minutes from the location’s manager. He repeatedly apologized and sent me four complimentary movie passes in the mail. That’s all I wanted, so I was satisfied. After that I calmed down and laughed about the whole thing. I then emailed the letter I wrote, to a female friend of mine to read and laugh about too. But what I didn’t know was that she forwarded the letter to another friend of ours – a woman who lives to give corporations “the business.”

This woman then researched the corporate hierarchy of the company then emailed the letter to the VP of Operations in upstate New York. I then received a personal email from the VP of Ops himself – apologizing and wanting to make right. He then sent me six more free movie passes and three of his business cards. On the back of his business card he hand wrote, “Give him whatever he wants!” And then he signed it. I was impressed and in awe at the same time. Wow, I actually heard back from someone of importance. And here I would’ve stopped at just the theater’s manager.

So with all of these free passes I was in date euphoria. I didn’t care if a brawd didn’t like the movies, she was going anyway. Cause that’s just the type of guy that am (lol). So after receiving the tickets, I took a date to the very same theater where I had the incident. Unfortunately, that was the only Hoyts even remotely close to me. So we go in, use the passes and what not and then go up to the concession stand for snacks. Testing out my newfound perks I pull out the business card with the note and hand it to the Counter boy. He looks at it as if it were a piece of gold from the lost tribe of the Incas. “Wow somebody must’ve really screwed up in order for you to get this,” he said. Homey didn’t even know how to ring it up, so he called a supervisor over to show him what to do. The supervisor read the card and instantaneously, it was like I was a VIP in a 5-star restaurant. “Get this gentlemen whatever he wants and see to it that he doesn’t have any problems.”

Man I ordered so much shit at that counter – popcorn, slushies, candy, nachos (w/cheese), pretzels, hotdogs, cocoa – whatever my heart desired. I had two trays full of shit. One of the Counter Boys had to help me carry it into the theater. I was rollin’ Augustus Gloop style – FAT. My date was like damn, you got it like that?

I was like yeah shorty… I know people.









Outro

“Y'all niggas deal with emotions like bitches
What's sad is I love you 'cause you're my brother”

Nas – Ether