A throwaway parody to get it out my head.

The Cars' "Just What I Needed":


Your Table's Not Ready
by Kit FitzSimons
I don't mind you eating here;
That's what a restaurant's for.
But tell me why you couldn't wait
Politely by the door?
This isn't something you decide.
None of our waiters wait that side!
I don't mind you eating here,
But please don't eat right there.

I can't read your mind from here
Here at the hostess stand.
You came in when my back was turned.
This cafe's undermanned, yeah.
It's not that we can't serve you well. No,
It's more you're there, but we can't tell.
I can't read your mind unless
I've shown you to your chair.

Won't you please wait to be seated?
(wait to be seated)
That way I'll know that you're here.
Won't you please wait to be seated?
(wait to be seated)
I can't be any more clear.

I don't mind your right to choose
Exactly where you sit, sit.
The customer is always right,
But here's what I don't get, yeah:
You sat before I saw you. Lord!
Now you complain you've been ignored.
I don't mind your right to choose,
But why not clue me in?

Won't you please wait to be seated?
(wait to be seated)
You ain't got nothing to lose.
Won't you please wait to be seated?
(wait to be seated)
While I go grab you menus?

Won't you please wait to be seated?
(wait to be seated)
You needed somewhere to feed.
Won't you please wait to be seated?
(wait to be seated)
I needed someone to lead.
Yeah, yeah, believe me.

Please wait to be seated!
Please wait to be seated!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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My subleased townhouse has a fireplace that we've never used, so my "landlady" called the Fire Department to come inspect it so I could legally use the thing when it gets cold around here (you know, in February).

I waited around with no word until the Anti-Witching Hour (noon) when suddenly I was interrupted whilst sitting before my cold fireplace by a noise like someone playing Stars & Stripes Forever on a dollar-store digital piano. It turned out to be my cell phone, which I'd forgotten to turn back to Vibrate earlier. It was my landlady. We hadn't spoken in seven...teen hours, but she still spoke like death warmed over:

"You will be visited by a representative from the Chapel Hill Fire Department today. Expect him at 1pm. Bewaaaaaaaaaare!"

Sure enough, shortly thereafter, three spirits of the CHFD arrived. But instead of coming one after the next, they filed into my living room and the Spirit of CHFD Present inspected my fireplace while the Spirits of CHFD Past and Future stood by and --I assume-- made sure I didn't try to make a run for it.

Among the three Spirits there were two fathers and two sons (oh, the old brainteasers are the best), and CHFD Present kept asking Past for answers he already knew, and sending Future to the firetruck outside several times for forms and pamphlets and smoke detectors that it turned out we didn't need.

In the end, I discovered that the Spirits had inspected my fireplace in one afternoon (=15 minutes) as if by magic. I still had time to change my ways! To vacuum out the dust around the edges! To buy a starter log! To not die of carbon monoxide poisoning!

Oh, what a fool I'd been! I had not realized there would be an entire family of CHFD Spirits ready to invade my home at the first sign of my thinking about warming myself. Damn me; I'm such a heat miser.


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