Atakan Yilmaz

You know, I think about this sometimes, and I've thought about it a lot lately... How many of us are where we thought we'd be at this point in our lives? And not just like, 'When I was little I thought I'd be an old man once I hit 30 because I had no concept', or like, 'When I was ten I thought I'd be a superstar with lots of money and hot wife and a pet armadillo' (Don't judge). I mean...

I never really thought I'd be the kind of guy who owned a bar in a little town out in Nowhere, The Midwest, USA. I was pretty sure I'd be a doctor or a businessman when I was a little kid, or at least married by this point - Though let's all thank God that's not the case, because if anyone knows I'm not in that position yet, it's God.

It makes you wonder, though, how much of where you are know is affected by your choices, and how much was out of your hands. I've worked hard to get where I am, but I've had a lot of luck, too. Still, I didn't ask for a lot of things in my life, the good and the bad, and I know we're all like that to an extent. Just like a dog doesn't ask to be born to be adopted by a rich heiress, or be put on the street in a cardboard box. But humans also have choices they get to make, unlike dogs, that can change a lot of things.

I guess what I'm sayin' is that we never know how things are gonna turn out when we start, which is really just a long, philosophical way of justifying why I walked by the animal control building today and somehow through a crazy and mysterious series of events came home with a fluffy little... thing.

Also, ten-year-old me didn't know shit.

So after a long talk with the little sister, I've been told that I spend too much time working or by myself. Part of me wonders what the hell she knows as she's in New York, but then I think about the last time I went out and I realize...

Yeah, I'm not sure when that was.

So let's, uh, do that. Someone. If someone wants.

Today has been a circus from the beginning. So I go out to the Tavern to take in the food shipment for this week, and everything looks good. I go through everything to mark it off inventory, and I get to the fries. I open the box to check it - No big deal, just want to make sure it's all right.

Me: What is this?

Guy: Fries.

Me: No, it ain't.

The guy looks.

Guy: That's crawfish.

Me: Sure is.

Are you kidding me? So I open the next box... More crawfish. All of them. There are two things wrong with this, first off:

1.) How do you mistake crawfish for french fries?

2.) The hell am I supposed to do with this?

So I called the place and they're all, "Oh we're so sorry Mr. Yilmaz, we'll have the correct order sent right away, but they probably won't get there until Saturday because we're kind of backed up, so sorry, feel free to keep the crawfish." Right, okay. So now I have way too many crawfish and absolutely no french fries right before the weekend.

So I went down to the grocery store, and the rest of my natural life will be consumed by peeling and slicing potatoes.

And then my mother calls while I'm peeling potatoes to tell me my brother's wife is pregnant. Awesome. Good for them. But I can sense it, and here it comes -

"Atakan, when are you going to have children and make me a babaanne?"

Never. I'm too busy peeling potatoes for that. So she goes into this whole long speech about how much she loves me but I'm not getting any younger and it would make baba so happy - Which is crap because I'm pretty sure that Mahmut's kid is all he cares about, which is fine by me.

I finally got her off the phone after an hour, and I never want to see another potato (or my brother, for that matter) again.

I'm gonna be glad when this day is over.

...

Oh, and:

All-you-can-eat crawfish $7.99 this weekend only @ Park Tavern.

I don't want to look at them. Get them out of here. Please.

( APPLICATION )