I Don't Work Here, Stupid

He snapped his fingers at the tuxedoed figure gliding by. "Two martinis, dry. With olives," he barked.

The snappee paused in mid-stride. He moonwalked the six feet back to the snapper's table, then did an elaborate pirouette to face him. "Did you snap at me?"

The snapper was also dressed in a tux. He was in his mid-60s, balding but still clinging to a horseshoe of short-cropped white hair, and a matching, closely trimmed, white beard. His wife was dressed in a sequined gown of purple and blue, with silver highlights. While not exactly dripping with pearls, she was adorned with a fair amount of jewelry. She was neither gorgeous nor ugly, and an honest man would have to say that she was aging well.

The snappee was much younger, about 30 or 35, rather on the slim side but not scrawny. He was wearing an annoyed look, as you would expect from someone who had just been snapped at.

"Yes, I did," said the older man. "We've been sitting here for a half hour already. Now get us our drinks. Two martinis, dry, with olives."

The young man sighed deeply. He looked left towards the maître d', then right towards the kitchen doors.

"First of all, don't you ever snap at me. I'm not a dog or a trained seal. In fact, because you snapped at me, I'm going to walk away from your table — I'm sorry, ma'am," he said, with a nod to the woman, before turning back to her companion, "— and ignore you for the rest of the night, you entitled snob."

The older man started to get angry and rise from his seat. "You can't talk to me like that! I make more money—"

But the younger man put his hand in the old man's face to stop him. "Yeah, I know," he said, "You make more money in a day than I do in a year. Hell, the way you tip waiters, it's probably more like ten years."

"Second," he continued, "do you see that pretty lady in the red dress, the one that looks like Eowyn from The Lord of the Rings?" He gestured to a woman wearing a red strapless gown, sitting at a table about 15 feet away, who did in fact resemble the Australian actress Miranda Otto. "That's my date. I'm not a waiter. I don't work here, you stupid, braying jackass."

The older man again started to stand up, and this time he was stopped with just an index finger. "Sit down! Third, I just got back from the restroom, and you weren't even here when I went in. You haven't been here for 30 minutes. You haven't even been here for five minutes. Not only are you a snob and a jackass, you're a liar and a bully. You oughta just get up and leave now, because you've set yourself up for a night of terrible service."

The young man spun on his heel and glided back to his table.

The Presidents' Club

The massive front door opened, and a Secret Service agent, acting as doorman, receptionist, butler, and guard, examined the pair through dark glasses. He nodded at them and stepped back, and they stepped into the foyer. A second secret service agent appeared, offered Melania his arm and a smile, and escorted her to a room on the left. A chorus of female voices welcomed her as the door opened, and then closed, leaving Donald and the guard standing in the foyer.

The guard stood there, impassive and alert, staring at him through the dark glasses with barely furrowed brows and a stone face.

Donald wasn't used to being kept waiting. He tried to match the guard's impassive stance, but he got restless after less than a minute, and found himself rocking back and forth slightly. He frowned, and made himself stop. He had a great urge to pat his pockets, or put his hands in them, but instead he decided it was time to intimidate the guard. He folded his arms across his chest. He tucked his chin down and inhaled to inflate his chest. He rocked forward slightly and stood on tiptoe inside his Armani loafers to stand taller. Then he glared at the guard without saying a word, trying to give the impression that he was glaring down at him.

The guard didn't move. Didn't even change expression.

Donald breathed shallowly, trying to keep his chest puffed up. He wasn't about to lose this game of chicken. Soon, his calves started burning from the effort of staying on his toes. He was getting seriously pissed off, at the guard and at the rest of them for keeping him waiting. This gave him the strength to hold the pose, but only long enough for him to get dizzy. His shallow breathing was making him hyperventilate, and he had locked his knees, the one thing they had told him not to do when he was in the military academy.

"How long are they going to keep me waiting here?"

"Until they're ready for you." The only thing that had moved were the guard's lips, and those no more than was necessary to form the words.

Donald could hear the sounds of animated conversation from the women in the other room. The library? The parlor? The den? What would you call a room like that in this house? As their Escalade had pulled up the long driveway, he had thought it looked like more like a small mansion than a lodge. His properties were bigger, of course. And more ornate. And more expensive.

He finally gave up on the pose, exhaled, and sunk into his shoes. Now he really did glare at the guard. The jerk had beaten him, without even playing the game, and they both knew it. That pissed him off even more.

Finally, the black walnut double doors at the opposite end of the foyer swung slowly open. Barack filled the opening, and stared across the foyer at Donald, the way a teenager looks when he's trying to entertain his friends and opens his bedroom door to find his baby brother standing there. "It's him," he announced sullenly to the room behind him, while still staring at him.

A high-pitched voice in the room drawled, "Do we really have to let him in?"

Another Southern tenor answered, "Maybe just this once."

With a sigh, Barack moved to one side and gestured, with a graciousness that his words did not convey. "Come in," he growled.