Breakfast at Hitler's

the worst thing you can do is hand me a microphone during the time when the coffee has yet to kick in and i'm not entirely sure if i'm awake or if i'm in the lawnmower man.

but a good way to trick me into taking the mic is by promising free bacon and eggs.

earlier in the week, my boss told me he wanted me to attend a business networking meeting as his spokesperson. this meeting would include me dressing nicely, and trying to charm business-folk into becoming clients via seven-minute pitch. and waking up at 6am.

the meeting was at schroeder's, which seemed to be a german bar-restaurant hybrid, and i arrived too early.

"doesn't it remind you of springtime for hitler?" a random old lady asked.

i ignored her because i was still frightened by the fact schroeder's was not providing free coffee with the free breakfast-- just tea.

"you know, that mel brooks movie?" she asked, while poking me in the elbow.

"the producers," i told her, "that's what the movie is called."

"this whole place reminds me of hitler," she went on, "we should all sing springtime for hitler before the day is over. look at these murals!"

there were pre-wwii paintings spattered across the walls, but 6am is too early to discuss 1930's artwork, hitler, or musicals. i just tried to keep ignoring her while stealing as much bacon as possible.

"i'm jewish," she exclaimed, "so i can have this one. it's all we have. there's only 2% of us left now. so we have springtime for hitler and we can sing it, and we can laugh, and everyone else is left out."

"i'm not sure i follow," i mumbled, "but as long as you're laughing."

the little lady left me to my bacon, and moved on to ask another business networker about his thoughts on a hitler sing-along.

i know my boss could not have warned me that there would be an old jewish woman with the social skills of a cat-lady, but he really didn't tell me a whole lot of anything beyond the free bacon. i had asked what i'd need to do when i arrived at the meeting and he told me i was going to talk about our company-- but he didn't elaborate. when i asked what the general age demographic would be, he told me this:

"stop asking so many questions! you're good at bullshitting: you'll be fine!"

for the record, i really only asked two questions. and one of them shouldn't count because it should've been answered without my asking.

so.

i sat with my breakfast, occasionally introducing myself to other attendees as they entered-- mostly because the general demographic turned out to be more specific than general, and it was specifically late-middle-aged white business men and women. there were no young people, no seeming artists, and no weirdos. other than the lady who really wanted to sing springtime for hitler.

the first speaker was a lady from austria (and i caught the jewish lady seethe), she informed us that "austria" is not where kangaroos come from. and then told us that we may be unaware of her past as a go-go dancer. then she provided pictures to prove that she had once danced in a tiny bikini top and shiny metallic pants at clubs across the world. and then she segued into her pitch as a marketing consultant. she segued poorly.

before she was done, she handed us each a ruler-- it was 12 inches long, wooden, and had her company logo printed across it.

"this is not for measuring," she said, "no. this is for a little spanking!"

was i actually the only normal person in the room?

after the kinky austrian marketing consultant, we all heard from a public relations man. he was charming-- as i would've hoped-- and told us of his various tactics, successes, and knowledge of dog-breeds. i think he may have only mentioned the dog-thing to get us to laugh, but it was still slightly more professionally implemented when compared to the option of go-go dancing.

when it was my turn to speak, i realized i had absolutely nothing prepared. my mind had been dwelling on the lack of coffee and the over-abundance of weirdos.

"thank you for having me," i started, "this is my first time here, but i really appreciate the free bacon."

the crowd laughed. good.

"i recognize some of you from our building," i continued, "but for those of you i've never met, i want to explain what me and my team do."

and then i sort of realized i had no idea how to put what we do into words. some of the words that went through my head were accurate, but extremely boring-- and that didn't help either. so i just paused for a while.

"if you can imagine the over-achieving older brother of kinkos, that is probably close to what we are," i said, "except not mean."

that one didn't seem to make sense to anyone.

"look," i said, "as someone who has never been here, i cannot get over how many documents and business cards i've seen pass around the room-- and it's only been thirty minutes-- well, we specialize in those sorts of prints. and not just that: we engrave, emboss, we do litigation, perfect-binds, velo-binds, coil-binds, and just the other day we shipped nearly 2,000lbs of custom-made binders to our visa clients in singapore. we're kind of a big deal-- and there's not much we can't do."

they liked that.

"i mean, name something. what would you like to see made for your office? anything at all."

"what about themography business cards?"

"oh, those are great!" i said, "and yes, we do them. we also do foil prints, if that's your thing."

"what's your turn around time like?"

"the best thing to do is check yelp," i said, "because you won't believe me. but i'll tell you now that if you've got an important order, we'll just stay open late and finish it for you. be reasonable about that one though, because i already work 55 hours a week."

everyone seemed happy enough, and i wasn't sure how to end the speech-- the 7-minute buzzer had not gone off, and so i tried the only other thing i knew to do.

"does anyone else have anything they'd like to ask?"

the crazy jewish lady stood up.

"oh, it's springtime, for hitler and germany!" she sang, "deustchland is happy and gay..."

she looked around to see if anyone else would join in. she had a horrible singing voice. and, by the looks of most people, i was not the only person she had approached before the meeting to discuss how she felt the restaurant-pub resembled a hitler hangout.

"there is going to be a precipitous downfall in financial times, march 23rd," she stated sternly, "we are headed to bad times."

and then she sat down. she was an astrologist. for real, that is her job and this was her marketing.

after the business networking experience i was very concerned that i may have still been laying in my bed, walking around in a lucid dream. but, to the best of my knowledge, all of that actually happened and i was actually conscious.

anyway, i strolled into work after finally grabbing some coffee and quietly went to file some invoices. i needed to sort of readjust after everything, and invoicing always needs to get done anyway.

"so how did it go?" my boss asked.

"it went well" i said quickly, "hey, so i have a question about this invoice..."

SUBJECT AVERTED.

p.s. - if you're starving, and feeling risky, you can easily walk into schroeder's at 7am on wednesday and eat the free breakfast. as long as you're dressed nicely no one is going to be the wiser. till they ask who you work for.

p.p.s. - i personally recommend that you do not try the above p.s.