Having worked in a restaurant once, I'm of the opinion that nobody should be allowed to get service in one until they completed a three part course on manners, patience, and how to calculate 15 percent. Anyone who's worked in a restaurant will agree.

FUNNY GUYS love to go into restaurants, because no rational person is actually willing to listen to them, but at a restaurant, the staff has little choice. If you missed my previous installments, you'll need a definition of a FUNNY GUY. A FUNNY GUY is a person who works very hard at being funny, thinks he is extremely funny, and isn't, causing great pain in misery to those subjected to their humour. It's a little like getting surgery from the guy who swears he knows the heart is up in the chest somewhere.

Servers are taught to be polite to everyone, even FUNNY GUYS. Few things are more humiliating than standing in a dopey uniform (dopey, but with a higher IQ than most customers), waiting for some FUNNY GUY to cough a twenty dollar bill and hope he actually leaves you more change. If Ghandi and Mother Theresa had ever worked in a restaurant, believe me, they'd be chain smokers with a history of random violence against people who ask for a third glass of water. Turn this other cheek, buddy.

Take the other day, when I was in a local Mexicali restaurant. At a table nearby was a FUNNY GUY, laughing at his own jokes. FUNNY GUYS are always laughing at their own jokes, loud enough so that the rats out in the alley behind the restaurant are thinking "Who's this asshole?" The FUNNY GUY in question was impressing himself with his ability to imitate famous characters. Some FUNNY GUYS have the ability to make their voices slightly lower or higher. And they use this one FUNNY voice when they want to impersonate a Frenchman, a stereotypical homosexual, Donald Duck, Carl Sagan, whatever.

I feel it is my sacred duty to humiliate FUNNY GUYS with FUNNY VOICES. It's easy, just guess out loud what the voice was supposed to be.

"Very FUNNY, guy. Adolph Hitler, right?"

"No," says the FUNNY GUY, slightly non-plussed. "Marilyn Monroe."

"Oh."

But actually, I have to give this FUNNY GUY at my local Mexicali restaurant credit. He did an excellent Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean that honestly, without the usual bitter sarcasm. He sounded exactly like Arnold. Bang on.

The only problem was that he was using his Arnold voice to say things like "Luke, I am your father. Come to the Dark Side..."

And then he laughed. Loud. Fortunately, I have a guaranteed cure for this behavior. Read the next line, and I guarantee you'll never laugh at your own jokes again.

Bob Saget laughs at his own jokes.

And he's the only one who laughs at them at all. Get the message?

There are a certain people who you want to get served first in a restaurant. FUNNY GUYS are one of them. While they're eating, they can't make "jokes." I bought this guy five plates of nachos to shut him up. His Yoda sounded like Michael Jackson. When he announced that he was going to do Michael Jackson, and sounded like Bill Clinton, I interrupted him and then told him that his voice wasn't high enough for Michael Jackson. I asked if perhaps castration with blunt garden shears would help.

"I was just trying to be friendly," he muttered, hurt. Not as hurt though, as if I'd actually castrated him.

The best FUNNY GUYS with FUNNY VOICES are the ones who impersonate actors impersonating other people. Particularly if they're eight-year old Saturday Night Live bits. Oh please, can we hear you doing Dana Carvey doing George Bush saying "Not gonna do it! Not gonna gloat?" How about Hans and Franz promising to "pump you up"? You know that Saturday Night Live always milk a gag at least five years after it stops being funny, but WHEN YOU DO IT, SUDDENLY IT BECOMES FUCKING HILARIOUS ALL OVER AGAIN. GOSH MR. FUNNY GUY, WHAT'S YOUR SECRET?

Can you do Mr. T? How about ET? Or wait, Richard Nixon? How about anyone that hasn't been dead for 20 years?

The voices are really one of the most pathetic tricks in the FG's limited repertoire. At least when he's in the elevator eyeing a case of beer someone is bringing up to their apartment, he has a chance to stumble on something legitimately funny. Or at least raise a grin on your face when you discover that someone else has the courage to tell a FUNNY GUY that it is unlikely, though not impossible that a six pack will fit up his rectum. But when he insists on bringing in the voices, he's just going over material that has already been gone over a million times before. The FUNNY GUY'S need to shove an aspect of his personality down everyone's throat is ever more apparent.

I will say no more on FUNNY GUYS and their FUNNY VOICES. Nothing I can say here can compare to the immortal words of Rowan Atkinson as Lord Black Adder:

"Oh, well, we are proud of our comic serving-wench voice, aren't we? Just because we can say 'zur' instead of `sur.' Essential at all social gatherings, the tedious little turd who keeps putting on amusing voices. What else have you got in your outstandingly inventive repertoire, I wonder? Ah, a brilliant drunk Glaswegian, no doubt. An hilarious black man: `See you, Jimmy,' 'Where am dat warty-melon.' Fabulous! I can't wait to see your side-splitting poof and your funny little croaky one who isn't anyone in particular, but is such a scream. And most of all, I like the one you do all the time, the fat-headed German chamberpot standing in front of me."

Incidentally, I do a wicked impersonation of Black Adder, but because I ain't a FUNNY GUY, I'll spare you.

Jester presses 4 on the keyboard to select a water arrow.