My Recent Life According to My Yelp.com Reviews

by Kathleen Hale

I recently had to take some time off from my job due to carpal tunnel syndrome, which, for the record, is little like crumpling aluminum foil between the tendons in your wrists and then sticking your arms in a microwave.

I’m not trying to sound brave or anything. As an athlete, this is by far the dorkiest injury I have ever sustained — worse, even, than my most embarrassing ski-vacation-injuries. Including the time I skied into a tree and got my head stuck between the trunk and one of the branches, and then started breaking out into a rash from the pine needles while my family snapped photos and laughed and pulled roughly on my ankles. Or the time when I was twelve and really wanted a goggle tan and secretly eschewed sunscreen and got second degree burns all over my face (read: swollen skin and large yellow blisters), and looked so absolutely terrible that my family made me wear a red bandana for the mountain-top-Christmas-photo, like a bandit.

Anyway, below I have provided some of my recent Yelp reviews to give you an idea of how I’ve spent my time off.*

Has Beans (.01 miles)

The coffee at this place was so potent that I nearly shit my pants upon finishing. Luckily, it had a bathroom. 4/5 stars

BAGELS (.01 miles)

There was no bathroom at this place, and I had to leave right in the middle of a particularly gripping chapter of The Hunger Games in order to change my pants. 2 stars

South Bar (.01 miles)

Too much coffee lately (the air around me was starting to vibrate!) so I decided to start reading Catching Fire at a nearby bar — a place I know is cool because I once saw Jesse Eisenberg here holding a tambourine. A little dark for my reading purposes, but also much emptier during the day, and especially during the morning hours. It’s like I own the world. 5 stars

Black Horse Pub (.1 miles)

Apparently South Bar wasn’t actually open sometimes when I went there? The assholes started yelling at me about using the back door “outside business hours” (read, 9 a.m.), so I knocked down their rating from 5 to 0 stars. Gotcha, bitches.

Anyway I went a little farther north to this place, the Black Horse Pub, and at first they left me alone, but after a few chapters of Mockingjay, the bartender, who was this totally nice guy at first, got all up in my nuts about actually ordering something. Ugh. At the same time, he had bright blue eyes and a face like George Clooney, if George Clooney were covered in tattoos and had his nose pierced like a bull, so I got a Bloody Mary, and it’s sooooo good!!! FUCKING SPICY! 4 stars

Black Horse Pub (.1 miles)

OMG EVERYONE NEDS 2 GO TO THIS PLAACCE, THE BARTENDR, EDWARD, THE 1 WIT TATTOOS IS SOOOOOOO NICE AND GIBS YOU ALL FREE DRINKS ALL DAY ALSO MOCKINGJAY SO GOD I MEAN SO GOOD LOL!!!

Civil Wedding Officiants (9.4 miles)

Um, so Edward and I apparently went to this place? I have a certificate of marriage from them and vaguely remember us going in and demanding to be “gay married toot sweet.” Also Edward’s last name is Butt, so now I’m Kathleen Butt. The whole thing is pretty foggy but the handwriting on the certificate is clear and I don’t think anybody yelled at me for vomiting on the alter. 3 stars only because I probably wouldn’t have gotten married had I not been black out drunk.

NYC Divorce Lawyer (4.8 miles)

Something I didn’t know about Edward: he’s Canadian. At first he said no way about going to see NYC Divorce Lawyer, because of citizenship, etc., but then I threatened to call immigration — which was probably a bitch move, since apparently the marriage was my idea. Anyway, now he says I’m no longer welcome at the Black Horse Pub — not even for a thimble of Bloody Mary. “A thimble.” His words. On the bright side, annulments only cost $25!!! 5 stars

Black Horse Pub (.1 miles)

Don’t go here. The service is literally horrible.

*The distances measure the distance between the reviewed establishment and my apartment.

Kathleen Hale is the author of Eat Me Gluten, and has written two young adult novels, the first of which is forthcoming from HarperCollins in 2014.

Photo via Flickr/floridagirlindc