My Restaurant

Although I’ve worked as a waiter, off and on, for years, I never wanted to open a restaurant myself…

Until, that is, a friend suggested I open a gaming themed breakfast nook.

Space enough for whatever tabletop game you might want to partake in over a pleasant morning meal, along with delicious breakfast delicacies prepared for you while you played, it seemed the natural next step in the evolution of the gaming café.

Though I admit, I didn’t fully sign on ‘til it was pointed out to me that opening a gaming-themed breakfast restaurant would allow me to name three of the menu items “Waffle Good,” “Waffle Evil,” and “Waffle Neutral.”

Waffle Evil, we decided after careful consideration, would be bacon and ghost pepper sauce waffles, the sort of spicy treat that’s guaranteed to punch you right in the taste buds, an assault upon your senses that left you reeling. People might wonder if they could order it sans ghost pepper sauce. And the answer would be: No.

Waffle Good, on the other hand, would be dessert waffles, piled high with fresh fruit, syrup, cream both iced and whipped, and then sprinkled in chocolate shavings, a decadent feast that even the most humourless of taste buds would be forced to stop and take appreciative note of…

Waffle Neutral would just be waffles, with butter. Waffles and butter. That’s it.

This notion tickled us so much that we knew we had to open the restaurant, and to our surprise, the young woman we talked to at the bank agreed, and our loan was approved immediately! It took a lot of hard work getting the place up and running, but six months later we had our own little breakfast and gaming parlour, open for business!

And then, six months after that, closed for business, our operating capital gone and what few customers we’d found calling for our blood, the games they’d invested so much money and emotional energy into ruined, forever.

Waffles, it turns out, should not be combined with tabletop gaming. The syrup gets EVERYWHERE…

...on paintball.

New idea for a business: Let’s open a paintball range.

Now; I know paintball ranges already exist, paintball ranges built within warehouses, paintball ranges out in the woods, paintball ranges for every occasion, in every style, for every theme, and with this in mind you might think that opening a paintball range would not qualify as a “New” idea.

I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. This is a very new idea, because MY paintball range will offer a service no other range will offer.

What service is that? Why, it’s so simple that when I tell you you’ll be shocked that nobody’s thought to do this already…

You see, my paintball range will offer, in addition to many the enjoyable afternoon of paintball that we’ve all come to expect from such a place, a special, private session for two, in which you and a friend, or indeed a rival, can participate in a very special form of conflict resolution.

The room will be smaller than the regular course, of course, and a gun and one paintball will be provided each complainant. The grievance will be heard and one last opportunity given for either party to back down, to abandon his or her claim, to admit the other right that conflict might yet be averted.

And then, assuming neither party chooses to do so, ten paces, turn and fire.

There’s an old-schooliness to settling disputes with pistols at dawn whose appeal is undeniable, even if in this modern age murdering somebody just to win an argument is frowned upon, and I feel like paintball would be a good, legal, nonlethal way to bring back some of the magic of a bygone era. You each take your shot, if one hits the other the argument’s settled, if not honor is at minimum defended and you go your separate ways, agreeing never to speak on the matter over which you fought ever again. It wouldn’t be the sort of solution everyone would be drawn to, or the sort you’d apply to every problem, but I think enough people would take us up on the offered service that it would be a proven success for us.

At minimum it would be a great opportunity to slap the shit out of somebody with a glove.

So that’s my idea for a business, and I think you’ll agree it’s a good one. We’ll be providing a service no other paintball course provides, and it will be a service people genuinely want, though they may not know that they want it right now.

Business, as they say, will boom.

My excellent reasoning has convinced you of the worthiness of my plan, yes? You will approve my loan?

You won’t?

Sir, I’m deeply offended by the implications your refusal has regarding my ability to run a small business, and I assure you, this insult will not stand!

I shall meet you in front of this bank at dawn, and we shall settle this like men!