The Replacements "pleased to meet me"

In 1987 I was in high school working at a family own pizzeria. I was making minimum wage ($3.35/hr, of all the recollections that's the one that stings my age) but would have worked there for free pizza.  It was a safe haven from my abusive step father. I worked too many hours for a kid my age but between that and school I managed to not be home much at all which was cool with me. Like most jobs you make friends with your co-workers, this was my first experience with this but it felt for the first time you could hang out and have deep conversations and joke with people outside your social cliques.  I was a metal head dabbling in punk at the time (mostly whatever punk bands appeared as stickers on thrash metal guitarist's axes). One of the kids who worked there and became one of my best friends had an older brother who had broken down the music barrier for him and was already into punk and some indie. One time i heard my friend take a phone-in order, we could tell from his stammering and body language someone was really laying into him on the other end. After slamming the receiver down (a release today's kids will never know) he took the order slip to the pizza making station and started making the pie. His grumbling grew in intensity until he started methodically taking each individual pepperoni and throwing them on the floor one and a time and stomping on each and every one. To this day I've never seen such a sustained seething thoughtful anger.
That guy introduced me to #thereplacements pleased to me me had just been released and was the tape he brought to work to play on our grease covered radio. At the time I was open to anything I wasn't hearing on the radio or MTV (stuff the girls we occasionally worked with wanted to hear, so it began)
I really don't know what to add to the replacement's mythos. For me these were rock songs that spoke in languages that pop didn't but still were  relatable. I became a huge fan of their discography and this album was my entry. Every time I hear this album I can smell that pizzeria.
The real lesson here though is: don't be a douche bag when ordering take out, unless you wanted extra chuck taylor.