The first of many…

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I’m not sure if my first real post should be about last night, or about a few funny stories to give you all a taste of how my posts will be… Last night did hold a few accounts of hilarity, but not nearly as much as say, some nights last summer. Maybe I will just mix both in…

I get a lot of stupid questions. Maybe these people had a valid reason for thinking their question was important. If they did, they certainly did not share it with me. I understand that some people are not from my area, or even from my side of the country. I live in an area high in tourism, especially over the summer months. So some of our food options really are new to them, or have different names that they’ve never discovered before (like something we offer called ‘Disco Fries’, some people have never heard of gravy and cheese on their french fries). Whatever the excuse is, sometimes I really just want to hit these people with a fist full of common sense.

For example: Just the other night I had the pleasure of answering, “What’s the difference between a chicken cheesesteak, and a cheesesteak?” This was immediately followed by giggles from her two friends, and a hurried explanation to the one sitting next to her. She mumbled something about lettuce and tomato, but I didn’t really hear what she said. Either way, she was waiting for an answer. I’m not kidding, she was seriously asking for the difference between the two. To which I replied, “One is made with chicken, the other is beef.” She accepted my answer, and continued to order something that had nothing to do with her question.

That’s the usual experience when it comes to questions. “I want to know about this, and then after you take your time to explain I’m going to order something completely irrelevant.” Or even better, I answer one question three and four times because the other occupants at the table can’t be bothered to listen to me. Such as, explaining the options of salad dressings when someone orders a salad as their meal. Their buddy, who was present for this whole list of dressings, will usually say, “Do you have (insert dressing)?” Yup. That just happened to be the first one I listed, thanks for paying attention. This same thing is repeated often times with bread options for sandwiches. Or someone wants to know what kind of ice cream I can use in the sundaes, and their friends needs me to repeat the options for flavors available to go on top of waffles. Do they think the flavors have miraculously changed in the past ten seconds, and I magically know about it? Maybe. What I want to do is scream, “Am I not important enough for you to listen to when I say these things? I don’t like repeating myself six times in a row, asshole.” Do I say that? Not even close. I instead repeat myself, word for word, as many times as needed.

Or, my all time favorite. The phone rings. I answer. Now, it’s important to remember that I come in to work at midnight, and usually don’t leave until around 8am. “Are you guys open?” What I want to say is, No, I’m paid to sit here all night with the doors locked and to answer the phone. Just to tell you, “Sorry, we’re closed.” But I have to be nice, so instead, “We’re open twenty-four hours.” The other variation is just as annoying. “What time do you guys close?” I want to say, “It’s 3:30 in the morning. But we closed four hours ago. I just decided to sit here, instead of going home.” I give the same answer as before, in what I hope to be a nice enough sounding voice. I probably get a little too angry over these calls. But when you’re busy, and you have to waste time on three or four of these calls in a row, it does tend to become a problem.

Image by jasohill via Flickr

But not everything I want to tell you is about crappy customer interactions. I do have a lot of fun at work. Like hearing the different names for dishes around the country. One man came in for breakfast around the end of my shift, and asked me for Nova Eggs. My first thought was flaming eggs of doom. I just stared at him for a moment, put an overly excited look on my face, and pretended like he’d just given me a present. “I’ve never heard of Nova Eggs. What’s that??” I asked him. Luckily, he knew I was joking around and laughed. I don’t remember his answer too well, but I do know that at some point he mentioned Lox. If you don’t already know, Lox is some form of smoked Salmon. Or at least, that’s how it was described to me. So really, he was asking for Lox and Eggs, which is something we actually have on the menu.

I know that last night was fun, because I got to throw a spoon. Now, none of you are going to understand why that is so funny. It has to do with something that happened between myself and a co-worker last summer. She doesn’t really have a nickname yet. I have to work on that. Anyway. I’ve thrown maybe three or four spoons over the last year, and it’s a very rare thing for me to do. Every time, it never fails to amuse us. Last night, it was in retaliation to something she did to me before hand. I waited. I plotted my revenge. And when she least expected, I took aim. And with perfect form, I threw the spoon clear across the kitchen, smacked her dead center on her left butt cheek, and promptly crippled over in laughter. She quickly joined in with laughing, and was momentarily too stunned to finish walking towards her destination.

This is just a mild example of our antics. :D

Don’t even get me started on when we’ve had too much coffee and the place is empty at 4am. That’s when the really goofy stuff starts.