A Strange Bird

I think I waited on a serial killer today. 

The man was so seriously creepy he made my skin crawl and I had to force myself to go to his table.  He was ghostly white, as if he just got out of prison, and had short grey hair.  He ordered a hamburger steak, medium rare, and if that's not proof of demented behaviour, I don't know what is. 

When I forced myself to his table to see if his meal was okay, he looked at me like this:

I will eat your brains.

I said to Kayla, "When the guy at Table 2 pays, tell me if you think he's a serial killer on the run."  Kayla said he didn't say a word to her when she asked if his meal was okay; just looked at her and nodded.  Yeah, he was too busy wondering what size clothes you wear.

Darren overheard us from the kitchen and he laughed at me.  I told him, "Shut up.  He knows where you live."

As I was cleaning off his table, I looked out the window and saw him drive off in a big, white, unmarked panel van...all the better for transporting bodies across state lines.

I am not lying, I wouldn't be the least bit shocked to see this dude on the national news.

The Definition of 'Rude'

Last night a group of five people came in and when I tried to seat them at Table 10, a six person booth, one of the women scrunched up her face like I was offering her a platter of poop and asked to sit at Table 16.  Table 16 is a four person booth and two women in the party were...how do I put this delicately...FAT.  One had no neck and the other could barely walk.  No way in hell were they all fitting in a four person booth.  So instead of saying, "Your fat asses won't fit" or "I guess counting isn't your forte," I said, "I'm sorry, but that section is closed."

So they looked around and the spokeswoman asked, "How about that table?" as she motioned to Table 11, also a six person booth.  I was a little confused and asked, "What is the difference?"  One of the fatties said, "I don't like to sit in a booth."

Okaay...you don't like to sit in a booth, but you've picked out two of them.  What it boils down to is you want to be disagreeable and sit anywhere other than where I'm trying to seat you.

One of the guys pointed to Table 15, a four person picnic table, and asked, "Can we sit there?"  Well, you STILL can't count, but I can push Tables 14 & 15 together so "Sure, no problem."  I walked to Table 15 with the intention of pushing it with my hip, but one of the fatties cut in front of me, nearly knocked me down and plopped her big ass on the bench.  I asked, "May I push these tables together so you can have more room?" (BECAUSE YOU WON'T FUCKING FIT AT ONE OF THEM AND I CAN'T PUSH IT WHEN YOUR FAT ASS IS ON IT.)

I placed their menus on the tables, told them Amanda would be their server & thanked them for coming to the restaurant.

The first thing they said to Amanda when she got to their table was that I was rude to them.  I was not rude.  They were being stupid and disagreeable.  When they paid their ticket, the spokeswoman told Kir I was horribly rude (I'm improving; from rude to horribly rude) and shouldn't be allowed to ( live ) work at the restaurant.  She asked, "Don't we get to sit where we want?"  No, that's why the sign reads, "Please wait to be seated" rather than "Sit wherever the fuck you want."  She further complained that they came "all the way over here" (from Lovell, where they breed with kinfolk) and I completely "ruined their night". 

No, what ruined their night was Kir and Amanda watched and heard the entire exchange and neither were willing to give them a free meal or to even discuss it with the manager.  Their ticket was $110 and they tipped Amanda two dollars, a whopping 1.8%. 

Now, that's rude.

It's All About Fail 11/8 Edition

Strange Old Men

In every restaurant there are lonely old men who come in for coffee and show off their weird.  We don't have many since we aren't really a place to sit and drink coffee, but there are a few.

There's a little old guy who comes in the restaurant for coffee about three or four days a week.  He was asked to stay out of one restaurant in town for touching the servers so now we have him.  He thinks it's real funny to shake his coffee cup, as if he's having withdrawls, just as I'm getting ready to pour.  Old dude.  You're not going to think it's so funny when you start that shaking shit some day when I'm not paying attention and you get your arm scalded.  Leave the damned cup alone.

Another old guy is related to Kayla and we make her wait on him because he's such a creep.  She gets all butt hurt because we avoid him, but not long after he started coming in he asked her to explain to him how they were related.  That translates into 'how wrong is it that I want to see you naked.'  He had this annoying habit of throwing his empty sugar packets on the floor either in the men's room or under an empty table.  The only thing I can think of is someone, somewhere must have nagged him for using too much sugar so now he hides it by throwing the packets somewhere else.  He and I had to have a "Come to Jesus" meeting over this behaviour and he doesn't do it anymore. 

There was an old guy who came in during the summer when we were wait listed and he would sit in a booth, usually one of mine, for well over an hour, drink coffee and BITCH about it.  "I hate this coffee, it is the worst I've ever tasted, it's horrible" and on and on and on.  One night I had tables everywhere, I was running my ass off, and every time I walked by his table he complained.  He asked, "What kind of coffee is this?"  I snapped, "The same kind you bitch about every time you come in" and yanked his cup off the table.  Coffee Nazi:  No refills for you.  I haven't seen him since.

Now that it's winter and the tourists have gone, I'm afraid to see what kind of new strange old men will wander in.

New Hire's Days are Numbered

Tuesday night before I left work, I scraped a big plate of leftovers into my cat scraps bucket, put the plate in the bus tub and walked away.  The dumb ass new hire was about 4 feet away from the busser station and she shouted, "Are you going to leave that there!?" 

I didn't have a clue what she was talking about so I turned around and looked.  Plate put away, cat scraps in my hands, WTF?!  She pointed at the floor and yelled, "All that trash. Are you going to pick it up or what?"

Hello!  First of all, I didn't see it, nor did I do it.  None of us get too upset about trash around the busser station since it's out of the way.  It's something we can deal with "later".

Second, who the fuck do you think you are?  We don't talk to each other like that, and a dumb ass new hire sure as hell isn't going to yell at me.

I walked back, picked the trash up, and told her she best never speak to me in that tone of voice again.  Crazy bitch showed her teeth to me.  I spend way too much time around animals because I took that as a sign of aggression and I wanted to wring her neck. 

Instead I went in to the wait station and gathered my stuff.  About a minute later she came in and said, "I'm sorry, but you took me the wrong way.  I was trying to be nice."

"No you weren't.  You forgot who you were for a minute and thought you were my boss.  I wouldn't make that mistake again."

She said, "I was being nice and I'm not going to argue about it."  As if that settled everything.  She was being an asshole and then put the blame on me for taking offense.

I told little manager Darren I was going to make her cry and he better have a replacement picked out.  He said it was fine with him and since all I hear about after my days off is her bad behaviour, I'll probably get a party. 

I hope there's cake.

A Nice Tribute to the Great State in which I Live

This is an article by a sports reporter for The Cleveland Plain Dealer Daily newspaper....

Trip to Wyoming feels far from home but closer to God

By Terry Pluto
September 26, 2009, 4:55 AM

I don't think much about Heaven, other than that I want to go there.

There are some images of Heaven with angels floating on clouds and playing harps, or perhaps of heaven as a never-ending church service where people sing and pray until they drop. I don't know what heaven will be like, but I doubt either of those portraits is correct.

Last Saturday, I flew to Denver to cover the Browns game. I'm not sure that that 27-6 loss to Denver was; it sure wasn't Heaven. But the day before that game, I went to southern Wyoming and thought a lot about
Heaven.


I drove down roads where I saw more pronghorn antelope than I did cars and people. I drove down roads where I saw signs kiddingly reading, next services, 34 hours. I drove down roads where, when it snows, they drop gates and close the interstates until the storm passes.

I drove down roads under high skies and huge clouds that seemed to rise up to the heavens. I drove down roads through miles of open pastures, roads where my cell phone was long out of range.

I drove down roads that made me think of a line from novelist Dan O'Brien: You have a sense that everyone can see you, but no one is looking.

That may bother some people, who are uneasy about all the rugged, lonely hills and valleys. For those who love a crowd and the 50-percent-off sale at the mall, a state with 522,830 people and an estimated 550,000
antelope may not have much appeal.

I have been to Wyoming at least a dozen times. On each visit, I think how the land is not tamed by man. Some mountains are too high, some rivers too wild, some storms too fierce. I know that there are days when
Wyoming can seem like hell on earth during a blizzard, a dust storm, or with a blown radiator in the middle of nowhere and no one around to call for help.

But I didn't think of that as I drove south of Laramie and saw several herds of Pronghorns---10 over here, 25 there, at least 50 ahead on top of the hill. For 10 miles, not a single car was on the road.

In Isaiah 65:17, God says, Behold, I will create a new Heaven and a new Earth.

I had a taste of it as I drove west on Wyoming 130 into the Snowy Mountains. They rose 10,000 feet with the sun peeking behind snow-capped peaks. Rather than spend any time wondering how such a place was
created, I was in awe of God's hand and power behind it all.

Then I saw a truck on the other side of the road, a man standing near it, staring into the woods. I slowed down and spotted a huge horse with antlers ... Only, it was a moose in a clearing. I stopped and walked
over to the man. There's four of them, he said. Then a female moose and two young ones ambled out from behind some bushes, joining the big bull.

We watched them silently for about five minutes, me wondering what exactly got into God when he created a strange creature like a moose.  Sheer entertainment, I suppose.

Finally, the four moose disappeared back in the woods. The other man and I left, too, nodding to each other but not saying a word. 

First Corinthians 2:9 reads: As it is written: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared in Heaven for those who love Him.

But that Saturday in Wyoming, I was given just a glimpse.

The Results are In

It was neck & neck between elk hunting and the new hire, but elk hunting won.  New hire story will be tomorrow.

Monday night I had a bevy of elderly men all dressed in camo and talking to each other about the day's elk hunt.  It didn't take me long to realize that the Stupid Bus had dropped them off in the parking lot and by some magical luck they managed to find the front door.

The first set of guys were so bad, I could feel them sucking my IQ.  They ordered the All You Can Eat rib special and as I was gathering their menus the spokesman asked, "So where do the ribs come from?"

I don't try to be a smart ass, but I get so many questions that truly baffle me I usually answer with the obvious.  I said, "Uh...the kitchen?"

He said, "Oh, so we don't go up there (pointing at the salad bar) and get them ourselves?"  Um...when you examined the salad bar before you were seated, did you see any ribs up there or just, well, salad?

I brought their ribs to the table and the guy asked, "So when we want more, do we go to the kitchen and get them?"  I said, "No, this is a restaurant.  I bring your food to you."  He snapped, "Well we've never been to this restaurant before.  We don't know how it works."  Uh...okay, you're telling me you've NEVER been to a restaurant cuz they all work pretty much the same.  Needless to say, tipping wasn't in his experience either.

Next group of guys ordered the ribs as well.  I asked what they wanted as their side dishes and the spokesman asked what we have.  I said, slowly, "The choices are listed at the top of the menu under 'Dinner'.  We have Cole slaw, potato salad, corn on the cob, baked beans, French fries, baked potato or new potatoes."  In unison, all four of them said, "I'll have mashed potatoes..."  One guy ordered mashed potatoes twice.  Turn your hearing aids up; I didn't say nuthin' 'bout no mashed 'tatoes.  Yep, IQ is slipping away.

I had four other tables of old guys who acted like they escaped from a day camp for senior citizens with special needs.  I was dumber for the experience.  So it begs the question:  How will they hunt with long range rifles without shooting each other?  If they can't negotiate a menu or a routine dining experience, how will they keep from getting lost in the woods and resorting to cannibalism?  This is not a 2nd Amendment question, but rather one of common sense and fear.