Day Fifty-Two: A Whole Lot of Nothing

It's my first Saturday night off in months, and what have I been doing? Laundry. For the past few hours, I've been cleaning, because well, I don't really have the time when I am working. Yep, I'm not at some exclusive club, but doing laundry and watching Grey's Anatomy. Pitiful? Nope. Fantastic? You betcha!
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Although I did work this morning, and upon approaching one of my first tables, I did my standard introduction.

"Hey there guys, welcome to [name of my restaurant], could I get you something to drink?"

The family looked directly at me, making eye contact, and replied...
"Chips and queso".

Umm...I was asking about drinks. I explained this fact, and they slowly blinked some more.

"Oh, why didn't you say that?"

Dear patrons, freaking listen when I'm talking! Chances are, it's in your benefit. I'm not hovering because I want to make a new friend. I'm hovering beceause I just want to know what the hell you want to drink!

Day Fifty-One: The Bartender Still Hates You

It's Friday, which means another installment of "The Bartender Hates You"!

I absolutely hate when people (customers or other servers) eat my cherries, limes, olives, and oranges. I have to cut those oranges and limes by hand. That takes time and effort. The fruit is my garnish station, you know to garnish drinks, not as an appetizer. People will also put their dirty, grubby hands in the cherry container without using tongs. Frankly that's just nasty. People will waddle up to the bar thinking the fruit is free. No, this isn't like a community peanut jar; or that you can leave your discarded cherry stems anywhere. So keep your dirty hands out of my fruit!

Enjoy!

Day Fifty: The Menu Isn't Made of Unicorn Dust

Can I say that I hate people who come in, thinking they're gonna create a brand new menu. The menu is there for a reason. It's to help the kitchen make the food efficiently, and so I don't freaking lose my mind from all of the modifiers.

Example from a few days ago: "I'll have a chicken sandwich, but instead of grilled chicken I want fried chicken. While you're at it, toss the chicken in buffalo sauce. No lettuce or tomato. Grill the onion, and add mushroom. Grill those too."

Of course the kitchen hates me, because its the most modified freaking order, the patron comes to hate me too.

"Where's my food???". Well, if you ordered from the goddamned menu, instead of playing chef your food would be here.

When the food finally did arrive, the patron had the sheer gall to smere that sucker in ranch. Next time, wave your magic wand down to McDonalds.

Day Forty-Nine: Adventures South of the Border

The other day, I had these two hombres come in before closing. I say hombres, because they barely spoke english. I'm not being racist in any regards, but I didn't start getting annoyed until later. They only drank, and the entire time, they stared at me. One might think I was paranoid, and just happened to think they were staring; but then they started talking in Spanish. Loudly. In school, Spanish is my minor, so I could freaking understand everyting. They started talking about what they wanted to do to me.

Deseo tomar su hogar, la doblo encima, y la cojo.

You get the picture. I shot them nasty looks,and they wondered if I could hear them. Yes asshats, I know your language. You know, the language of beauty, not disgusting sex phrases.

Day Forty-Eight: Sign Language? Nope. Cue Cards? Intriguing...

So, the quack loaded me up on steroids, and my voice is finally coming back! No, I'm not gonna become jacked and ripped, but the steroids have been doing some major damage on those damn polyps.

But, it's a good thing that my voice is coming back. My acquatanices were having a field day on behalf of my silence. Coming up behind me and making me jump, but no scream would come out.

Above all, I'll be happy to go back to work. Management didn't know what to do with me. Honestly where do you put a person who can't talk? My solution was to hold little cue cards for the patrons, but that didn't go over too well with management.

Day Forty-Seven: Cart me to a nunnery

So, it's official. I can't talk. According the doctor, I have polyps on my vocal cords from overuse. If they don't go down soon, they're gonna have to be cut out. Ouch. Words can't describe how scary any medical procedures can be.

What makes matters worse is that I'm not supposed to talk unless absolutely necessary. Oh yeah, that should be no problem. Oh wait. I'm a bartender. We're meant to be loud and talk. Super.

This whole ordeal has made work a real bitch. I would try to talk as loud as I could and patrons would be cupping their ears and leaning in hear me.

Cart me off to a nunnery, because I'm taking a vow of silence.

Day Forty-Six: An Explanation

Well, I've been going through some personal issues, and as such, I've been away from a computer. Time away from the computer means that I broke the rules of Project 365. Well, I made it forty-five days straight. No bad, eh? Well, the rules have been broken, I'm going to try again.