And I hear from Mr. Tickles, who's been wintering in Ymir and whom I haven't heard of nor seen in the long wintry 6 months since we parted in October.
He's doing well, as well as can be expected, on his way back from Balfour to Ymir, his car, parked at the Superette all winter now driven across the highway to be fixed since last years accident, and we catch up.
He'd dropped by the restaurant to say hi, they offered him his job back, he could live in the basement, Sean's old apartment, no thanks. He hasn't got work. Ymir - well, he's refrained from meeting the locals, hasn't gotten work, although he got a few months more EI than I had available, largely due to the fact that he'd worked a couple of months at the local dive bar before being fired for being too white.
It happens. East Indians would prefer to work with East Indians, and our government only recognizes discrimination by white people, not against them.
Ymir, not even 250 people, 30 KM SE of Nelson, not much going on in Ymir. So a long winter for him. He's never left all winter. We reminisce about old times, about all the grief I used to give him and all his little trainees, the young 14, 15, 16 year old girls and boys who's first job happened to be that cesspool of a ...
He misses working with me and knowing that wherever he finds work next it's not going to be anywhere near as amusing...
We talk, about how the old restaurant, the new chef got cancer and quit within 2 weeks. A coincidence? I don't think so.
And about old servers and kitchen staff we knew, news, where available, and asking of a few of the more infamous locals, he has news on one, the crackhead who contacted me to borrow money last fall, set up a go-fund-me to get to Calgary, she's got an Only Fans, and I'm like...?? Her and a few others I know, apparently.
And he's met the new waiter, thought I'd be back there, looked for my puppets behind the bar, no puppets, no Rod, and he was perhaps as surprised I wasn't back as I am that he isn't going back.
We're both overdue for employ, but not at that price.
And we chat the other restaurant, the dive bar, run by a MAGA couple, "managed" you might say only there's nothing approaching management, just the village idiot and his wife calling the shots, him, from a pint of beer at the end of the bar (which entitles him to an equal share in the tips, because somehow he feels he's doing "equal work"), and his wife, who just installed a new camera/microphone/speaker system behind the bar, so she can "manage remotely" and I've heard from staff that her voice will appear out of nowhere, she's on her phone at the Wal-Mart or Dairy Queen checking the cameras, and you know that not only that this is creepy as fuck it's also a big sign that neither of them knows what the fuck they are doing.
Camera's, technology, surveillance, all this technology enables people, restaurants, that are bad at their job to be even worse at their jobs. Who ever heard of "remotely managing" a restaurant? Oh, and she's as well doing "equal work" and claiming her share of the tips, despite weeks going by without a single employee seeing her face. We're both Alumni of Unspeakable Trauma, and despite coming from one of the poorest run joints on the planet there's always competition by those who manage to do it worse.
So, this catches me up with Mr. Tickles, Cathy now is back from California and I'm due to catch up with her, soon, and I'll write about that when it happens...