- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2588
It wasn't the last of them, they continued to be as regular as ever. By which I'm referring to P & C (follow embedded link).
It was C's 50th birthday and P wanted to arrange a big surprise. He bargained with the owner, got a 4 course set menu for $35.00 per person. This is unbelievable. I've not been to a fine restaurant where you could get even one course for that, they're getting 4, but they're friends of the owners...And being as all their friends are the freeloading scourges of the restaurant we were not looking forward to it...
The night, darkly anticipated and dreaded for months before, finally arrives. We pull out all stops, bring in all the part-timers. I can't deal with them, I'll handle the "regular" customers on the other side of the restaurant.
The night goes. Late. Their final bill, $4400.00 for 58 people. They're all hammered, loaded, 6 hours straight drinking, no brakes at all these folk, P thanks us, tips 15%, they leave in the nether hours after midnight...all hammered, soused to the gills, their friends, my age, alcoholics every one...
3 weeks later P texts the owner, wants to talk in private, he feels that he's been charged too much. The wine, they could have bought it at the liquor store for $20.00 per bottle, the guests, they drank too much...
A*****, thankfully he was on to them, he told P every bottle of wine opened, got approval, the PPA (Per person average) worked out to $74.00 per person, cheap, free by fine dining standards, it's fucking unbelievable, but he meets with the owner to complain, and the owner finally loses it, tells him that he's offended, he gave him a deal (he did, a hell of a deal, I'd be thrilled to get that deal any day of the week), and yet still they complain, never cheap enough, never free enough, never enough, they're the narcissists, and finally he leaves and we're relieved, this little disagreement means we won't be seeing them for a while, the worst of our customers (and it's a tough competition), still, another 100 or so to go...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2283
A ridiculously slow day, broken up with news that M***** had died. Perhaps 57, a waiter there on and off, career waiter throughout the city so a few people were affected. The owner, he pretends, doesn't really care, seems a bit callous, but that's him, his own kids could die and he wouldn't give a damn...
M*****, to sum him up, career alcoholic waiter, perpetually drunk, short, balding, didn't look a day over 70 (and so to discover his real age was a surprise...), dead on vacation to Europe visiting relatives. And so the nephew regales us the entire day with tales of his drunkenness, his propping himself against the chair while he took the order, so as not to fall over, a notepad for a table of 2, and the letters of complaint that often followed his service...me, I'd happily frequent a restaurant where the waiters felt free to be drunk ass-over-keister at 12:00 noon, but others of our customers weren't so forgiving...
...and the hiring of him, he'd worked here before me, been fired for being a drunk, this time, he came for lunch with his wife, younger, the sad pretty of someone who's made a bad marriage, lived her life in regret, the owner speaks to him, receives assurances of his sobriety, M***** is quick to give them, "been months since I've touched a drop..." even if this were true this wouldn't be the job to keep that promise, but if the owner had looked closer the martini and the half liter of wine on the table might have given him away...
M*****, dead, we'd often wondered and shared his many adventures aloud, the other waiter, A***** never knew him, but knows him well enough through the legends, RIP.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2185
And trying to explain people, find the metaphor for them, their infinite variety and lifestyles, successes and failures, and it imperfectly comes to me...
People are like poker hands. If life is most like a game of poker, then people must be the hands. The cards, those qualities or attributes we've drawn or cultivated...
A face card? Queen, King, Ace? With this you can bluff your way through almost anything...Everyone likes a pretty face. Even if the rest of your hand is shit, a 2 of Spades for intelligence, 3 of hearts for integrity, hold those close to your chest, bluff, bluff, bluff, and the poorer poker players, they'll only see the face card and guess you're a winner...
Maybe you got a low face card...a 6 or a 7. Shit. Nobody looks at you, thinks your a player, but you plod through life winning, victory after victory, success after success, because that isn't the card they should be looking at, you've got other cards, close to your chest, or maybe laid out where everyone can see them, a full house, straight, a flush even, and with these cards you're a winner...you're solid.
We are all a bit like this, the card we show, we value, whether it be integrity or looks, intelligence, wit, culture, education, whatever, this is how we are judged, and by those who value that card accordingly. Those with a face card, they don't give a damn about your integrity, culture, personality, intelligence card. But in the end, it's not the card you're showing, it's the hand that you're holding, and how that card fits in, and this decides the game.
Still, a lot of people go far by bluffing...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2173
We don't get together too often, them living in other cities and all, usually it's around when the daughter comes to visit and I gather the kids together...
This year, summer, we all met at my fathers. Not all, the brother bailed, busy, but my sister and her partner, my daughter and I, my father...
My family, any family, we don't get along sooo good, sooo bad. My sister, she's her own peer group, mostly people that share her lifestyle, that's OK.
Dinner, turkey, mashed potatoes, the daughter loves mashed potatoes...
...And she goes up for a second, a third, a fourth helping...
there are principles of moderation, manners & breeding, always leave the table a little bit hungry, I allow one extra helping, but by the third I have to comment and by the fourth I'm getting annoyed...
The Sister is quick to comment, sharply, that I'm affecting "her body image", as a parent I'm doing untold damage to her self esteem, she'll be an anorexic or bulimic now for sure...
It's family, and while you could mention things like self-restraint and good manners some people wouldn't get it. She's one of those people. And it falls on you to be the polite one, pretend you were the asshole so you can cover for her bullshit politics, lack of breeding, if she wanted to raise a chubby, over pampered ill-mannered child she could, but it demands more commitment and responsibility than either her or her partner want to undertake, they've built a comfortable lifestyle around themselves and they don't need anyone else messing it up, and you're inwardly seething, no commitments themselves but they're a little too free with their ill-informed opinions, politicizing good manners, the feminist versions of Donald Trump, and you realize that even just once or twice a year these family gatherings can be a little much...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2061
She's my age, or close enough, sitting with a couple of her children and regulars, not attractive, or unattractive, merely average. Nondescript.
The owner's explaining her history to me...she's buried all three of her ex husbands, all well positioned and insured, she's handsomely well off, not looking to get married, just date...
I don't ask the circumstances, but three husbands at my age suggests a little more than coincidence, bad luck or carelessness. The owner, he wants to set her up with J***, it sounds like a good match to me...