Showing posts with label holiday spirit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiday spirit. Show all posts

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Love Fest Oh-Ten. Here we come!

Valentines Day. Just the thought of this holiday makes me cringe a little. Both from sugar shock sappy overload and the thought of the tidal wave of "happy couples" who descend upon the local restaurants. (good for my bank account. not for my mental health...)

This will be my first V-Day spent in the always loving embrace of the good people of Captain Rigatoni's. I fear that the bitter feelings from the Tattletale alone could be enough to plunge the rest of us into terrible, hate filled moods. Not being a huge fan of the holiday I rarely care much about it- other than to know that I'm going to get to see society at its finest and hopefully line my pockets with 100 dollah bills.

I remember many a V-Day at the place I used to work (and subsequently went on to develop a fairly bad feeling about the holiday in general.)

What a waitress observes on the most romantic of romantic holidays is a lot of people feeling obligated to go out and have a damn good time. Due to the pressure (and crowds) this is often just the opposite of what happens. (come on peeps there are 364 other days to tell your loved one/s that you love them. you should do this and avoid going out on freaking love fest oh-ten. unless it is to come have me wait on you, and take all your money!)

Sure, I have seen lovers-in-love, people who really do enjoy the holiday and obviously care for one another. But the depressing fact of the matter is that on any given V-Day I have waited on so many more people who hate each others guts that it's downright depressing! GAHD! Why can't I be the waitress who gets the guy about to propose with a diamond ring that he wants me to put in a champagne glass!? Because, if that were my table the fiancee to be would either swallow the ring or say no, HAH!

I love to see people who lunch with their spouse and then dinner with their lovah. In the same restaurant (and since I was working a double I was their server both times. YUCK-OH!) This was terribly troubling to me, especially as the wife got some generic gift and the lovah got all sorts of exotic things. Jeepers.

V-Day is a day to enter the walk in cooler at your own risk as you might find the sexual tension between coworkers had just become too much, and they decided to ease said tension upon the boxes of tomatoes. Nothing says romantic interlude like doing the nasty in freezing temps in with the produce!

If nothing else Valentines Day provides me with an oh-so-sappy moment to feel lucky to have a nice normal husband who I am still married to (I'm a freaking minoroty!) Looking at the epic hatred that flows between he so-called friends at Cap Rig's I am also very glad to have a group of kickass friends. Who I actually like. A lot. And do not try to stab when they are not looking....

I hope that tomorrow I make an absurd amount of money. I hope that the bitter ladies who I work with can get thru the love-dipped-day without too mane displays of hatred towards one another, or their ex-es. I hope that I DO walk into the cooler to find people gettin' it on. That would be hysterical, especially since I can NOT for the life of me figure out who would do that with WHO. I hope that I get to put a diamond ring in somebody's creme brulee. And I hope that I can get past my sarcastic feelings for this Holiday enough to brighten up somebody's dinner a little. Because when you really think about it, the world needs a little more love... And if a Hallmark Holiday and a happy waitress is what it takes to get it? Then so be it.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

A very special Holiday Edition....

Wouldn't it me nice if during this oh-so special time of year all of us at Captain Rigaton's developed warm, fuzzy and tolerent feelings towards the world? Read on to see how we all mose certainly do not.....

Christmas arrived early and with a bang at Captain Rigatoni's. All thru the pre-Thanksgiving week we turned that place into a huge, gaudily decorated Christmas Nightmare. My astute observation as we neared the end of the madness was it appeared that Santa Claus had thrown up Holiday spirit everywhere. Being that I refuse to decorate my house, despise all things tchotchke, and have a deep dislike for teddy bears dressed as the three wise men this has been a trying time for me.
It is not mystery that I am in the best physical (and mental) shape of anyone there. This does not usually turn out to be a good thing for me, as I am sent on multiple missions to haul around objects which are larger than myself. When it came time to string the 22,000 feet of garland Jan climbed the step ladder once and in a state of near cardiac arrest declared that it was to be my new favorite job. Let's all pause and count the ways I'm lucky!

Business has continued to be fairly slow, and at the very least being responsible for the creation of the most vomitous Christmas ever keeps the boredom at bay. And, for spying on people being the designated step-ladder wrangler has its advantages.
As I was struggling to heave a dinosaur sized reindeer onto a rafter above my head a piercing screech shattered the silence. Curious, I paused mid-lift and peered down thru the masses of garland, tinsel and reindeer legs. In came a family and several very ornery children. Much to my chagrin, they were placed in very close proximity to my step ladder. Much to the chagrin of all the other patrons in the restaurant, we soon discovered that even the farthest corner of the building was too close.
These kids were fully out of control. The shrieks of hysteria grew louder by the minute and from my excellent vantage point I could see pasta flying in every direction. I thanked my lucky stars that they were seated in an area with easy to mop floors! I was reminded of a child that used to come into the last restaurant I worked in; the aptly named (by us) Rice Baby. It doesn't take too much imagination to figure out how she earned that dubious distinction. She would destroy that place, there would be rice in places that you didn't know rice could get into. It was a bad scene of epic disaster- and to add insult to injury her parents would leave a 12 cent tip and moan in ecstasy about how darling she was. Oh puuuuh-lease!!

The parents of the super-lung-capacity screamers were completely oblivious to the decibel level that their precious little pumpkins were achieving. Also, nobody was taking appropriate parental control over the frantic running thru the aisles of the restaurant. I was becoming concerned that the little sweet munchkins were going to run into my ladder and knock it over, which would have given me just cause to beat them soundly.

I was sensing a different family dynamic and from Spy-central USA I figured out that the men were together as were the ladies. I am a super open minded person and that does not bother me in the least. But Mom's and Dad's- y'all still need to grow a set and take control of your offspring. Even though I am a super relaxed marry-whoever kinda gal it seems some of my coworkers are not- and since the tension due to the noise level was already so high there were definate grumblings from a few people. A few rude comments later and I was smacking people with salad tongs to get them to knock it off- I mean REALLY, show a little kindness!!

By the end of the meal there was pasta, gelato, bread, sauce and who knows what else all over the surrounding area. Waste had been laid to Captain Rigatoni's and there was no end in sight. The server responsible for this table of incredible insanity was on the brink of loosing his cool. He had been grabbed, spat on and smacked and had only just been able to dodge a flung juice cup. "Get them out of here" I declared "They are ON CRACK!!!" "I KNOW" he moaned in despair "I have never seen such a thing. I frigging HATE kids!!" I told him that he did not, he just was a hater of crack babies and parents who won't control them.

Finally they left and as their screams faded the hostess pranced in, all a flutter and a tizzy because she had inside info. "You know those kids that were just here?" she stage whispered "No, WHAT KIDS." I deadpanned. Rolling her eyes she continued "I overheard a long conversation that the Mom's and Dad's were having and all of the kids are adopted. And their biological parents are METH addicts!!!" By this time several other servers had sidled over to catch the gossip of the day. "Holy Crap" was my reply, as I congratulated myself on being fairly accurate with my "crack baby" appraisal "That's a lot to take on!" The server who dealt with that mess was so put out by the whole debacle that he had worked himself up into a fine state. Throwing his hands into the air he declared that he had reached his limit and could be found outside smoking crack. I mean cigarettes.
It took several of us a bit of time to clean the crack baby table and surrounding area. I think that this really goes to show that even during the Holiday season, when all of is are (supposed) to be feeling magnanimous please do not bring your messy meth freak children out and let them cause death and destruction. I might get coal in my stocking for feeling that way but I'm willing to risk it!