Every Waiter's Nightmare
July 1st, or June 30th, depending on where you slice it, business takes off. An overnight 50%, 100%, 200%, 300% increase in business. With minimal front end staff.
It's every waiter's nightmare.
People wander in, having boated over from Proctor, Harrop, up from Nelson, docked at the dock, climbed the patio stairs, seat themselves at the only dirty table on the patio (doesn't matter how many clean tables there are, the dirty table always has that allure), wait for service...you don't know they're new, think they're an old table waiting out the ferry, until they complain loudly about the service...
There's the split bills, everyone here splits the bill, even couples - couples?!! really?!! and you want to say WTF, but you don't, split the bill, allow each of them to pay, but you're looking at the woman, "Really? Really? And he's gonna get lucky tonight?..."
There's the families, double families, never all sitting together, never all sat at the same time, impossible to get an order from. Or when you do get an order, party of 6, 2 coffee's, a tea, 6 waters, a child's fries, bill under $20, and you're running full tilt...
The phone, constantly ringing, to-go orders, do you deliver?, do you have free wifi?, do you have power (??!! When the power goes out, they check the local pub...), do you have .. can I please speak to...?, do you have rooms for rent?, when does the next ferry leave...?
People wandering in to use the washrooms (despite signs clearly posted - everywhere - "NO PUBLIC WASHROOM"), to charge their phones and demand that we have chargers, to use the free wifi, to ask we refill their water-bottles, to drop off their garbage, to admire the art, the view, to watch wildlife from the patio overlooking the lake, ...
This is, without a doubt, every waiter's nightmare. But I've been to the Happy Hour, the fine hotel, they're nowhere near as busy as this, 6 waiters to 6 tables and the dirty tables, they're all still dirty an hour later, nobody's running there, they won't seat them or clean them, and I'm thinking - job-wise, that as much as I might hate this that I got lucky, this might just be the best gig for a couple of hundred miles...
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The Daughter's Visit
And the daughter comes, with her best friend, to visit for 4 days before my eviction, not even a week after the boy has left.
It's a lot of visitors, expenses, in just a couple of weeks...
Pick her up from the bus stop, Tuesday morning, 9:00 AM, first stop - I've got it planned - whitewater rafting. $80.00 per kid, + $20 tip for the guide. They're in with a small group, an American woman, her mom, should be fun, it's a beautiful morning, they're leaving from the dock at the Prestige...
I pick them up at 2:00, J*****, her friend, had a great time, the daughter complains it was boring. I buy the photos from the guides, a CD, yeah, I get that it was boring, not so white-water, not so adventurous, but still, she could have had fun...
She's way too jaded, even for a 16 year old.
The next day, the Kokanee Zip Line, only 2 of them in the group, they have a lot of fun although the daughter still manages to be blase about it. Another $240 spent, with tips for guides and go-pro footage...It's Wednesday, so I drop them in Nelson, they can peruse the markets, get lunch at the Yellow Deli, Visit Oso...
Her friend loves it. Doesn't want to go home. And the daughter is sensing that she maybe shouldn't have enrolled in summer school, she could have stayed on a bit longer...
Thursday, Friday, days off, Thursday we tour - Kaslo, the museum at the Ferry, to New Denver, then down through the Valley and to Thor's Pizza for dinner, then home.
Friday - a small day, the ferry over to Crawford bay, check out the Artisans, The Glass House:
("It's where I got my quidditch broom" I tell her...)
There are lots of Artisans here, blacksmiths, glass blowers, potters, etc. A quiet day, then home, and to the bus, I might not see her again all summer, she's school, other plans, and surviving summer here, well, it's gonna be long and tough. But in the fall there will be a little - lot - more time off, and I'll be returning to Calgary ...
I think they had fun. J***** definitely did, the daughter, well, probably, but she's keeping it on the down-low.
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Sunday Market at Meadow Creek
Almost an hour North of Kaslo. I'm curious, in absence of garage sales, and there's much here to be curious about, the road is empty, there's nobody...
There's a lot of Sunday Markets here. Every community has one. I'm curious, not hopeful, just curious...
Bullshit. A couple of buskers playing badly to an audience of none. A very few stalls, nothing, a 40 minute drive for diddly, no-one here could sell their stuff - all of it - and hope to make a hundred dollars, I settle on a couple of expensive croissants - spinach and feta, chocolate, and that's it, the day is done, return to work.
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A trailer stuffed with dead whores
Going to look at a place in Kaslo. House. Only it's not a house, as the advert suggested, implied that it was, "home", it's not, it's a sawed off trailer filled with despair, in a trailer park a few blocks from the main street, trailer park, that overlooked neighborhood of Kaslo that I've never explored, the owner, a 60-odd hippy, her partner, meet me at the hotel, drive out to the location, this is the reason there weren't any photo's provided...
It's fucking awful. I mean a hole, dark, dingy, terribly furnished, good, maybe, if you were working above the Arctic Circle and dealing with chest-bursting aliens, but it's not cutting it. It's the kind of place you imagine when you hear of a woman being rescued by a SWAT team from a serial killers tortuous depredations, you picture, first off upon entering, a group of Gestapo staring down laser-scopes filling the trailer, to rescue a couple of girls chained to the wall...l can'd do it, not even at the bargain price she's asking, I'd pay more, but I want more, anything, a tarpaper shack with a wood-burning stove would be an improvement, but this, This, well...I'm better off sleeping in a tent on the lawn...
She thinks it's good, is glad that I showed up to view it, it's been discouraging how many people have called about it and missed the preview, she's eager to sign the paperwork, go to the credit union, get a rental agreement, I'm not so eager, fuck this, I can live in my tent all summer, doesn't matter where, but this, this fucking trailer, I'd sooner move back to Alberta, and I kindly defer signing papers until I've looked at a few other places...
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