Nephew & Marvin
The Nephew has lost his cat, Marvin.
Marvin was an indoor cat who somehow got out in the past couple of days and hasn't been seen or heard from since.
He's upset. He loved Marvin.
I try to console him, lightly as is my nature, with an offer of one of my cats, but he won't hear of it, he's busy calling the SPCA and posting up flyers in his neighborhood.
Now when he describes his loss it seldom centers on the cat. Marvin, yes, he was a good cat, but more important was the Christmas outfit he had ordered for him from Italy, $300.00 he spent, he was going to dress Marvin as Santa Clause and the dog and other pet (??? I don't know) as elves.
The costumes, they're nothing without the players expected to wear them.
And so I offer again my cats, either one, he can have his pick, and as the days pass and Marvin fails to show up he's considering it....
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- Category: People
Barred
Yet another customer barred on Friday, a regular asshole, pleasant enough to me, but I'm not the only one that works there.
A certain famous - in a Calgary sort of way - individual, who's son has done well in Politics. He works for the city, or some such.
According the Nephew and other sources he's been barred from quite a few other restaurants in the city. He knows this, in his year and a half here he's gotten quite well connected.
The reason is that he's had the audacity to complain about his steak, it's overdone, he's right but G "bought" him a half litre of wine in compensation and offered to replace it.
The steak and wine sufficed, he seemed (as it were) happy enough.
He's in with his secretary, attractive, 30-something, shapely, the female staff have informed me that they're having an affair, me, I have trouble ascribing it, the customer in question is perhaps 55, 60, short, in feature and manner a toad.
Still, who am I to comment? Stranger things have happened. At lunch they hammer the wine, in the evening when he brings his wife and other guests they are quiet, drink only water. He, like so many others, has a very apparent double life. I don't comment.
He complains after lunch about being charged for his steak (overdone, it's true) and the charge for the substitution on his side dish of Pasta.
I don't argue, am not generally the argumentative type, I have a suspicion how this will pan out but just deduct it from the bill. G dealt with him, G's gone home, I don't need the hassle.
When G comes in for the night shift I tell him, the owner's near and goes off his nut, never particularly liked this customer (none of the staff did either), more grievances, who does he think he is? And he has me compose a letter on the computer, Mr. So and SO is no longer welcome here, he's been barred.
It's happened before.
Now again. We bar people with disconcerting regularity, relying on staff to remember who's been barred and who hasn't, the owner, he doesn't forget. Usually we're so thrilled to see the end of these ass-holes we remember.
The thing about being barred from this restaurant, as opposed to any other restaurant (and I can't help wondering how failed your life must be to be barred from here, let alone another restaurant....to think some people are regular at this?!!!) is that so many of our regular customers know one another that in a way, peculiar and obtuse that you will understand or not, you've been barred from society.
Almost all of our regular customers know one another.
How, then, to explain that you can't join a friend or wife for lunch at a favorite dining spot? DO you just say you're not hungry, on a diet, do you state that you've had a disagreement with the owner (as with so many other local owners/proprietors)? Do they feel any sort of shame and embarrassment? As far as I'm concerned he wasn't the worst customer by far, the competition for that place is vigorous and ongoing, but this customer had the audacity to complain about 2 things on the bill, and that was socially the end of him.
We don't so badly need the business. He's been barred.
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- Category: People
Work
Friday, busy, Saturday, Crazy.
We're fully booked, with flips, nothing fixed but we're hoping that customers leave in an hour so that others can be sat.
We're not the sort of restaurant where you plan to be in and out within an hour or two.
I've brought in pedometers for all the staff, want to track how many steps each of them take each night, it's lighthearted but I'm aiming to prove that some are definitely a lot less valuable than others.
The new waiter, M I'll call him, he really doesn't need a pedometer, he needs a odometer for the wheelchair that J pushes him about in, but in the interests of not offending anyone (or offending everyone equally) I've gotten him one as well.
They take it in good stride, figure out how they work, attach them to their belts or waistbands, and the night begins.
***
The night, it goes off pretty much as expected, it's crazy busy, the staff - mostly support apart from G, disappear the moment things get busy, reappear a couple of hours later when it's cooled a bit. We have the demon table from hell, a regular who's family is in from Montreal to wish him happy-important-birthday, they've imposed all sorts of financial restraints on the party, in the end 24 people spend what 3 or 4 tables of 4 would have spent without their patronage, they tip badly and stay until 1:30 AM. getting far too drunk and ignoring all subtle cues to get the fuck out.
It's a long night.
***
The end of the night, all the staff sitting down, a couple still serving the party from hell, most relaxing, the pedometers having proven a poor measure of worth, J has figured out how to shake them and rack up 10, 000 steps in a minute or two, the competition is off. A drunken native walks in off the street, wants us to call a cop car to take him to the lock up, won't leave unless we do, he refuses to go outside, it's too cold.
He's right.
And so the staff go through the motions of calling imagined friends and relatives, he provides us numbers, the party, they're shocked, they want to pay his cab to wherever he wants to go, he isn't going anywhere. What cabbie would pick him up?
I call the police,
It's an automated machine, not 911, this isn't an emergency, rather the local line, but I have to push buttons through 3 minutes of options before I get a live operator, another 10 minutes answering questions before they send out a car....
The party, most have never seen anything like this, they want to give him money, buy themselves a clear conscience, I try to explain, to him the police are cab drivers and the drunk tank's a warm hotel, like the Regency or Hyatt, they don't really understand.
Eventually the police come, take him away, the customers reluctantly leave, it's 1:30 AM. A long night. Come Xmas every night will be like this, December will be a long month. But 3 weeks yet before I need to worry about that.
- Details
- Category: Miscellany
Remus Reid
The owner of the restaurant shows me an email he just received - The Remus Reid Story.
It's amusing, and I have to remember to forward it off to my friends.
I've transcribed it below:
FW: This is how Political Spin is done in DC
Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher here in southern California, was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Harry (senator (D) from Nevada) Reid's great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.
The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory.
On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription:
'Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'
So Judy recently e-mailed Senator Harry Reid for information about their mutual great-great uncle.
Believe it or not, Harry Reid's staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:
'Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.'
That's real POLITICAL SPIN! THAT is how it's done folks!
***
Now probably if you haven't received the email you've already figured it out, it's an internet legend.
You can read more here: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_remus_reid.htm
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- Category: Miscellany
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