As commodity-gobblers we have all witnessed fowl, mysterious, rude or otherwise inappropriate behavior from people in a public place of business. Maybe it was you getting aggressive with the teller because you couldn't figure out how to access your bank account online. Perhaps you saw me scolding the stocker at the grocery store for not carrying a consistent inventory of coconut milk. And so on. At one time or another we've all been guilty of sour hostility towards a person who, in their job description, has no control or authority over our minor inconveniences. Someone has to witness the wrath of our fury.
This behavior is on the forefront of my mind today as I contemplate the current regressive stage of my life. By that I mean working at a restaurant again (strangely enough at Trolley Square once more)--13 years after my illustrious career as a busser. Memories of the old days flutter: the twin botox queens from JMR Chalk garden who would come in at 11:30 am every Monday morning and drink a bottle White Zinfandale on ice, so they could make it through the day. The couple who were caught stealing beers from the ice cooler in the middle of the restaurant, who then tried to say the man at the table next to them had been the person to load the woman's purse with Amstel Light. The iceberg lettuce, shoestring fries, broken glass and sugar packets strewn about an entire section of the dining room after a young, unruly family of four had sucked the life out of our Diet Coke supply. And so on.
These are memories I had catalogued deep in the archive of my mind after the restaurant closed and I was forced to pursue new work. But now that I'm back in the glorious industry of serving food the images are starting to resurface, and as they saturate my mind I've observed two things since I've been working at The Pub: the liberal policy of cocaine use has all but vanished, yet the atrocious behavior of patrons has not.
Recent example: two couples, say mid-forties, come in on a busy Saturday night. They scoff at the prospect of the delicious beers we brew and serve on location, and instead order a pitcher of Bud Light. Fair enough. They then order prosciutto wrapped chicken and enjoy it thuroughly--even commenting on how delicious the meal was. So satisfied were they, that they celebrated their feast with more beer. Bud Light it is. Upon recieving their second round they notice a shard of glass missing from the rim of the pitcher. Disgusted and appalled they send it back demanding a unscathed container. Fair enough. No one likes the prospect of swallowing small slivers of glass. When they recieve the replacement they scutinize the pitcher, reaching for any flaw they can find, observing its oldness, its lack of lustre, etc. Relunctanty they accept, and drink. Later in the night, people who were sitting in the proximity of this table will tell a few of us working that the demeanor of the these four had changed from fairy pleasant, to visibly hostile while they stewed and gulped their malty beverages (all of which they drank).
Their exit from the restaurant was as hasty as their change of attitude, and as my co-worker approached the empty table she noticed a small pile. There was an eye here, a piece of a building there, an eagles head with no beak. Put them all together and you had two, one dollar bills shredded into tiny pieces, left behind as the tip on a $75 tab. Part of me wanted to chase these people down and shove the bits down their pie holes, yet another part of me wanted to light the tiny heap on fire and finish their act of anarchy. Instead, the destroyed currency was brushed into the empty beer pitcher and hauled away to the kitchen. Again, I ask, where do these people come from?
Perhaps the more important question is, how is it that I have come to be reliving my final days as a teenager? I really don't have an answer for that, but if I've learned anything from my experience working in a restaurant it's this: squeeze the citrus into your glass, but don't put the actual lemon in your drink.