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Anti-Foodie: How A Table Of 15 Russians Can Ruin Your Evening

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by Anti-Foodie | It started with me in the restaurant’s locker room in the back behind the kitchen. I dropped my Blackberry and it didn’t get up again. I felt it drop across my face from the pouch of my hoodie as I pulled it off over my head, frantically tried to catch it blind with a face full of sweatshop cotton, and heard it land with a resounding thwak! The casing holding the camera looked like the battered end of one of my college roommates’ old hot knives. It no longer worked. Oh well. It was the last night of Dine Out. I’d make enough money to replace it and launch the busted piece of shit past Saturn.

Then I noticed my wine crank, tie, and black socks were missing from my locker. I looked around the room but couldn’t find them (I stopped snooping when I saw that [pastry chef] kept a stun gun in her purse).

I sat at the bench, looked down at my black dress shoes (natty Aldo loafers that I darken all the scuffs with a sharpie) and my one red sock and one white sport sock, looked around at the rank and mangled cook’s sneakers – gray, ill-smelling and totally gross (why do all chefs have the worst taste in shoes?) – and took a deep breath. I knew it was going to be an arduous evening.

“Give me my fucking tie back.” I said to [asshole co-worker who is actually very nice] when I went out front, tie-less and crank-less. He and [manager] were at the back booth, [asshole co-worker] folding napkins and [manager] editing [chef’s] last Dine Out menu for typos.

“Here” [asshole co-worker] said, handing me back my corkscrew after pulling loose the tie. “I took this too. Sorry, I saw on the schedule that [blonde] was working, not you”.

“She called me an hour ago, said she was sick and asked me to cover”.

“She should have called me first” said [manager], adding “Sad that [chef] can’t spell chiffonade” under his breath and making an edit on the effete Macbook that I so often want to smash.

“But you would have said no.” He would have, too, the little prick. I needed the money. At least I did now. For a phone. Changing the subject, I turned to [asshole co-worker]. “So just because I’m not here it’s OK to take my shit without asking?”

“We’re friends. I do it all the time”.

“Fuck you”. I said. While it’s true that we’re friends, this guy is incorrigible when it comes to coveting the personal property of others. [Blonde] is still waiting for him to return a book she loaned him in 2006. [Chef] hates him because he stiffs his crew when it comes time to tip them out, and he never buys his own smokes yet seems to cough his way through half a pack during every shift. Everyone liked him nonetheless. He was a charmer.

“Fuck you back, you fucking fucker. No what am I supposed to wear?” he asked.

“How about my balls on your face?”

Ugh. And so we sat for awhile easily making each other laugh, unaware of the shit storm brewing. As I drank coffee he folded and refolded a black apron he’d stolen from the expediter in the kitchen. In two minutes he’d fashioned a short tie with the aid of two pins. Windsor-knotted, he tucked it in under the third button below his neck, Bowie-style.

The book said we had two full turns of 50, making for 100 covers all day. The first seating would come between 5:30pm and 6:30pm, with the second starting at 7:30pm. My section was five tables (two four tops put together for a 10) and three deuces. Pretty ideal. The 10 was to arrive at 6:00pm, and would flip for a 7 at 8:00pm. A real turn and burn.

The names [hostess] was planning to send my way didn’t look promising. My 10 was booked under the name of [Russian], and the following 7 went by [Chinese]. Now, before you start accusing me of stereotyping and race baiting, let me first explain that Russians are generally very cheap unless they are gangsters and the Chinese don’t drink much unless they’re crazy, old, lonely or naturalised enough to the regular Canadian bacchanal.

6:15pm rolled around and my party of 10 still hadn’t shown up. “Did you call them?” I asked [hostess], a 20 year veteran of the trade and considered by the staff to be as senior as [manager], which he disliked immensely.

She glared at me. “I was doing this when you were still inside your mom”.

“Easy, old timer”.

“Ask a stupid question…” she shot back.

“How did you know about me being inside my mom?”

“That’s gross”.

Another fifteen minutes passed and it was agreed that the Russians, in fact, weren’t coming. I stripped the table on my own and set it up for the 7 that would arrive in two hours. Then I went for a smoke in the alley. It was still light out and the alley bathed in that strong last blast of intense sun. It smelled like stale beer, piss, and food gone bad, but it was warm, like the first unforgettable night of summer when everything is still and you can hardly believe your good luck at being alive. I felt a lot closer to being done now, though technically I hadn’t yet done a thing. Maybe I’d split the rest of my tables between the other waitstaff and take the night off.

I was about to return inside and broach the idea when [manager] poked his head out from the rusting metal door. “The Russians are here. There’s 15 of them, not 10. Let’s go.”

Damn. It was bound to happen. I’d totally jinxed it. “What about my deuces and the 7?”

“Don’t worry about that. The increase of your automatic gratuity on the Russian table will take care of them”.

“Fucking Russians,” I muttered to [asshole co-worker] as we lifted the tables together again.

“They really do spoil everything, don’t they?”

There are 5 comments

  1. I love hearing these kind of stories having survived many myself.

    Waiting tables used to be my bread and butter. I’ve since secured a regular day job ( a career so to speak ) yet still wait tables part time. Something about working in a restaurant that satisfies my deep down desire for punishment.

  2. “how about my balls on your face?”

    so far the funniest part of my day.

    good job.

  3. Ha ha hah – My dog’s ass wants its face back – why don’t you return those shoes you borrowed while your at it!

  4. Ha ha yeah – I worked in a gas station in high school so I can relate…

    “Hey Dave…” said the spotty kid. I doubt he’ll pass grade ten I thought. “You gonna take car of that ‘2 spot’?”
    Referring to a car with two people in it, I noticed their wind shield needed a washing. I nodded though and kept busy with a slick motorcycle that had just pulled up.
    “Fuck you…” he muttered under his breath. The air was constantly stale with a noxious mix of windshield wiper fluid and low-sulphur unleaded 87 octane fuel. On a hot day, the mix would leave a fine film across your forehead.

  5. There’s something strangely familiar about this piece, i’m a short, loathsome manager who edits menus on a Macbook. I am by turns incensed at my portrayal and yet strangely filled with admiration that someone around me has the literary chops to satirize ‘our daily bread’ so amusingly. Of course; if in the next submission the manager is portrayed as “handsome, wholesome with Solomon-like wisdom’ you can be sure that I have stripped the writer of his anonymity, beaten him with brutal scheduling and suffocated him with simultaneous seatings until he has allowed me to ‘take a peak’ at his work. How-ever would they get along without me?