Everybody and their brother were slamming us at the restaurant!
We were downtown in a commuter city.
So typically the city emptied after only five in the afternoon. Usually, people bailed out of the city center even earlier on Fridays. We stopped admitting new customers by seven in the evening most nights. By then our dining room was usually emptied, and done an hour later by eight or nine in the evening. So like most of our city's restaurants, we closed relatively early on weekdays.
But this was Freaky-Friday-Halloween-Friday, so it was like a backward day. Not only were we staying open later into the evening with the unusual crowds, but it looked like finishing before nine was a pipedream.
Because it was Friday.
We were open until nine.
Of course, it was a holiday Friday, so we were busier than normal.
And it was Halloween, so there was all that extra madhouse rushing around at work!
Every time I checked the time I cringed harder and harder!
Why could people not have their office Halloween parties, at the office, during office hours, so I could leave this shit show on time for once!
It was only six in the afternoon, and I could tell this was not going to let up! The universe was just aligning that way. There were just too many bottles of wine out, and the tables were just too dug into their festivities.
You only had to be in the business so long to tell the tables that had zero intention of leaving until you turned the lights out.
I could feel it coming!
We would need to employ cattle prods, which we definitely did not have, to displace the three big costume-bedazzled parties brightening our dining room.
Julia tore into the office raging, and snapped, "Fuckin' Mark wants to give out free shots! He wants me to make something orange and green.
"But he wants the orange and green separated like a pumpkin. How in the fuck am I supposed to keep liquors in a glass separated by color?
"Oh yeah. But only to paying customers. Which is a TABC false advertising hit! That fuck-stain-Mark is gonna cost me my bartender certification, 'n my livelihood, 'cause he doesn't know what the fuck he's talkin' about!"
Julie would be pretty if the stress from this place was not thinning her hair and causing that vein in the side of her head to throb.
And we were off to the races!
Apparently, Mark had finally stumbled in later than normal, which meant he was not going to be drunk enough to stagger out and drunk-drive home at his normal time. He would not leave until much later.
Unless he did some serious pre-bar work before gracing us with his presence this was going to be a long evening!
And of course, the dickhead restaurant manager not doing his job, which forced me to do it, was going to keep me late! So not only was the useless paperwork now due early, it could not possibly wait until my next shift on Monday!
By Monday, we will not have our vegetable or meat orders in place for receipt. But now I had to stop, and go out and explain to Mark for two hours why free shots like he is proposing will cost us our liquor license.
I quickly blasted through the inventory and ordered everything as fast as I could. But the ordering process needed to be done right. We could not afford to run out, so that left Julie exposed until I could be sure and finish!
I flew through the work! The last thing I needed was to take my time and find that Julie used the bartender's ceramic citrus knife to stab Mark a few thousand times venting her frustration.
I skimmed down the inventory shortage sheet, and quickly down the food order pages double checking everything as fast as possible. I hit send routing orders to our vendors and burst from my, well the restaurant manager's chair, Mark's chair, and lunged through the kitchen towards the bar before we had a complete meltdown and murder to cover up.
I gripped the door jam exiting the kitchen and flung myself into the service area after Mark. Stress and frustration had me speculating, and wondering if maybe we could conceal the murder as part of the Halloween show we were putting on.
I had to get orders done before leaving, already late for Liam's party, and I still had no real costume to speak of!
My mind raced through fifty ways to derail Mark's latest bad ideas.
Julie was already pulling out strands of hair by running her fists through her hair and coming away with hair tangles each time.
As soon as I arrived my phone picked that time, of all times, to start blowing up.
While playing referee about the stupid shots idea in rapid succession I had the crazy ex-girlfriend number whatever message. Then within thirty seconds, my excommunicated mother sent a long prattling message that filled up my phone's extended preview note's full available space with zero hint of stopping.
Mark started ranting about why not separating the orange and greens to make a pumpkin shot.
My fucking phone did its little vibration thing again!
Glancing down it was the psycho ex-girlfriend's number, whichever different number she was messaging and begging to get together at some other party to hook up.
The nut-bag woman probably got dumped again and was looking to use me to fill the emotional void until she could wreck my life again.
Mark snapped at me, "Why you thinkin' you'r so fuckin' popular! You ain't supposed to have y'ur phone buzzin' at work!"
Refusing to show weakness to the dick, I decided to frost him, as I dismissively told Mark, "Just my hoard of needy women looking for a piece of me this weekend."
I did not bother to say it was my hoard of crazies. However, I could not figure out how to mute individuals on my phone so they never rang.
Mark fancied himself a lady's man so that I was getting all the calls frosted his cupcakes and threw him completely off balance.
That silencing the phone's specific contacts would be my project for Saturday!
Every annoying, psycho woman in my life. All the ones with the 'do-not-answer' and 'ex' tags after their names were getting muted before sunset on Saturday!
My little daydream respite did nothing for me but dump me back into Mark's jealousy-inspired stream of profanity-laced gobbledygook.
