August 23, 2010

When I Grow Up

I'm gunna be a Ghost Hunter. Yup. It's official.

Ghost Hunters just posted on a casting website that they are looking for a girl to join the team that is interested in the paranormal. I AM SO GOING TO BE ON THAT SHOW. You better bet I submitted immediately...after I danced around my room happily.

Though I'm not sure if I'd be any good at it. Crawling around dark scary places isn't exactly my thing. You aren't supposed to scream if you get scared, nor are you supposed to run away. Both of these things I am VERY good at. Maybe if I'm cute enough they won't care and can just sit me down in one spot and say "stay."

Yup. New career plan.

August 19, 2010

Speak of the Devil

...That kid came back in again tonight. He screamed about blood some more.

Also. This happened.

A woman walks in, she stares at me. "Do you guys have pancakes?"

...the word pancakes is in our name. There is also a giant sign by me that says "Pancakes!"

Then two 70 year olds sat in a booth and made out for half an hour. Scarred for life.

Anyway. Have you noticed it's really hard to make up your mind when it comes to really big decisions? Right now I have one to make and I swear I change my mind every ten seconds. I get it. I'm 22. It's supposed to be like this. But cant I like...have my life plan written out for me so I know what decision I'm supposed to make? Is that so much to ask? I don't think so!

I locked myself out of my apartment tonight. That was great. I spent twenty minutes sitting on the floor outside of my door trying not to cry. My super wasn't answering his phone and I had noooo idea what to do. I was planning on couch surfing at a friend's, but I didn't have to. Luckily the super finally answered his phone and he was NOT HAPPY with me. It was only 11 PM...not too late, right? Right.

Man this post was ADD.

August 18, 2010

Kids Are Scary

Aaaand I'm back in Chicago after a few days in TN where I witnessed nepotism at its finest! Nothing quite like going to audition for your dream role only to find out it is already promised to the director's daughter. And the other leads are for his son and daughter-in-law. Cool.

Anyway, I've been meaning to post this story and haven't had the chance to. So here we go.

I was, once again, working a dinner shift and it was slow. We generally welcome any customers at that point because it gives the entire restaurant something to do. A family of five walks in, all three kids under the age of seven. The oldest son is being extremely loud and obnoxious and telling his mother that his blood is itching. He then glares at me as I am getting the menus and informs me that I, in fact, have too much blood in my body.

Cute kid.

I take them to a booth that they do not want and end up having to trek the entire length of the restaurant to get them a booth in the back corner. I guess they want to hide the strange child from the world. Understandable. I would be embarrassed of him too. Unfortunately the mother is difficult too and is going through the menu demanding all of these changes be made to recipes and what not. Fiiine, whatever. She tells me to in no way, shape, or form make this mango smoothie with anything pineapple. She does not like pineapple. I put pineapple juice in it. She loves it.

As I am taking the smoothie to the table, I see the strange child scribbling madly all over the chicken on our kids menu. In red, of course. Blood, obviously. Just as I put the smoothie down, the adorable little child picks up his butter knife and THROWS it at me. It hits me in the hip and clatters to the floor. Thankfully it was not a steak knife and nothing happened. The mother doesn't apologize, doesn't really CARE, just laughs it off and dismisses me with a wave of her hand like I'm a servant.

UM HELLO. YOUR CHILD IS A SERIAL KILLER. Maybe we need to be paying less attention to our dislike of pineapple and instead focusing on our obviously disturbed kid. He continued to draw blood all over everything and scream occasionally about other morbid things.

She then tipped her waitress two dollars for a fifty dollar tab. Maybe she's poor because she's paying so much for her son's psychiatric help? I certainly hope that's the reason.

Demented seven year olds that scream about blood and throw knives at people? Am I on Candid Camera?

August 12, 2010

Sorry, I Cannot Hear You, I'm Kinda Busy

I have to answer the phones at work. It really annoys me because I am not a secretary. I am not paid to be a secretary, yet the managers give out the front desk phone number to all of their business associates. Their wives call all of the time too. They both have iPhones! They can give that number out!

When it isn't for one of the managers it is usually a to-go order. I really wish people could place the orders online. When it's really busy, the last thing I want to do is stop everything I'm doing to answer the phone and take down an order. Today, I got such a lovely call from a guy.

Man on phone (MOP): Yeah, I want an omelette.
Me: Okay, sir. What kind would you like?
MOP: I don't know...vegetables.
(I groan inwardly and read him the types of omelettes we make with vegetables. He makes me repeat half of it, gets angry at the prices, then tells me he isn't sure what he wants. He offers to call me back...which he does...five seconds later)
MOP: Okay...I know what I want. But I need you to grill the vegetables before you put them in with the eggs.
Me: Well, the vegetables go in before cooking so they will be cooked along with the eggs.
MOP: No. Grill them.
Me: I'm sorry sir, my computer doesn't really have that option.
MOP: So go back there and tell the cooks what to do. I want them grilled.
Me: ...Yeah fine. I'm not promising anything.
(I get pissy on the phone since they can't tell what my face is doing)

He hangs up and shows up ten minutes later demanding his food. It's not ready. I told him 15 minutes. He yells at me about being double parked. I think about telling him that he's really far too ugly to think he is so special. But I don't.

All of the sudden he walks to a table and starts picking up the silverware and glasses. "Sir, what are you doing?" "I need silverware and a glass." "Well there will be plastic silverware in the bag...and you didn't order a drink, why do you need the glass?" "...Uh. I'm going to want water later."

...His attitude is really not helping me give him wonderful customer service. "Sir, I can give you water in a plastic cup if you'd like." "No. I want it in this glass." "Well you can't have that glass, it is ours and it costs money." "Well that's how I want my water."

...

I hate people.

I go and get him water in a freaking plastic cup and hand it to him. His omelette comes out from the kitchen and he starts pestering me about how it was cooked. "Did you make sure this didn't touch a griddle that cooks meat?" "They wipe the griddle down in between each order." "No. I can't have my food cooked on anything that has ever touched meat. Ever."

...Then go to a different restaurant buddy. You paid 9 dollars for your food. This is not Morton's. "Yeah, it should be fine. They cook the eggs on a different griddle than the meat."

It's a lie. I hope he's deathly allergic to invisible meat particles and chokes on his hashbrowns.

August 10, 2010

Concentration

This week I'm working dinner shifts. Dinner shifts in a breakfast restaurant are very slow. They only have three of us working a dinner shift - two servers and me. There's usually one manager on duty that sits in the office and smokes, ignoring anything we happen to need.

My main task during a dinner shift is cleaning the bar and taking to-go orders. To-go orders piss me off because the managers take the tips for them. They don't do anything for the to-go orders...yet they get all the tips. These people think they are tipping me...I have to say thank you and smile like they are ridiculously generous. I never see any of that money.

Anyway, tonight was REALLY slow. Around 6:30 the restaurant was completely empty. The servers and I were just staring at each other and eating the mints. We stayed empty...for two hours. I wiped the entire bar down with bleach, organized juice by color, cleaned the windows, cleaned out the espresso machine...and after all of that was done I found myself standing up front alone, harmonizing with every song that came on the speakers. This continued for a good ten minutes until I turned around and looked at the lost and found. Someone had left their copy of A Picture of Dorian Gray at their table and had not come back to claim it. I haven't read that book and I love Oscar Wilde, so I figured I would give it a try. I mean I honestly had nothing else to do. I had looked for things to clean and there was nothing left. Reading a bit until a customer came in couldn't be too bad...right?

Well, I was twelve pages in when the manager on duty appeared from the kitchen. "Jordan!" I look over and remember that there is a camera right above my head that feeds into a monitor on his desk...oops.

"Yes?"

"Put that away! You need to concentrate!" He doesn't wait for a response and disappears back to his hole. I look around the restaurant and am quite confused. Concentrate on what...exactly? The masses of people banging at our door to get a table? Oh wait...there are no people.

I really dislike the cameras. He came back later to tell me to stop talking to the servers because we all had work to do. What that work was, I'm not really sure. I had done all of my side jobs. I had even rearranged all of the money in the drawer so that all of the faces were looking the same direction. Eventually I just picked up a menu and pretended to be memorizing it while I harmonized with the music some more.

Eventually a customer came in...and left five minutes later because the Wi-Fi wasn't working. I rebelled and made myself a latte. If I can't read and I can't talk to anyone, I'm going to steal the espresso. That's just how it goes.

August 8, 2010

Creative Cooking

Sometimes I start cooking things before I check for all of the ingredients. I don't particularly like to cook because I'm terrible at it, so I just throw things around like an idiot. Today, that led to an interesting dinner.

I decided to cook the spinach tortellini I've had in my fridge for the past two weeks. Buitoni is truly a God send. Now you may think that pasta would be difficult to complete. You clearly don't know me. I threw the pasta into the boiling water and set my microwave timer for the usual 8 minutes. It finished boiling and I had to creatively use a plate over the top of the pot to get rid of the water (I keep forgetting that the last strainer I had was my roommate's...and I never think about needing one until it is way too late). I open the fridge to retrieve my tomato sauce and...it's not there. I threw it away because it was old. Darn it.

I look in the fridge and realize that I don't have much to put on this pasta. String cheese won't work. Neither will chocolate pudding. However, I have some of that yogurt butter spread and laughing cow 35 calorie soft cheese wedges. That could...possibly be good...and a low fat sauce, right?! Right. So I melt a tablespoon of the butter with the cheese in the microwave and stir...it's kind of thick but that shouldn't bother me too much.

I put it over my pasta and give it a try. It's delicious. I am a genius!

The odds of one of my made up recipes every being delicious again are slim to none. However, I will always remember the day that I made pasta sauce out of laughing cow cheese.

August 6, 2010

The Breakfast Club

I work at a very busy breakfast restaurant in downtown Chicago. My title is Hostess/Barista, though sometimes I feel like Secretary/Girl Everyone Gets Mad At. I guess I never realized just how much anger is directed toward the girl standing at the front of the restaurant. It really isn't my fault if there is a thirty minute wait. I do not walk around the restaurant telling people to eat slower so the people up front have to wait longer.

For some reason, old ladies REALLY hate me. I'm attacked by at least one every shift. The other day one walked in and looked at the menu, then to me.

"I can't have dairy or eggs. I don't want pancakes or french toast. I don't want lunch either. What's on your menu I can have?"

I stared at her and then the line that was forming out the door. Did it look like I had time for this? This was a breakfast restaurant. Our menu was on the door...what did she expect?

"I'm sorry ma'am, if you don't want pancakes or french toast I'm afraid there isn't much you can have. We have oatmeal, but it's made with milk. You absolutely can't have eggs?"

"No, I just told you that! Why can't you accommodate people like me?! Do you know how hard it is to not be able to eat eggs? You need to have something on this menu for me!"

I want to point out that she just said she didn't WANT the pancakes. If she can eat the pancakes, then there is something on the menu for her. Instead I smile and apologize. She tosses the menu on the floor and leaves.

The next day an older couple came in and asked for a table for two. I wasn't seating at the time and motioned them over to a chair where they could wait to be seated by the other hostess. They ignored the direction I pointed them in and backed up, hiding in a corner. When it isn't too crowded, we don't have a list. So guests generally form a line to be seated. There was obviously a line. They were ignoring it.

A few minutes go by and the woman comes up to me, ridiculously angry. "EXCUSE ME! You said we would be next!" (No. I did not.) "She has taken other tables of two and not us!" At this moment in time I was on the phone taking a to-go order. I had to put the poor man on hold and step over to the woman. "Ma'am if you could just step right over here, he'll seat you as soon as he gets back." "Well hello, we've been over there forever! Why did you tell me to go over there?"

...

To customers at a restaurant, five minutes is forever. And um...I did not tell her to go over to the corner. She made that up. It was her decision to hide in the corner and let people take her table. How, exactly, this was my fault, I'm not sure. But she rolled her eyes and scoffed at me as she walked off to take her seat.

You'd think breakfast would be a happy time. I mean we load the customers up with sugar, butter, and chocolate. What more could they want? One day I'm going to blurt out that I'm not even paid ten dollars an hour and that if they want me to forget everything I'm doing just for them, they can hand me a twenty.

Just a thought...

The Story That Started It All

I wrote this out of boredom...thought I'd re-post it for kicks.

For those that don't know, I recently moved into a new apartment. I've never lived completely on my own, so I knew things would not go right during the first week or two here. However, I did not realize that the things that could go wrong would culminate into one hour of my life after days of calm living.

Today I woke up and was doing fine. I had planned to pack for the trip I'm going on in two days and I was going to go wander around for a bit. I wandered, got some coffee and a pizza to cook (I figured the pizza would feed me for a few more meals...healthy eating at its finest). I returned home and THOUGHT it was going to be a peaceful evening full of wedding shows, Toddlers and Tiaras, and Top Chef.

I was wrong.

I walked into my bathroom to grab my glasses and there was a spider on the ceiling of my shower. I ...do not like spiders. I am, to be honest, terrified of spiders. I generally run away from spiders. However, there is nobody here to kill the spiders but me. As it was on my ceiling, I could not actually reach it and I refused to throw something at it because that might just knock it off the ceiling and onto my head. That would not be pretty. So at first I attempted to spray it with hair spray, because that has killed spiders in the past. However, gravity was not on my side. By the end of the hair spray attempt, the spider was still chilling on the ceiling, and my face and arm were covered in said hair product.

Step 2 involved turning the lights on and off really fast in hopes that it would scare the spider and it would climb down the wall so I could smush it with a shoe. This just intrigued it and it ended up climbing onto the light and hanging out there.

This spider was not going to get the best of me...I am smarter than this spider. So, I got my vacuum cleaner out. I figured this would put me a safe distance from the spider and kill it at the same time. I turned on the vacuum cleaner and pointed at the spider. Well. The spider flew off of the light and...not...into the vacuum cleaner. I freaked out, dropped the vacuum and ran away. Upon re-entrance into the bathroom, I get to see that the vacuum is in pieces, my hairspray and new hand towel are in the toilet, and the spider is in hiding.

Awesome.

I put the vacuum back together, fished items out of the toilet, and went on a spider hunt again. It took a while, but I found him. He was in the bath tub, hiding under the shower curtain. He is now smushed and down the drain.

Victory is mine.

The next plight occurred during dinner time. I was baking my pizza and I noticed my oven smelled funny. It's a new oven and google said that that was normal, so I figured I wasn't poisoning myself. I couldn't open the windows though (like google said) because spiders would get in.

So I'm cooking my pizza. All of the sudden, this beeping starts. I look around my apartment because, what on earth could be beeping? My phone isn't beeping...my tv isn't beeping...the computer isn't beeping. Let's think...could it posisbly be that oven timer I set? Oh...so it is. After feeling like a moron, I go to take the pizza out of the oven and a different beeping starts...I turned off the timer! What could be beeping?!

Perhaps it's that smoke alarm right above the kitchen...

Yup. I set off the smoke alarm with a frozen pizza. I'm talented like that.

So I have to jump up and down under the smoke alarm, waving my arms and blowing the smoke away. It's at this point that I start to wonder if I'm on TV and all of this crap is happening for the amusement of others. It wouldn't surprise me.

The smoke alarm finally shuts up and I go to cut my pizza. I don't have very sharp knives, and the pizza crust is kinda tough. The knives are not working. So...I washed a pair of scissors and used them instead.

Now I have the lovely problem of figuring out how to store this pizza. I don't have tupperware. I didn't think of this when I bought the full sized pizza instead of the personal size.

We'll see how it goes. Something is telling me I'll be using paper towels and tape.

Fine. I guess I'll give in.

People asked me to do this. I think you all have way too much faith in me. We'll see how it goes.

You can all finally see just how deranged I am! <3