POS.

At the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel where I work now, the POS (point-of-service) system on the tablets that we carry around with us is a real POS (piece of shit).

You have no idea how hard it is to move items from one check to another if they’re put on the wrong table or put on the wrong check when there’s a split check at the table… 

Once when a lady was unhappy with her cocktail and we went to delete it, I handed my tablet to a manager for her to punch in her code and take it off the bill, only, one of the beers further down off-screen must have been previously tapped and accidentally highlighted, too, so that also disappeared, and it was only because the customer noticed it at the end of the meal when they were looking at the receipt that we were able to go back and add it back onto the bill where it belonged.

It really makes you wonder what’s going on with software design, where a product isn’t easily usable on such a basic level with such a basic everyday task in the workplace.

An evening at the local music bar:

1) When I went to buy a pack of peanuts – they have those for sale for like fifty cents or a dollar, and I tend to get them when I’m drinking, since not only are they tasty, but they’re a heck of a lot more healthy than like Doritos or Cheetos or whatnot – I ask the (unaffable) (fish-faced) (early 50s) (white) bartender for “a well whiskey on the rocks, no straw, and a peanut,” and he’s like, “Just one?”.

2) Later, the one (large) (bearded) (sound engineer) who I know from around town is over by me, and I ask him to watch my study-stuff while I run to the restroom, and he does, and then later he asks me to watch his drink while he does the same.

“This would be the perfect time to roofie it,” I was like. “We’ve built up trust through the first exchange, and now I take advantage of it, for my own ends.”

And, he laughed, and then was like, “Just like I planned it.”

3) Some (older) (white) guys are also there at the bar – they’re in town from different states since they grew up in the area, and their dad is like in his 90s and needs help right now and their sibling who lives locally can’t handle everything – and when it gets late and a cloudburst happens and I mention to them that I want to go home but the rain is too heavy, the one gestures to this raincoat hanging from a hook underneath the bar between us that had led us initially to start talking since I had asked them if it was theirs or if someone was sitting there, and he’s like, “[My first name], take the raincoat and return it tomorrow.”

A childhood memory…

…of my one (eccentric) (blonde) (semi-manger) coworker at the (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, where I work now:

Growing up back at her parents’ restaurant, she discovered that the bar nozzle for sodas had a short lag-time when the pop syrup was coming out but before the carbonated water kicked in, and so she’d tap the button repeatedly whenever she wanted a soda, and it was her just like drinking pure sugar water at eight years old without her parents having any idea that was going on, and she did that shit like all the time.

. . .

(. . .)

Two bits of customer banter at my new job…

…at the (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel:

1) When I go to seat three (older) (gruff) (white) farmers at a table and the little cocktail lamp there is shut off because it’s either broken or its power has run out, I pick it up and I say that I’ll go get a new one, and without even looking at me or pausing from pulling out his chair, the one is like, “That’s fine, we don’t need no ambiance.”

2) When I deliver this one specialty burger with a chili sauce on top of it, I wish the (older) (white) lady who is talking intensely about home health care with her friend an enjoyable meal, and I remark how good the burger looks and I say how I’ve been meaning to try that specific burger because it always looks so good when I bring it out to tables, and she just looks at me and is like, “Not tonight, bud.”

Some recent phone oddities with my parents.

1) For a while, my mother would not say hello when she picked up the phone but instead waited for you to say hello first, since that was her method of trying to identify spam calls.

2) One time, my dad answers and then just hangs up when I’m done talking to him without passing the phone along to my mother, and when I call back and ask him to speak to her, he says that she’s in town.

An odd sight this year at the end of winter:

As I go around my yard and the front house to pick up stray trash, just beyond my kitchen window the ground is covered here and there in blue feathers, some covered by dead leaves, but none with bits of flesh attached to them like a bird that had been killed and eaten or something like that.

Bar tacos.

One Saturday after work after a big basketball game that the local university team ended up losing in a really disappointing way, I ended up heading across the street to this (old) (townie) dive bar, and a big group of people way down at the other end of the bar had this big aluminum catering tray of stuff out and so I assumed that they had brought in food for some party like maybe for a party around the game, and then when I was on my second beer, the (older) (short-haired) (dyed blonde) (fatter) (back-tatted) (female) bartender brings it down to our end of the bar and dumps it there and says that there’s tacos for anyone who wants them.

And, I grab one and unwrap it from the tin foil and it’s amazing, and so I ask her when she’s back over by me who brought it in and she says a regular, and later when a (young) (white) guy in (team) gear by the bar grabs a taco after I point them out to him and he asks who brought them in, I tell him that, and he just nods solemnly and is like, “They’re the real hero tonight.”

Later, too, since I’m still unclear on the situation, I ask that same bartender again when she’s back over by me if that regular works at a taqueria or has money to burn or what, and at that she just laughs and is like, “Both!”, and then she says that the regular is the owner of a regional taco chain that she names by name, he comes in here a lot and he does that every so often for people, he just brings in a huge thing of tacos for all the people who are hanging out drinking so they can have a good time.

. . .

(I end up eating two there and take one to go when no-one else is eating them, and then like at 3am or 4am that night I wake up with this just horrendous heartburn from the spicy red sauce that all the bits of steak were covered in, though luckily I have some Tums that were left me by the one [worked out] [STEM] [Brazilian] when he moved, and so I chew a few of those and am able to go back to sleep again right away, no problem.)