Whenever I work a double at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, when I come back in for the evening shift and see a front-of-house coworker, my standard line is --
"Who worked lunch shift today? This place looks like shit!"
-- to their general non-response.
. . .
(But, at least I am amused.)
Some lines with customers at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, from a lunch shift the other week:
1) Me, after apologizing for not checking on their table because I was busy on the phone for a while taking a lengthy take-out order where there was a problem with the credit card, too, and I had to punch it in 3 different times: "And thank you for your patience, I was caught up for while on the phone with a to-go order, not everyone was as fearless as you, to step outside when they saw the weather today!"
2) Me, after a(n older) (white) couple place their order right after they are led to their table, as they stand there and take their coats off: "And my gosh, you two are decisive, even for a decisive table! Even most decisive tables take their coats off and sit down before ordering."
. . .
(At some point in the future with some table when it makes sense and feels right, one of these days I'll have be like, "Aw, shucks," as a natural extension of my wholesome tableside personality.)The other week at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, my one (male) (Guatemalan) coworker hustled out quickly from the kitchen to deliver a rack of freshly-washed glasses and was like, "Hola, Senor!" ("Hello, Mister!"), to which I immediately replied, "Gracias, Senor!" ("Thank you, Mister!") as he was wheeling around to go back into the back into the kitchen, and I don't even think we looked at each other or thought about what we were doing or saying as we said and did that, it was all just so automatic and routine as something that we all just do, and then I noticed that this one (slim) (late 20s) (brownish-white) app delivery driver in a winter cap and coat who was sitting at a table waiting for his order to come up had turned his head and was just looking in our direction, with amusement.
And, I realized that he was probably (Mexican), and had overheard us.
"Aqui nosotros llamamos Senor, siempre," I was like ("Here we call each other 'Mister,' always"), and he just seemed vaguely amused, happy to have anything at all lively happening in his life.
So slowly have we sunk into idiosyncracy, that our behavior has now become peculiar to outsiders. And, I was the instigator.
During a recent trip to the city that I used to live in, it had started snowing some, so I took pictures right before getting on the train back to the college town that I now live in, and as I rode the train, you could see out the window that it was becoming snowier and snowier and snowier, to the point that it was clear that there was exponentially more snow down where I live, than in the city.
So, the next day at work at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, I was showing everyone that picture, to show how little snow there was there, comparatively, just as something to do to pass the time and be sociable, like I often do at work with whatever have you that's happening at the time.
And, at that, my one (younger) (male) (Guatemalan) coworker with the (bright) and (open) face who always seems amused by me pulled out his phone, and he showed me a picture of him and our other (male) (Guatemalan) coworker of his (same-aged) uncle standing on that very same bridge with the photo taken at almost exactly the very same angle -- "Yo prefiero el foto sin diablos," I said, to general amusement in the kitchen ('I prefer the picture without devils') -- and then we talked some, and it turns out that they had visited the city for the first time ever over Christmas, when the restaurant was closed for a few days.
And, he then proceeded to show me a series of pictures of them doing various tourist things.
So, for like the next week, I called them "Senor Turista" ("Mr. Tourist") and "el otro Senor Turista" ("the other Mr. Tourist"), to vague amusement from everyone, for a while.
Then, when that stopped being amusing, I stopped that, and instead began calling him "Senor No Mas Turista" ("Mr. Tourist No More"), which jumpstarted the joke just a little bit for like one or two days more, kind of like those paddles that you apply to someone's chest to shoot out electricity and get their heart started again, but then it ceased being at all amusing.
So, I stopped.
Like two or three weeks ago, I was eating through my bundle of kale from the supermarket like I usually do -- I keep it on the top shelf of my fridge, and like every day or two I take out a few leaves and wash them and cut them up and add in raw onion and maybe sauerkraut and then sauerkraut juice or oil and vinegar, to eat as a salad, kale is so wonderful, it just keeps in the fridge forever and it's so firm and flavorful and full of vitamins -- but one leaf I pulled out was broken and a little mashed up towards the center of the stem, with a burr of mold growing around it, which was odd, since kale can get dehydrated and nasty if you keep it a bit too long, it happens from time to time, but that kind of mold was a new one.
So, I cut it out, cutting generously around the mold, and then put the rest of the leaf in my salad.
But, like for the next few days, I pulled out multiple stems exactly like that, that were broken and a little mashed up towards the center of the stem, with a burr of mold growing around it, which was certainly more than I expected to find, somehow I had thought that that first stem was just a one-time thing.
As best as I can figure, somehow those stems must have been crushed before or during the bundling of the kale for sale, and that compromise of the vegetable's integrity gradually led to mold growing there, in the bundle of kale on the top shelf of my refrigerator.
This winter is so brutally dry, that I have to keep a pan of water lightly boiling on the stove whenever I'm home, to keep the air in my cottage manageably humidified.
Even then, for like a week or two straight, I've been waking up at night with my sinuses and throat just dried out and parched, to the point where it's so uncomfortable that I can't go back to sleep, which in turn has made me start keeping a water-bottle on the floor by my bedside, so if I wake up like that, I can immediately drink some water and try to get back to sleep right away, before I wake up too much and can't fall asleep again.
I've never honestly had to do that before, even in the present cottage where I live, during equivalently cold winters.
I wonder what gives.
1) In yet another sign of increasing local homelessness, a (scrawny) (disheveled) (middle-aged) (black) man at a bus-stop is talking loudly with another (disheveled) (black) man with a fur-lined hood drawn up around his face, and he's saying how he forgot something, and then the other says he might have left it in the restroom, at which point the first man immediately turns on his heels and starts loping towards the nearby public library.
Then, like ten minutes later, when I'm inside the local library, a heavy smell of marijuana smoke is coming from the men's restroom (the first time that that's ever happened, whenever I've been there).
2) The double-wide egg refrigerator of the local co-op is almost entirely empty, apart from one scattered shelf of half-cartons of eggs, like maybe six or eight or ten in total, and a (younger) (fattish) (bespectacled) (bearded) (vaguely Latino) store worker and a (younger) (taller) (mildly plump) (round-faced) (white) woman with (round-framed glasses) tell me that it's not just one thing happening that's causing the egg shortage, but it's multiple things happening at once.
Like, one farm was struck with bird flu, and, another local farmer sold off all of his chickens, and went to go hike the Appalachian Trail.
