Tales from the Day Job

The kids were named Grayson, Wolf and Hunter, which has no bearing on the story but I’m mentioning anyway due to how utterly badass that is.

I mean, seriously. Gray, Wolf and Hunter? I’d definitely watch that. I’m picturing a significantly more violent reimagining of the Hardy Boys, though if you have a pitch for a legal drama I’d be open to it.

They were having whole live lobsters in spite of the fact that not one of them was over the age of ten, because it was Wolf’s birthday, and their parents had at some point decided that on your birthday you are allowed to ball, even if you’re only turning seven. And, in spite of the fact that they pretty obviously weren’t going to finish their dinners, they decided that they would also have salads to start.

Which is fine. The dinners come with salads and there’s no reason I ought to care whether any particular guest, awesomely named birthday boy or not, finishes their meal.

I left three salads on the table for them, and came back five minutes later to collect two of them back, mostly uneaten. Grayson, it turned out, had grown deeply invested in the whole salad experience, discovering before his lobster even came a love of thousand-island salad dressing that was clearly going to be the high point of his over-expensive meal.

Which, fortunately for me, his family chose to find hilarious, otherwise some of their irritation with his ordering lobster and then getting bogged down in salad dressing might adversely affect my tip…

But they were a good-natured family overall, asking simply that I leave the salad there for him, that he might pick it over until his meal came. Which, again, was no trouble for me, why on earth would it be?

“That’s absolutely fine,” I told him, “doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I’ll bring you an extra thing of thousand-island when your food comes, so you can dip your fries in it…”

And that’s where Grayson’s mother gave me a look like I had just ripped the roof off the restaurant, revealing a magical world behind the one she knew that she’d never previously thought to wonder might exist.

She had somehow made it to her thirties without ever realizing that just because a sauce was labeled “Salad” Dressing, there was nothing stopping her putting it on things other than salad. She was a grown woman, with three children of her own, beholden to none, and in that moment, there in the middle of the restaurant in which I worked, she was finally realizing that she could put any fucking sauce on any fucking thing she wanted to.

And this realization was, going forward, pretty clearly going to change a lot of things for her, in terms of meals and general sauce-usage and, I hope, as a more univeralizable lesson regarding not taking things at face value and living life on her own terms. Not the takeaway she was expecting from her son’s birthday dinner at a popular family chain seafood restaurant, to be sure, but an important lesson nonetheless, and one that she intended from all appearances to take to heart…

And that’s the best thing that happened at my day job, that day. I reminded a woman that she could dip her fries in thousand-island dressing, if she wanted to. I reminded her that she could dip anything in any sauce, if the spirit so moved her. I reminded her that part of being an adult is deciding what being an adult entails. And, even now, looking back on the night, I’m weirdly proud to have been the one to do so.

Because really, that’s why I started waiting tables in the first place.

To change lives.

Also: I tried it myself later, dip fries in thousand-island dressing. It’s as delicious as you think…

The Slumbering One

Long have I slumbered(1) beneath this city’s streets.(2)

I’ve slept what seems an eternity,(3) time beyond measure,(4) since the ancient ones(5) banished me, and in moments it feels as though I should never awaken.(6)

But I shall.(7)

I shall awaken, and when I do I will devour all(8) that lay before me(9) on my way to do my horrible business,(10) business I dare not even mention.(11)

All shall fear me,(12) upon that hour.(13) And none among them shall survive.(14) And truly, this end will please me greatly.(15)

I am an unstoppable thing, unpreventable in my coming,(16) as though I were the sea itself,(17) or the uncaring sky above,(18) or the blind, mad God who’s long since turned his uncaring face away from this pitiful world, ashamed and afraid to look upon it.(19)

But I am here. I am here,(20) in this world,(21) and the hour of my waking draws near.(22) Do not dare attempt to put this moment off,(23) for it is coming and soon it(24) will be nigh….

For so it has been written.(25)

And thus so shall it be.(26)

(1)Probably something like nine or ten hours. Way more sleep than my usual.

(2)I live in a basement apartment.

(3)It was not an eternity, obviously. but it seems like it was, due to time passing weirdly when you’re dreaming. Have you ever had that? Where you’re convinced a dream goes on for years and years? It was like that.

(4)The time COULD be measured, obviously, it just hasn’t been yet.

(5)An eighteen year-old Scotch I’d bought myself as a post-mother’s day present.

(6)In hindsight I should not have had as much of the Scotch as I did.

(7)I have no choice in the matter, I have things today that need to get done.

(8)Breakfast Food

(9)Probably something quick. Toast or some such. Maybe a PB&J sandwich. I’m almost certainly going to be running late and I’ve never been much of a breakfast person anyway.

(10)My Day Job.

(11)My day job is very boring, I’ll spare you the details.

(12)I am by no one’s estimation a morning person, and this plus my hangover means I will almost certainly be arriving at work in a foul mood.

(13)But after an hour, maybe two, with a lot of water for hydration and a few cups of coffee to wake me up, hopefully my mood will improve.

(14)Myself included. Death is, barring one or two exceptions depending on your religion, inevitable to us all.

(15)After all, life’s finite nature is what makes the things we do during ours meaningful. Death is always a painful moment, but it’s a necessary one, and I understand this as well as anyone.

(16)I could probably be prevented from going to work, but I don’t see any reason why anyone would bother.

(17)Insomuch as I am mostly made of water.

(18)Insomuch as the atoms of my body were forged in the same big bang as the stars.

(19)We have displeased our creator, and It has grown over time to resent us more and more for our arrogance, our inability or unwillingness to steward its creation, the lack of respect we’ve shown It through the lack of respect we’ve shown one another. It has abandoned us, and let us pray It never turns Its face back toward our pitiful little world, for should It do so Its wrath will be a terrible thing indeed, and surely all that we’ve squandered our squallid little lives valuing will in a heartbeat be reduced to nothing but ash, with none even to remember we were ever here...

(20)My basement apartment.

(21)A world that lurches toward its fate at the hands of a blind, mad God.

(22)I really do need to get out of bed at some point.

(23)I may be late for work already.

(24)My scheduled shift at work.

(25)I literally just finished writing it.

(26)Much like the end of all things, at the hands of a blind, mad God who’s grown to hate its creation…

...thoughts whilst at work.

Waiter’s Journal: Friday, 6:47pm

There’s food up in alley, but no one has time to walk it.

This restaurant’s afraid of me, I’ve seen its true face. The front of house is an extended gutter and the gutter’s full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown.

The accumulated filth of their demands for extra cheese biscuits and hot water with lemon will foam up about their waists and all the guests and their screaming children will look up at me and shout "Is this gluten free?"

..and I'll stare down and whisper "no." 

At work, the other day... (a true story)

The other day, at work, I witnessed two people collide with one another.

They were coming around a blind corner, neither knowing the other was there, and they hit each other head-on, bouncing off each other and staring, stunned, for a moment before going on their way.

Fortunately, neither was carrying a tray, lest they’d have shattered every plate upon it.

I cannot stress this enough: I was not the person who collided with someone else.

Nor was I the person who was hit.

In fact, I had absolutely nothing to do with this turn of events in the slightest, there was nothing I could do to prevent it, no way I could have warned them, and I was completely uninvolved with the actions that led to it. I merely happened to be standing near enough to witness the collision as it occurred.

“I’m sorry.” I said, the words escaping my mouth before I even knew they were coming…

And that’s the most Canadian thing I’ve ever done.

Weekly Prompt Story: Family

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=24929

On Dinners Missed

By Christopher Munroe

I usually work family holidays.

I don’t have kids, and my extended family’s back east, so on Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving, Easter or any of the other holidays requiring huge family meals, I’ll take pity on a coworker and cover their shift.

They have children, after all, and deserve to spend Christmas with them.

I don’t begrudge it, though they’re not especially good shifts. Time and a half, though, and it’s not like I have other plans for the evening.

HOWEVER: Come Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, or any of the other “drunken, rowdy douchebag” holidays, I’ll be expecting the favor returned…

Flashsense: Vision

I don’t watch the sun rise as much a I used to…

When I worked graveyards the sun would be rising right as I got home for most of spring, and again in autumn, and I’d sit on the chair in front of my place with a beer, watching it. It was basically the best way in the world to relax after a day of work.

I miss it.

However, it’s the only thing I do miss about working graveyards, it was backbreaking work, just horrible.

I’d hate to go back.

And missing sunrises is a small price to pay.

Wings (based on a prompt from 100 word stories)

So this appears to be a new thing of mine, so i'll start blogging them here with my #fridayflash, and random midweek drabbles. Here's the link to the podcast (you really ought to just subscribe to it, but hey, i'm not the boss of you!)

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2011/09/04/weekly-challenge-280-wings/

...and here's the story!

Wings
By Chris Munroe


It’s the wonder of shiftwork, you never know what schedule to expect.

I worked Tuesday to Sunday one week, Monday to Saturday the next. Since I got a day off each week, they didn’t have to pay overtime. See? Brilliant planning on their part.

Now every part of my body aches. But I try not to be bitter. I’m finished now. And I won’t be doing squat with my day off.

I’ll be downtown, headphones on, exploring a city I love and listening to classic rock.

Paul McCartney.

Band on the Run.

I won’t be coming home ‘til I’m relaxed.

The Return

When he came back, he came back... wrong.

He looked the same, if observed superficially enough, but behind his eyes was a disturbing blankness. A lack of.... sympathy? Empathy? Whatever quality it is that allows one living person to connect meaningfully with another, he now lacked it, and in it's place was... nothing.

Were there enough of him left to wish, he'd wish for a merciful end. Instead, he lurched into the house where she, unknowingly, defenselessly, awaited him.

“How was work, honey?”

“You don't want to know.” He murmured, shoulders slumped, as he grabbed himself a beer...