Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Waiter! I hate to be a bother...but there seems to be a severed head in my soup.


Today I shall regale y'all with a true tale from the restaurant world.

This is a "yes, this really happens and this is where the joke comes from" kind o'story.

*the names have been changed because I never liked their real names anyways.




Once upon a time, at a little restaurant in a land called Minneapolis, there was a guy named Derwin. Derwin had just recently been hired as a "wait assistant" at an upscale neighborhood cafe (f.y.i- a "wait assistant" generally assists the waitstaff: gets water, runs food, gets bread, clears tables, etc...In this particular restaurant this was a coveted position as the wait assist was paid a fair wage and recieved generous tips from the waitstaff. They very often made well over $100 a night in tips).
Derwin was entirely unqualified for the job, but his friends worked there and the owner loved his friends, so Derwin got a job. Derwin was a lovable, slightly nerdy guy with a large head (literally) that seemed to fit right in.

One of Derwin's first shifts on the job was a very busy weekend night. It was early summer, a beautiful night, and the place was buzzing. "Derwin is doing a great job tonight" his spectacularly beautiful and smart boss, Bourbonmaggie noted. "He's a natural".

At virtually the exact second that the stunning and multi-talented Bourbonmaggie noted this fact, and when almost no one was looking...poor Derwin sliced his cute, chubby finger wide open with the bread knife.

He was a real trooper, that Derwin. He washed the blood off (and hopefully the knife), slapped a band-aid on and went directly back to work.
The witty and wise Bourbon (as she was known to her friends) had not seen this as she was busy running a restaurant and brokering world peace, but others did. Bourbon, oblivious and slightly buzzed from her "coffee" simply beamed at how well the evening was going. Things were good, and she loved her staff.
Her little Derwin was a winner, she thought. A great addition.

Let us now fast-forward about 1.5 hours into the past-future. Dinner service is at its peak, the kitchen is tense and heated as restaurant kitchens tend to be at 8:00 on a weekend.


The superhero server, Shamie, enters the kitchen with a strange, harried and pissed off look on her face. "This guy at my table says his tuna had a bloody band-aid on it."

"What?" Bourbon didn't seem to understand what she said.

"He says that when it came to the table, there was a bloody band-aid perched right on top of the fish."

"What? No way. No fucking way. What a scam. He's totally lying. Like it's even possible for that to happen", Bourbon says, her anger rising.

"I'll go get it" says Superhero. "I'll be right back"

Superhero goes, then comes back a minute later with the offending plate in hand. Sure enough, there's a gross bloody band-aid perched on top like some sort of gothic garnish gone wrong. Really wrong.

Bourbon looks at it. "Shit. What do we do? Who brings a bloody band-aid to a restaurant just to scam them? What an asshole."

Superhero smirks, pissed. "I know, but what should I do? The guy is being kind of o.k. about it, but other people are starting to notice that something's up."

"Shit shit shit." (Pauses) "Fine. Comp the table- but be quiet about it. And get him some new fish- stat."

"Sure, fine." Superhero exits.

What the fuck??? Bourbon thinks as she jumps back into "saving-the-world one table at a time" mode.

Fast-forward to the end of the night. Derwin has gone home and the remaining staff are gathered around the bar having wine and discussing the evening, particularly the "band-aid" incident.

Randomly, mid conversation, the server Bettie pipes up. "Derwin cut himself tonight. I bet it was his band-aid. No one else cut themselves."

Bourbon snaps her head around. "What?!?"

"Yeah, he cut his finger, and he was the one that dropped the food at that table. I bet it was him."

Fuck.

Yeah.

"Duh, you think?" Bourbon intelligently replies. She starts slowly shaking her head. "That fucker. I'm going to kill him."

(pauses for a bit, laughs to herself)
"Can you get me another glass? I think I need a drink."

The end.

Well, actually- as a side note: Derwin did not get fired, and eventually we all laughed about it. He never fessed up, though I'm sure if we would have brought the CSI team in his ass would have been cooked. I think he actually thought that I'd make him pay back the $200+ that I ended up losing on the table in question.
He turned out to, eventually, be a great server.

Thank jebus the papers never got a hold of this story. Or the health department.

There you go- the bloody band-aid story.

All true, unfortunately. All true.

20 comments:

T said...

Flies, no problem. Hairs—I'll shrug & pull 'em off.

Bloody band-aids ... yeesh! Kudos to you for not giving Derwin the boot right then and there.

Brillig said...

EWWWWWWWWWWW!!! Oh, yikes. Yeah, I couldn't do bloody band-aid. And I probably wouldn't have been a very nice patron...

And that BourbonMaggie sounds fantastic!

Stacey said...

Uggh gag, Bourbon Maggie.

Oops I mean Whiskey Marie.

You should have played innocent and said the the customer "It's a new recipe we're trying out. What you don't like it ?"

Mair said...

Ahhh! Ahhhh! AHHHH! OMG.

Did those people ever come back, I wonder? Ah, Derwin.

Nature Girl said...

YIKES! Well...all's well that ends well I suppose. Good thing the customers were cool about it.
Stacie

Jon said...

I guess the moral of that story is: When life gives you a bloody band aid in your food, you get yourself some Bourbon.

metalia said...

Sweet hell. That is NASTY. I once found a fingernail clipping in a muffin, but this is worse, if possible.

Nocturnal said...

Well at least you saved money on the tip at that restaurant and yes, Bourbon Maggie sounds like a hoot.

abbersnail said...

ew ew ew ew ew EEEEEEEEW.

Also, my favoritest ever description of time? "fast forward to the past-future."

Nicely done, my friend.

Lollie said...

The only thing worse than a bloody band-aid perched atop your tuna steak would be a bloody band-aid wedged firmly inside your already half-eaten tuna steak.

Guh - vomit...

Butrfly Garden said...

Wow. Definitely agreed, Lollie.

I worked at a subway with a real bitch. If someone was an ass to her when she took their catering order, she licked EVERY piece of cheese on the party sub.

I also worked another ff place that won't be named in order to preserve my coolness, but there were some sick people there, too (only ones who couldn't fire me, so I actually ragged on them and/or got them in trouble).

Loved the story, though.

Disco and Dexter - Friends at Best said...

ah the beautiful things that happen behind the scenes at a restaurant.

lizgwiz said...

I'm with Lollie. A bloody band-aid perched ATOP the food is, at least, highly visible before any actual eating takes place.

kimmyk said...

Everytime I hear about bloody band aids I am reminded of the person at Red Robin...*shudders*

I don't like to find things in my food. Nothing will make my gag reflex flare like finding "something" in my food.

Could never work behind the scenes of a rest. No thanks.

Lollie said...

Seriously, bridge business - need to know if you're okay...

Mamacita Chilena said...

oh the joys of working in a restaurant...I've been there too!

I'd definitely rather find a bloody bandaid in my food before I started eating so I could replace it (or leave the restaurant). I've seen burgers dropped on the floor and then served and the customer just never knew.

Rebecca said...

so did you / do you own a restaurant? I did a LOT of waitressing and even managed a small mexican restaurant in my twenties. I was pretty good to.

So, if I come to America will you give me a job? (My fella's parents were USian so visas won't be a problem) And will you babysit my kids like you promised??

Whiskeymarie said...

Did. Did own.
Now I have my sanity back (really- I know), and at least a vague indication of a life.

But the babysitting offer stands.
;)

Idea #527 said...

I actually had that happen to someone I was with. But replace tuna with a vanilla milkshake and the person I was with almost done with her milkshake, sucking the bejebes out of it and being like "man there's a big chunk of ice cream that isn't going through my straw." Then see all of our horrors when she was doing the suck and pull thing with her straw and there is a bandaid at the end. It was the most disgusting thing to happen right before church camp.

*side note: I have never had a vanilla milkshake since. And this was back in 1990.

Whiskeymarie said...

Idea- Eeew. I'm not usually squeamish, but god, that is gross.
Poor girl.
"band-aid-infused shake"
Mmmm...