Sunday, October 24, 2010

On/Off

When I was a banquet captain, most of the on-call people I hired were waiters and waitresses I knew from working in other hotels and restaurants. Monica was one of these. We met in our early 20s working in a pancake house. I waited on her and her mother when she came in to fill out an application, and we are still friends almost 30 years later. By the time Monica was filling in for me on the banquet staff, she had a full-time office job, so we didn't work together much. She was a great waitress, though she's actually a little shy. That quiet nature made what was likely one of the most embarrassing moments of her waitress years even more hilarious the night we were clearing tables during a wedding reception at the point of transition from "Dinner" to "Dance" and Monica unplugged the DJ. She thought she was unplugging the hot plates that we used for coffee service. There were people on the dance floor, music, and flashing colored lights when suddenly everything went dark and quiet. We heard, "Oh my gosh!" and in about 10 seconds the lights came back on again, with Monica, beet red, and huddled next to the electrical outlet. We loved to tease her afterwards about "that time you unplugged those people's wedding."

3 comments:

  1. Dude, where have you been? You haven't posted for a month and a half...just wanted to check in and make sure you're still breathing on that end!

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  2. I know. I suck at this. I still come here thinking I'm gonna write but I lost all my notes when my computer crashed and I just haven't recovered the spirit of it. Thanks for checking on me.

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  3. Oh man, that sucks. I know exactly how that feels...it's why my first serving blog fell to the wayside. This summer's customers rekindled the spirit and gave me new material, so FMT stuck.

    Hope to see you back with more stories - I love reading your blog. Best Christmas wishes, and Happy New Year!

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