Day one hundred and thirty three: boom goes the dynamite

I finally have food in my refrigerator. I finished work early tonight so I went grocery shopping. 


I feel like I've accomplished more for myself in an hour of Friday night grocery shopping than I have in two weeks. 


The thing I like about grocery shopping is that self-checkout machines are popping up everywhere making every shopping adventure a do-it-yourself shopping adventure. I'm really good at it too and I think this is directly related to the hours I spent as a child playing pretend grocery store. No my parents never bought me a toy cash register but the cash register in my mind prepared me for any sort of grocery emergency life could throw my way. 


I love self-checkouts. 


Self-checkouts let you get away with things that cashier operated checkouts don't -- things I would otherwise never be brave enough to do. For instance: write a the code for a cheaper bulk food item on the tag of my bag of Olympic Trail Mix (peanuts, raisins, cashews and Smarties). It’s not the best trail mix out there – the best is the Kirkland Trail Mix from Costco. It’s got M&M’s instead of Smarties. If M&M's were in a battle to the death with Smarties I think we all know which candy coated chocolate treat would come out victorious. Kirkland Trail Mix is the kind of trail mix that actually makes me want to be on a trail. If that’s what hiking tastes like, sign me up!


What was I talking about? Ah yes, self-checkout price adjustments. This money saving technique isn't limited to bulk food goodies. You can do this with produce too. Gala apples running on the expensive side? Guess what? MacIntosh apples are $.04 cheaper. Punch in that less delicious apple code and you're laughing. 


Seedless grapes? Too rich for my blood until I punched in the code for grapes with seeds or poor people grapes as I like to refer to them as. 


I saved roughly $1.15 tonight and that's all thanks to the self-checkout. And boom goes the dynamite!

Day one hundred and thirty two: our father...

It happens more than you might think. I'm talking about tables that say grace before they eat their meals.


I've never been a religious person. The extent of religion in my life has been saying the Lord's Prayer in elementary school which I think that got the kibosh in the early nineties. After that my exposure to Jesus and such was my dad's copy of Jesus Christ Superstar, 




a preview of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ




and Kevin Smith's Dogma 




It makes sense to me that the people who say grace before their meals do so in a restaurant. If you say it at home, why wouldn't you say it at (insert real name here)? 


My issue with the grace saying is that I never know what to do when half of the table's food is out and I'm holding onto the other plates mid-prayer. I feel like Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights when he doesn't know what to do with his hands during an interview.



Sometimes I don't even realize that I'm interrupting grace and by then it's too late. And for that matter, if all the food isn't on the table does that make it less blessed than the plate I'm waiting to set down? 

At the end of the day my goal is to not offend a group of people or to make them think I'm ignorant of others' beliefs because I'm not, I'm just awkward. 

Day one hundred and thirty one: I might develop a stutter

The New Shop is not only a restaurant but a bakery as well. The second floor bakeshop makes all of the bread used for sandwiches and they attempt to make baked goods to sell in the restaurant. I say attempt because I'm sure I could half-ass a box of Betty Crocker cake mix into something more delicious than what they try on a daily basis. To be fair, they do a wicked job at baking bread, probably the best stuff I've ever had in my 26 years and I consider myself to be an authority when it comes to bread, a carbohydrate connoisseur, if you will -- but I'm not in any position to tell them to play to their strengths and give up on cakes. 

On top of this, the bakeshop tries to get us to charge airport prices for goodies $5 for 6 shortbread cookies? Makes sense. What? 


Jerry Seinfeld knows what I'm talking about (roughly 2:18 mark):

The Chef is making my New Shop bestie go work up in the bakeshop. How can he do this to me? She's not going to learn anything she doesn't already know! So, in a ditch effort to keep her on the ground level, in the kitchen, I composed a letter excusing her from bakeshop duties. In high school I used to write my friends and myself notes to get out of class all the time so we wouldn't get phone calls home from the automated machine informing our parent that their "son or daughter had missed one or more classes."


I'm confident that the note I wrote on the back of a receipt will really reach him and he will come to the realization that I'm right and he is, in fact, wrong:

Dear Chef, 

I am excusing Michelle from any bakeshop duties you have planned for her next week. We need her leadership skills in the kitchen, especially since you will be away for two of our busiest days. If you make her go away, I might develop a stutter. 

 I can't be certain but there is a good chance this will end in tears. DO NOT DO THIS TO ME. 

Sincerely, 

(Insert my real name here)

To really drive the point home I sent him a text message while I was en route to (insert real name here):


I trust you got my note excusing Michelle from bakeshop duties. I feel you'll make the right choice and keep her in the kitchen. 


To which he responded:


I have hired Geoffrey Rush to help you with the impending stutter. If he can help a king, think what he can do for you. 

I think I really got through to him.

Day one hundred and thirty: coffee

Coffee is readily available in a restaurant at any given time but every morning I try to drag my ass out of bed early enough so I have time to stop at Starbucks for a coffee before I start my day at the New Shop.


There was a time that I shucked lattes at a Starbucks and those six and a half years helped me to develop quite a taste for the stuff. 



Now I can't be 100% positive but I'm fairly certain the amount of coffee I consume on a day-to-day basis is starting to give me an ulcer or at the very least a slight case of acid reflux. 

I could just as easily start my day off with a cup of joe from the New Shop but it's nowhere near as satisfying. All I can say is get out of my dreams and into my car Venti Americano Misto. 


It helps that the girls at my Starbucks start making my drink the second I walk through the door and write little notes on my cup like:

Have a great day (insert my real name here)!

or

(Insert my real name here) is Awesome!  

or

Yesterday your skirt was tucked into your tights but I didn't tell you because you were wearing headphones and I didn't want to bother you, sorry. 

I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I always give them a good tip. As someone who works in the service industry and a former barista, I always leave a tip for the coffee girls regardless if they are behind a counter or not because after all, we're all in this together. 

Whether it's the coffee itself or the daily ritual I make a point of getting Starbucks and I love it. 

Day one hundred and twenty six: my grandpa is only a little racist

"It don't matter what the hell..." is a typical Don (insert my real last name here)-ism. My grandpa is one of my most favourite people in the world and he's extremely diligent when it comes to making phone calls to the family. 

 (Grandpa Don: Christmas 2010)

There was a time when I talked to my grandpa at least once a week but now with my disgustingly busy work schedule weeks will go by with unreturned (on my part) phone calls. He lives in Vancouver so the time difference doesn't necessarily help but when I do get a chance to talk to gramps, he delivers the not-on-purpose laughs every time.  

What's a not-on-purpose laugh? It's when someone makes you laugh without any intention of doing so and my grandpa's not-on-purpose hilarity usually stems form his subtle racism. In this day-in-age we come to accept the little bits of racism that the older generation spews because they are a "product of their generation." I'm just happy that it doesn't come from a place of malice or hate but rather a polite ignorance to what is deemed to be politically correct. 

I try to explain to him that nowadays it's not appropriate to call Asians "chinamen" or anyone else who isn't Asian or White a "coloured fella" but it's hard to keep reminding him when I only get to visit once every couple of years. 

My favourite Grandpa Don story is when my uncle took him to get his watch fixed and the event went like this:

Repair guy: Hey! I remember you, do you remember me? 

Grandpa Don: Naw, all of you chinamen look the same.

Uncle: Don! 

Grandpa Don: Well what? We probably all look the same to him too! 

Repair guy: (nods yes)

On a day, like today, when I'm run down from having been on my feet for 13 hours and feel like a shell of my former self it's nice to hear a familiar, comforting voice like my grandpa, routing for me every step of the way. 

Day one hundred and twenty five: checking out the goods

Tonight one of the other servers at (insert real name here) walked into the kitchen and said to me "Hey (insert my real name here) go check out table 36, he's a dreamboat." 

So I did just that. No such dreamboat existed. 

I said back to her "really? I'm gonna have to disagree on that call." 

Being in front-of-house lets you do stuff that the back-of-house staff can't do, namely, scope out the goods. I challenge you to find a restaurant whose staff doesn't check out their customers and talk about them in the kitchen, as long as said customers are worth talking about. 

There are times when servers will take a lap around the restaurant just to catch a glimpse of a supposed "dreamboat" then turn around and do it again if the initial sighting wasn't good enough. If you're foxy, we're going to talk about you. 

Last year a Winnipeg writer by the name of Rheanne Marcoux put out a book called "The Last Crumb". It's a compilation of recipes and interviews of Winnipeg chefs and a damn good read whether you're part of the restaurant industry or not. 

One of the chefs interviewed, Scott Bagshaw, shared a story about time he spent working at a restaurant in Australia: 

"Being in an open kitchen does have its perks. 'We play the "would you" game,' laughs [Bagshaw], who spends most of his 14-hour shifts rubbing elbows with his sous-chef Matt. 'You know, "would you sleep with her?" type of thing. We have our inside jokes, it makes you forget you’ve been working 14 hours.'"

At the time book came out, Bagshaw was working as the head chef of a Winnipeg restaurant called Pizzaria Gusto but shortly after he was fired for the comments that had made it into Marcoux's book. 

What a load of shit. 

From what I understand the "would you" comment was the straw that broke the camel's back but to think that apotential customer would forego eating at your restaurant because the chef was vocal with his sous-chef on who he'd hit the sack with is just plain ridiculous. 

If every restaurant employee got canned when he or she scoped out a customer and proclaimed whether or not they'd, to put it gently, bone that customer, then there would be no such thing as restaurant staff. 

We all do it. Hell I did it today, at both restaurants. 

Day one hundred and twenty four: we're closed, get the eff out!

The hours of operation of a restaurant are not a suggestion for when diners can come and go, contrary to popular belief, they are posted for a reason. When you see that we are closed at 11 p.m. this doesn't mean ask for another cup of coffee and continue chatting with your friends until 11:30. 


Would you go into a bank five minutes before closing to set up some RRSPs? No, you wouldn't. So why would anyone go into a restaurant 10 minutes before closing and order a steak? This happens far too often.


Most times when someone walks through the door, roughly within the last 30 minutes before we close, the staff will let the potential table know that we are closing soon and that we've already done last call.



Whatever happened to Semisonic? I only actually know their song "Closing Time" but it was a really good song that I've included in several mixed CDs. But enough about late 90s alternative rock bands. 


There are times when some people ignore the '30 minutes' 'til close' warning and sit down for some grub. Fair enough. We can have your food out to you in no time but it is extremely annoying. I don't know why but I always grin and bear it hoping that the table will recognize that they are staying after hours and leave me a fat tip for the inconvenience but that never happens. 


It's like going into a clothing store at the very end of the night, unfolding all of the shirts and not purchasing a thing. It's creating unnecessary work for not just the server but everyone who works there. 


The cooks have to put off cleaning the grills, fryers and broilers and the dishwasher has to wait for the rest of the dishes to wash. The managers have to wait longer to take the servers' cash and the servers have to wait to do their front-of-house cleaning all because a couple of selfish-jerk diners have a hankering for some (insert real name here) eats. We've been busting our asses all night and all any of us would like to do is get our chores done so we can call it quits and get the rock out. 


Thinking of going to a restaurant right before they close? DON'T DO IT.