The Olive Garden Gets Another Kid Drunk

I don't what is going on at The Olive Garden these days, but it seems like every few weeks they are getting a kid drunk. Just last year, they got  a baby trashed on Sangria.  Last week, a waitress mistakenly served a cocktail to a ten year old who had ordered a non-alcoholic drink called a Wildberry Frullato Smoothie. I don't know what's worse-serving a  ten year-old a cocktail or having something on your menu called a Wildberry Frullato Smoothie. The waitress realized her mistake and told her manager who then told the parents who then freaked the fuck out and took the boy to the hospital and filed a police report, presumably so they are all set up when they call 1-800- I-CAN-SUE. According to a witness, the boy's "eyes were changing. He was feeling sick to his stomach and didn’t want to eat no more.” According to another witness, "That previous witness has poor grammar because she should have said he 'didn't want to eat any more.'" The kid drank about two ounces of the four ounce drink. A police officer at the hospital described the boy as "alert" but "shaken up," which is exactly how I order my martini. Tests revealed that the boy had less than 1% alcohol in his system. Please. I have more than that in my system right now and I haven't had a drink since last night. In fact, when I dip below 1%, my eyes start to change and I don't want to eat no more.

The waitress was fired for the mistake and The Olive Garden released this totally banal statement: "We find this situation completely unacceptable. We are thankful that the child is okay and we will continue to work with the family to resolve this issue." In other words, "We know they are going to sue our asses so we offered them a never-ending salad and unlimited bread sticks for the the rest of the year in the hopes that they will be satisfied with that instead of a billion fucking dollars."

This story brings up a few questions that need answering.

To The Olive Garden: Don't you have specific cups that kid beverages are served in so this doesn't happen?

To the parents: Can't you tell the difference between a big frozen smoothie and a four ounce cocktail?

To the waitress: If I sit in your station and tell you I am ten years old and order a Wildberry Frullatto Smoothie, will you please bring me a Grey Goose Cosmo instead but still charge me for the Wildberry Frullato Smoothie?


To the child: It tasted good, right?


So what can we take away from this so that we can be better servers? We must all be aware that kids do not drink alcohol, people. Don't take a cocktail to anyone who looks under the age of 35 without first asking to see some i.d. If they look like they might still be in grade school, you should definitely ask to see i.d. If they ask for a Wildberry Frullato Smoothie, make sure you don't pick up the Frozen Mudslide instead. And by all means, if you're going to serve alcohol to a minor, do it when they are teething and need a little rum on the gum to calm their little souls. Anything else and you're asking for a big fat lawsuit and and an unemployment claim.

The Olive Garden needs a new slogan: When you're here, we might be trying to get your child trashed.




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The Sin is Heavy on My Soul

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It's been about a million fucking years since my last confession, but while I was in Texas I did something I am completely ashamed of. The guilt has been eating away at me like a fat lady eats an order of eggs benedict. The shame has completely consumed me so that I can barely function. Last night at work, I found it difficult to maintain focus and give my customers the attention they so rightly deserved. My mind kept wandering to a dreadful night eight days ago when I did what I swore I would never ever do. Something that makes me shudder with revulsion. I ate at The Olive Garden.

It was my last night with my parents and I wanted to take them out to dinner. They live in a small town and when you want to eat someplace nice, the options are limited. There, they think The Olive Garden is fancy. Real fancy. When people go there they do it without any hint of irony at all. So that's where we went. I must admit that I was looking forward to that never-ending bread stick/salad bowl thingy even though someone once told me that each bread stick was 310 calories. Our server was a young girl who was obviously new to the world of food service. Someone at our table asked her which wine she thought was better. I was pretty sure that all of the wines at The olive Garden would be equally mediocre but she had an answer. Her answer sounded like it was in the form of a question. "Uh...I dunno? You'll have to ask someone else because I'm not old enough to taste the wine yet?" Then she giggled. Okay, listen, new waitress. You never say you don't know; you just make shit up. You can always say. "Well, the chardonnay is much more popular than the pinot grigio" or some other vague ass answer like that. The table ordered three different glasses of wine so when she showed up she was holding three glasses in one hand and had three bottles of wine cradled in her arm and up against her chest. She squatted down to get them to the table and then gave a big sigh of relief. "Whew! I made it and I'm the captain of dropping things." And then she giggled. Ay ay, captain, just shut the fuck up and take my order.

I had a chicken parmigiana and I inhaled three breadsticks (930 calories...), had some salad and two glasses of wine. I enjoyed the food. It sorta remonded me of the chick parm you used to be able to get at Burger King and I loved that shit. It was 9:15 and we suddenly realized we were the only ones left in the restaurant. It being a Tuesday night in small town Texas, people headed home early I suppose. Maybe they had to get up early on Wednesday and till the farm or clean out the chicken coops. We asked if they were closed, but they informed us that they were open until 10:00 and there was no need to hurry. A few minutes later, Giggles the waitress came to our table and said, "So, I'm gonna go 'head and go home now? So...uhh..." We took that as our cue to pay the check. We left her a 22% tip which in that town was enough for her to go buy a two bedroom one bath house. I enjoyed my meal at The Olive Garden. When I was there, I really did feel like family. That may have been in part due to the fact that I was eating with my parents who are actually family, but regardless, it was nice.

I hope you can forgive me for eating at The Olive Garden. I hope Jesus can forgive me but most of all I hope I can forgive myself. I shall say 100 Hail Marys and clean the lids of twenty ketchup bottles in hopes that I can be resolved of this most monsterous of sins.

A Day of Rest

So I have learned one of the downfalls of working in a performance space as opposed to a restaurant. On a slow day at a restaurant, you may get fewer tables and get cut early and make less money than you had hoped. In a performance room when you serve cocktails, if no one schedules a show that night, you just lose your shift. Yeah, just lose it. I get it. What singer wants to have show on January 3 when everyone blew their wads over New Year's weekend? Nobody, that's who. So usually there are three shows on Sunday and today there are no shows. No. Shows. No customers. No tips in my pocket. I swear to God, I looked in my wallet the other day and a moth fucking looked back at me and said "get the fuck outta my house, bitch." So I have the day off. And I think I shall spend it cruising craigslist and looking for a new job to supplement my income. Isn't it time I had a job that sucked really bad just so I can have lots and lots to blog about? Maybe a job at IHOP would provide me with plenty of fodder for this site. Or a couple of shifts at The Olive Garden even.

Funny story about The Olive Garden. I was with friends a few days ago (yeah, I have a couple of them) and we wanted to go have a cocktail. It was about two fucking degrees outside so the closest place was The Olive Garden on Sixth Avenue and 22nd Street. We thought it would be funny to go to the bar and have a drink there all the while making fun of the fact that we were in a fucking Olive Garden. We went to the door and it was locked. There was a security guard inside and she came up to the door and and pursed her lips, tilted her head and wagged her finger at us and then mouthed the word "closed" and walked away laughing. Oh no she din't. Bitch, we were only going into the lame ass Olive Garden to make fun of it and all the losers who were in there. I was pretty sure I didn't like The Olive Garden and now I know for certain. The Olive Garden sucks ass. (But I would totally work there just to write a blog about the crappiness of it.)