The Hostess Knows Best

Contrary to what many diners may think, there is a method to the madness when it comes to seating tables. Although the hostess may look like a stupid bimbo who just gave a blowjob to one of the cooks in the parking lot next to the dumpster, she has a reason for seating people where she does. Just ignore her tousled hair and smudged lipstick and sit where she tells you to. The hostess has to make sure that every server is getting their fair share of tables so she is not bitched at later that night for playing favorites and letting one server make more money than another. Also, if she sat three tables in a row in the same station, then that server is going to be slammed and will not be able to give the service that we all know he wants to give. Trust the hostess. She has been highly trained to ensure that customers are being seated in the best possible way. Pay no attention to the scabs on her knees and the dried white substance that is in her hair. She is a pro.

Last night at the club, we had a busy show. It was pretty full meaning that it was imperative that the seat assignments that were given at the door stay in tact. Customers don't get it. "But I wanna sit with my friend on that side of the room," they say and meander to another table. It does not work like that, people. Some nights we may have as many as four different cover charges for the show. Maybe someone had a discount code or paid in advance or are a comp. The only way I know how much to charge someone is based on the slip of paper the hostess gives to the customer which also tells the which seat they are in. So when they move to another table and leave that slip, I have no clue how much to charge them.

When I was setting up the room last night, I noticed that table 39 was broken. It was all wobbly and shit and then I saw that the seat had candle wax on it. We were seconds away from opening the house, so I mentioned to the hostess to not seat anyone at that table and I would take care of it after the show. Cue Mr. Latecomer who showed up one minute before showtime. He was assigned a seat right next to the stage because it's first come first serve and his ass got there too late to warrant any kind of decent seating. I took his order as the lights were dimming and went to get his beer. When I came back into the darkened room, the singer now performing, Mr. Latecomer was not at his table anymore. A quick scan of the room showed me he had dragged his ass over to table 39. I placed the beer on the lopsided table and hoped for the best. Five minutes later, he flags me down.

"Excuse me," he whispered, "but do you have wet towel? There is something all over this chair!"

"It's dried candle wax," I said. "A wet towel won't do the trick."

He stood up (the show is happening about 18 inches from where he is, keep in mind) and starts to brush off his pants. It was pointless, because the candle wax was dried anyway and didn't get on his pants at all. "Well, I need a new seat."

"Maybe you would like to go back to the one we assigned you, sir? This table is also broken which is why we did not seat you here in the first place. You sat yourself here, remember?"

He sat back down defeated and maybe a little bit embarrassed. I handed him a bev nap so he could give another futile attempt at scraping the wax off the seat. Experience tells me that the only way that shit comes off is by scraping it with a credit card but I wanted to watch him try anyway. He eventually gave up and conceded to watching the show while balancing his Guinness and sitting in a chair covered with a dried white substance. On second thought, I can only assume it was candle wax. I never actually saw the candle spill. Who knows, maybe the hostess took her break at this table and the hardened white "wax" was residual fun left over from her time with a cook at the dumpster.

Sit where the hostess tells you to sit.

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Candles Can Be Fun

I serve at two different places. Both of them have candles on every table. One place has real candles that people constantly knock over sending hot melted wax onto the table, floor, chair, my uniform and if I'm lucky onto themselves. The other place has those battery operated candles that look like real ones. They even flicker and have fake wax drips going down the side of them. Once they are placed inside a classy frosted votive candle holder, no one knows the difference. Overall, I like the fake candles better because I never have to clean up wax, I don't burn the hair on my forearms when I am reaching across a table, and it is someone else's job to charge the batteries in them. Kids like them too. Therein lies the rub.

Countless times, I have had a family sit in my station and the kids gravitate to the "candle" like moths to a flame. Or like me to a bottle of Citron. The parents ask me to bring a couple of extra ones so the kids can play with them like they are flashlights. Yeah that's a great idea, Mom and Dad. Let's teach your two year old child that candles are something to play with so the next time they go to a restaurant that has candles with actual flaming fire, the kids can grab at it. How is a two year old going to differentiate? Again, I am not a parent (although my dog turned 13 years old yesterday and he is officially an old lady dog) but it just seems like a bad idea to let kids play with fake candles. Couldn't they unknowingly be raising a perfect little pyromaniac? It's stupid. What I would love to do is replace the battery operated candles with real ones for just one night so that every parent who lets their child immediately grab at them as soon as they sit down could learn a quick lesson in fire safety. Never fear, I wouldn't actually do that. Just like I would never dip a toddler's spoon in Tobasco®. Or turn the bathroom light out when a kid goes in there by himself. Or put honey in the seat of a stroller when a parent crams it into the side stand to "get it out of the way." Or discreetly drop a child's toy on the floor when no one is looking so they will leave it at the restaurant and I can throw it away. Or give a kid Diet Coke instead of regular just to see if they'll notice. These are just things that I think about doing in order to pass the time at work. It beats refilling the salt and pepper shakers.

Anyhoo, back to candles. Fake candles=good. Efficient, money saving, safe and just as pretty. But don't let your kids play with them. I don't wanna hear about it when they see candles on their birthday cake and end up with blistered hands because they thought it was a toy like the one where that bitchy waiter works.

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Fire at Table 20

The topic of candles has come up before on this blog, most notably when some lady caught her hair on fire after she got too close to her birthday cupcake with a candle in it. Still makes me laugh. Read it here. When you work with dozens and dozens of candles night after night, a fire is inevitable and it happened once again a couple of weeks ago. Sadly, it was not hair that burned because that is the funniest event in the world right after old ladies falling off of bicycles and babies projectile vomiting on their parents.

As I was taking orders on my side of the room, I was overcome with the smell of something rank. It took me a moment to realize it was not the regular at table 35 who is rumored to have a vagina similar to the insides of a pumpkin. Something was burning. I grabbed my cell phone, put it in video mode and scanned the room in the hope that I would see someone covered in ash and patting their hair. I saw nothing. At the service bar, I was told that another server had caught a basket of chips on fire. At the club, we serve some light snacks like cheese and crackers and chips and salsa. The basket of chips is lined with a paper napkin because we like to keep it classy up in there. I guess she had positioned the basket too close to the candle and the whole thing went up in flames. Why did I miss seeing that? Since I didn't actually see it happen, I can only assume that it happened like this:

The waitress smiles at table 20 and puts their food order down. "Here you are. An order of chips and and freshly made salsa. Please do enjoy your evening and do not hesitate to let let me know if there is anything I can do for you to make your time with us more enjoyable." As she begins to walk away, she notices that the basket of chips is a smidgen too close to the candle so she reaches over to pull it to safety. As she does so, the flame from the candle leaps to the paper napkin and quickly engulfs it in fiery inferno. Knowing that she only has seconds before the napkin lights the wicker basket on fire as well, the waitress grabs the basket and puts it back on the tray. The customer begins to scream with fear because she has had a severe case of arsonphobia ever since she was ten years old when she caught her elementary school on fire after she lit an errant bottle rocket one fourth of July. She begins to panic and our waitress has to decide whether to help her guest or deal with the fire. She looks to the panicked customer's husband for help only to see him paralyzed with fear and mumbling about a fire safety class he took as a Boy Scout in 1979. At this point Smokey the Bear, who is on a blind date with someone he met on Manhunt.com, gets up from booth 1 and pulls a fire extinguisher out of his back pack. He uses the P.A.S.S. sysytem (pull, aim, squeeze, sweep) and gets the fire under control. By now, the woman has passed out and our waitress is now giving her mouth to mouth resuscitation which is a bonus for the waitress because the customer is kinda hot and the waitress is bi-curious. Her husband notices his wife making out with the waitress and immediately snaps back to reality and says, "Oh, so now you're into a threesome?" The woman comes to and the waitress asks her is she's alright and if she'd like a cigarette. Smokey the Bear goes to get a roll of paper towels to clean up the mess from the fire extinguisher and the husband follows him to ask him if he's into role-playing. After everything is cleaned up and the husband has exchanged phone numbers with Smokey, the show begins only five minutes later than planned.

Of course, I didn't actually see any of this happen, it's just conjecture. In all likelihood, the waitress simply placed the flaming basket of chips onto her tray and ran it to the bar where it was thrown into the sink and doused with water. But my version is much better.

Remember, only you can prevent baskets of chips and salsa going up in flames.

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Hair on Fire

Working in the world of restaurants and catering, there are always candles around. And when there are candles around, it is only a matter of time before some bitch catches her hair on fire. I have seen it happen on more than one occasion and it never fails to amuse me. As long as I know they are safe, I mean. I don't want to see anyone rushed to the burn unit but when someone's hair catches on fire for five or ten seconds, it always brightens my day. Most recently, it happened at The Place that Shall Not Be Named. I was at a table making up the specials when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bright light. A woman two tables away was frantically throwing her head around while everyone else at her table was freaking out. The woman started to scream and it was then that I realized she had done got her hair caught on fire. I guess it was her birthday, so the server brought out a cupcake with a candle on it and before you know it, the Aqua Net that only seconds before was keeping her coif in place, was now aflame. Since I wasn't actually at the table I can only imagine how it went down.

(A server steps to the table with the cupcake and birthday candle.)
Birthday Girl: Oh my gosh! That is so sweet. Oh, how cute. Thank you!
(The guest start to sing "Happy Birthday" as the server places the cupcake in front of Birthday Girl.)
Random Guest: Lemme take your picture with my phone before you blow out the candle!
Birthday Girl: Oh, that is such a good idea. I want to remember this moment forever.
Random Guest: Get closer, I can't get you and the cupcake.
(Birthday Girl puts her face closer to the cupcake.)
Birthday Girl: Is this better?
Random Guest: Closer.
Birthday Girl: Is this close enough? I don't wanna get too close because- OH MY GOD! Sweet Jesus, my hair is on fire. My hair is on fire!
Random Guest: (click) Got it! That's totally a new Facebook profile picture!

Within seconds, the smell of Birthday Girl's singed follicles permeated the room. Tables began to question what the smell was, of course. Since I didn't want anyone to think that it was our high quality, organic, farm-to-table food, I told every single one of my tables that the horrible odor they were smelling was burned hair. From the lady at table 26. I then pointed to table 26 so they would know exactly who just had the most embarrassing moment of her life. It was fun and I think my customers really appreciated me letting them know what was going on around them. My hateful, miserable, bitchy managers would probably not have been happy to know that I shared that info with so many people, but my tables deserved to know.

Reminds me of this time in high school when this girl got pissed off at some other ho. So she went up behind her during the passing period when the hallway was really crowded and put a Bic lighter up to her hair. Her whole head went up in flames, because it was the 80's and her hair was saturated in mousse, hair spray and Dippity Doo. That smell lingered for days. She was alright though. It still makes me laugh.

The moral of the story: hair and fire do not mix. But if you insist upon catching your hair on fire, please make sure someone takes a picture or video of it, so it can go viral.


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