On dwarves and other crazy things that happen in restaurants

"Just how warm is sake supposed to be when heated? Is it 72 degrees?" the blonde Malfoy kid with the Joaquin Phoenix eyes asked coldly. "Uhm, I'm sorry, but I'm not sure. Around that number I think." "That's what I thought," he said, smiling a smug shit-eater grin and generally looking really fucking pleased with himself for making me look stupid and incompetent. I wanted to kick his teeth in.

My lack of sleep yesterday filled me with bouts of homicidal rage while working. My patience was far from my normal zen master work mode, and I kept wishing no-one would show up. Every creak of the front door filled me with dread. Having to look like you give a crap when you're exhausted is... well, tiring, and not being able to show any emotion other than happiness or concern in case something happened makes me feel a bit like a mannequin. Luckily the last few people we had yesterday were really nice, and the day ended on a positive note with Shan giving me 24 pieces of left-over sushi and me having a late night sushi picnic in the living room with Pony and G.


Speaking of positive notes (mostly), I've never been hit on on a daily basis as much as I've been while working as a waitress. I don't know what it is, because the uniform could hardly be called sexy or whatever, but almost every day men ranging from late teens to probably late thirties (although mostly in the 25-30 years age group) smile and banter and give you that look. Most of the times it's totally in a respectful way, and sometimes even kinda cute too, but I'm still a bit perplexed as I never even figured getting hit on would be that much of a thing before I started working. Maybe it's because I'm nice to everyone and always smiling, but that's part of my job. I'm doing it tactically for better tips. Hell, it generally works pretty well, but still. As someone who hasn't always considered myself all that pretty, the attention is nice but a bit mind-boggling. Ego-boosting, but mind-boggling.

Restaurant work is pretty weird. People routinely alternate between being sweethearts and being fucking psychos. It's pretty entertaining to see how Shan reacts to all of them. He'll look grumpy, and then behind closed doors he'll rant about them being idiots. There was a jack-off of a man in the restaurant today who ordered food and "a beer", without specifying which kind, so I get him the regular after-work kind. "No, I don't want an after-work beer, a Krusovice," he says (without a please or anything). So in my head I'm going "Well, specify it next time instead of thinking I can read minds, asshole" and pour him a Krusovice at a discounted price. Then the fucker has the audacity to come up to the bar a little later and go:
"This isn't a Krusovice."
"Uh, yes, it is," I say in stunned disbelief.
"No, it's not. It's not a Krusovice."
"I assure you, it's a Krusovice. I poured it myself." Bitch, are you for real? At this point even Shan pipes in:
"It's a Krusovice, it's the only tap beer we have that looks like that. There's no other."
"Well it doesn't taste like a Krusovice. I want something else. I want an after-work beer."

Fuck you with a splintered pole, you shitty old man.

The evil voice in my mind said that it was no wonder he was eating alone, as clearly he was a dick who's one goal in life was to be rude to waitresses wherever he went. I was eternally grateful to Shan when he took over and handled the situation before I lost my zen master smile and poured the beer over his head.

Buffet warriors.

I was instantly placated when a regular came in though. This is a pretty big old Finnish guy with a grey pony tail who owns a comic book shop nearby and stops by every day to drink a pint faster than I ever figured was possible (30 seconds, no lie). He came in with his mother and two kids, went up to the register and asked: "Do you charge less for dwarves with this buffet?" It took me a few seconds to realize that he was calling his own children dwarves, but it just made me so amazingly happy after all that other crap I had to deal with. Yay for people with a sense of humour! Normally I'm the one calling other people's kids dwarves, and then I get the stink eye. Nice to know that there are adults who share the same twisted view on children as me.

Anime boy Yohei has started having to work later on Wednesdays, which gives me more time to talk shit when there's not much going on. Yesterday we started on the now soon-to-be never-ending manga discussion and recommending stuff to each other. I made him promise to start watching Shingeki no Kyojin, and he promised to get me more manga whenever he goes back to Japan. I'm thinking it's a fair deal. Anywho, in a twisted sense of friendship loyalty, I actually started feeling that people who took his chicken wings from the buffet and then didn't finish them were terrible ingrates. You'll eat his food and you'll like it, restaurant people, because he's nice to me, dammit!