Summer's End

I knew I'd never be a Friendly's lifer. I enjoy time away too much and always have to drag myself back. I spent a week in Rhode Island at the end of the summer, and the ocean was all I could ever ask for. No grease, no grouchy customers, no flailing infants howling for ice cream. Sunburn is a small price to pay for the serenity that comes with a vacation from Friendly's.
And now, back at school, Friendly's is a blissful nine months away. Though I must say the hilarious moments almost outweigh the wretched slogans. Like the time with the chicken family.
A mother and her several kids came in one day for lunch. They sat in my friend Tim's section, and every one of them ordered fried chicken. When the food was ready Tim brought it out to them, and he was headed back to check on them a minute or two later when just as he reached the table he heard the mother saying, "Now let's all bow our heads and give thanks to the chicken."
And with utmost sincerity, they all held hands and did just that.
Talk about leading your children astray. Kids will believe anything. When I was young my mother told me that clouds are made out of marshmallows, and for years I couldn't wait to get to heaven so I could sit on clouds all day and stuff my face. I didn't believe my high school science teacher when he told us clouds were condensed water. Since when was he smarter than my mom?
Well, as far as million dollar tips are concerned, this summer was a disappointment. I think my highest tip was a twenty. But as far as old and new friends, family, and laughs go, it was a winner. People are much more important than money, anyhow.
Well.. maybe I wouldn't go as far as a million dollars..
Well, all right. A million dollars it is.

Burgers and Fives

The cute little saying goes that good things come to those who wait. Well, there was a lot of waiting for food going on at Friendly's the past two days, and the results were pretty disgusting. Yes, I was on grill. And let's just say that cooking was not how I remembered it. I learned grill last year for a little while and hadn't cooked since then until last night.
Of course, last year we had competent cooks. In the spirit of self-expression, I was used to cooking with people who knew what they were doing, not getting stuck running wheel on my first day back on grill because there was no one else who would even try.
I should have many humorous stories to impart about the grill side of the restaurant, but I've tried too hard to block all the horrific details from my mind to remember anything remotely amusing. I cooked so many burgers today that I shall probably have nightmares about them. And there's nothing that will rain on your parade more than feeling like a soggy French fry drenched in grease.
There was one slightly entertaining moment last night, though, when one of the other cooks putting cups of clam chowder in the food window looked away from what she was doing and slowly dumped two full cups all over the heating area.
"Um, why did you do that?"
"I got distracted by a cute guy in the dining room!"
Oh well, who wouldn't rather stare at them anyway.
But besides disliking the ridiculous insanity, I missed being clean.
I looked at all the nice neat little servers in their spotless black aprons and cute little pastel polos, and here I was on grill saying, "How the heck did I get mac and cheese on my butt?"
It's a man-versus-food world back there.
There was a spot of cheer in my day today, though. Some woman was apparently so impressed with the speed at which she got her food that she imparted a five-dollar tip to each of the cooks.
It's not a million dollars, but hey, I'm just a dirty little cook and I'll take it.

Soup and Slogans

"Ice cream makes the meal!"
If I hear that phrase one more time, I will take a sledgehammer to the nearest ice cream freezer and see that it is permanently out of commission. I swear it on my mother's grave.
Good thing my mother is a hearty soul.
But really, every now and then at Friendly's you'll get a week that will just kick your butt. Sometimes it's just the customers. Sometimes it's because it's hard not to bring your personal life to work with you. And when the personal seems to be going down the tubes, it's easy to let work get pulled down with it. Then nothing goes right no matter how hard you try.
But other times when appliances break, cooks are slow, fountain is even slower, and you've got someone yelling "Ice cream makes the meal!" in your ear every 25 seconds, you begin to wonder.
Is it that I'm a sucky server? Or is it just Friendly's? I mean, where else would we wait to fix a freezer until the ice cream is soup, and then bring all the squishy ice cream cartons up front where we have to serve customers? It's a fool-proof plan. What could possibly go wrong?
Now there's a good question. Perhaps it should be the new slogan.
"Bye folks, come back and see us where what could possibly go wrong!"
Definitely an improvement.
Friendly's isn't a bad job. It's pretty fun and unpredictable and the coworkers are great. But it's weeks like that where I almost lose sight of my million-dollar dream.
Almost.

Fountain vs. Serving

The lives of fountain workers at Friendly's are less than exciting. They run around in their little area like hamsters in a cage. I worked fountain a couple nights ago instead of serving and I must say, I was more tired from being in one area than I am working hard waiting tables. The most exciting part of my night was spilling the soft serve mix all over the bottom of the creemee machine.
There have been some memorable fountain moments though, back when I was that low on the food chain, not the least of which was one particular day when I was an eager young fountain worker.
It was around 10 in the morning, and they had me on a ladder cleaning the top shelves of the fountain area because, shockingly, no one was ordering ice cream that early. I was scrubbing away at the dust and grime while "Susie" the waitress was pouring coffee at the coffee machine. I happened to glance over towards the service aisle, and the trashcan next to the coffee machine had more smoke pouring out of it than a brick chimney. Susie looked down at it and went right on pouring coffee.
"Someone should really take care of that fire," she said.
At that second "Sally" the waitress came bombing around the corner with a bucket full of water twice the size of the trashcan, screeching "FIRE!!!" at the top of her lungs. She chucked the whole bucket-full onto the trashcan from like three feet away, flooding half the service aisle and sufficiently dousing the fire forever. Susie serenely finished pouring coffee while I remained on top of my ladder, avoiding the pond that was now the floor.
So you see, there is entertainment to be had as a fountain worker. I'm just not sure it equals the fun of pouring drinks on people. And who ever gave a creemee girl a million-dollar tip?

Lobster and Telephones

In my ginormous history of waitressing, never once had I spilled drinks while serving customers. I suppose there's a first time for everything. I was setting down the last drink on a table tonight when my finger caught the edge of a big glass of water and over it went. Fortunately no one got wet, and I covered the table with a billion napkins and as many apologies. The parents thought it was hilarious, and the three kids were oblivious. They just kept on coloring as their table turned into a small lake.
During embarrassing occurrences like that I hate myself for still turning lobster red like a schoolchild. It's an unbecoming shade on me.
Which, speaking of lobster faces, reminds me of the phone incident early in my Friendly's career. We had just gotten a new cordless phone in the restaurant with little screens on it for caller ID, and during a busy night the phone rang as I was rushing by. I grudgingly stopped to answer it and of course it was a dreaded carry-out food order, and to make it even more annoying, the guy wouldn't speak up. I could barely hear him; his already-muted voice kept trailing away like, "I want some chihhh.... and somhhhh..." I had to keep saying, "Sir, could you please speak up? Sir, I can't hear you... what was that?"
It seemed like I was on the phone with this guy forever, but I finally got his whole order down. I took the phone away from my ear to hang it up and looked up to find another waiter staring at me.
"Did you just take a whole carry-out order with the phone upside down like that?"
I looked down at the phone in my hand. Indeed, it was very much upside down. I had been speaking into the earpiece and listening to the mouthpiece the whole time. My face turned bright red. And in a ridiculously short amount of time the whole waitstaff knew of my heinous blunder and quite a lot of laughter ensued. Oh yes, I went to bed that night a happier person for having filled so many people's lives with hilarity.
And when I went back to work the next morning, I was walking past a cook I barely knew when he said, "So. I heard you took a whole order with the phone upside down last night."
Good thing I'm a grown-up now and don't do things like that anymore.
I fool some people.

A Day in the Life

People ask me why I haven't gotten bored with Friendly's, why I'm still there after five summers. Why I haven't moved on. Well, truth be told, there wasn't another restaurant hiring just for the summer. But I suppose that's not really the only reason. Days at Friendly's are never exactly alike. There are too many variables in a restaurant for boredom. You never know who may fall in the mop bucket or what specimen of humanity may walk through the door. All sorts of people come through restaurants. Like a box of chocolates, you may get one full of crap.
During one of my early summers at Friendly's, I recall a particular man who came in by himself one night. This guy looked like a true hobo, with dirty clothes and scraggly hair. The only thing missing was a gnarly walking stick. One of my friends was waiting on him, and when he went to check back with the guy, the man suddenly said, "Do you know how to tell if someone's an alien?"
My friend said, "Um, no..."
Hobo goes, "You have to run him over, you have to run him over four times, and if he's not dead by then you know he's an alien."
Now we know what to do with those tricky aliens.
It's guys like that that make my job unpredictable. Alas, they are not the ones who leave a million dollars.