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.