When I was still in High School I worked at a Western Sizzler
Steak House as a busboy. On one occasion my best friend George and I were in
the back of the kitchen attending to all of those unseen preparations that make
a Restaurant work; mainly making salads and wrapping baked potatoes. This task was usually accomplished
solely by George, the dishwasher. But on occasion if the lunch crown had been large,
or the most common event, the previous shift did not do their back-up so then the
supplies were depleted for the night rush, well then the scum, (me the busboy)
could come into the back and help out.
The salad was prepared in
volumes that filled garbage can size containers. The recipes were prepared by the case, and
box loads. The same was true with wrapping
baked potatoes; by the box, which is to say by the hundreds. Usually an average night’s business at
the Sizzler would use up five hundred potatoes as well at least two Garbage can
cache of cut salad.
One thing that always puzzled
me was the concept that manual labor could not be fun? Anytime laughter erupted out of the
sweatshop side of the restaurant, it was automatically assumed that no work was
being done. So like
clockwork whenever George and I found something amusing to yuck it up about, we
were descended upon and scolded by Charles the owner-manager. On this particular occasion, Charles
was out of the shop, so we mere worker-bees were safe from reproach and free to
follow our whims; sounds inviting doesn’t it?
Contrary to expectations, George and I
accomplished our assigned tasks ahead of time, while having a good time despite
all efforts to make our menial tasks drudgery. Sort of like the step sisters in
Cinderella. We had just finished and I
was leaving to attend chores in the front room, when George asked,
“Help me pull the racks
from the cooler”
I readily agreed. During our effort of moving all of the
contents from the refrigerators George speculated that someone could hide in the
refrigerator once the food was removed. I
replied,
“Let me see”, and climbed into an
empty cooler. George quickly slammed the door, as I instantly realized I could
not open it up. I yelled
and hammered on the door, and George opened it laughing and asked,
“Does the light go out?”
I said, “Yeah, very funny, if you got
locked in there you couldn’t get out!”
George replied, “Oh sure you can, I
bet you can kick the door hard enough it’d open.” I shook my head and said,
“I don’t think so, I was hammering on
it pretty good, and it didn’t budge.”
“Yeah” he said, “But if you got your
legs up and kicked, it would go.”
“Naw, I don’t think so.”
Then he said,
So George got climbed into the
cooler and situated himself so he was in the position a person gets to do those
bicycle exercises. Then he said,
“OK, close the door.”
I was smiling and amused by my wicked
impulse as I slammed the door closed. I
quickly opened the connecting cooler door and knocked heads of lettuce, green
peppers and anything on those shelves over into where George was laying. He hollered in protest and began
kicking the door. As I suspected the
door held. Laughing harder
now, I raced over to an open case of lettuce on the wash counter, gathered up armful of leaves, and tossed them also onto
George as he was kicking and cursing me .
I was really enjoying the situation when
out of the corner of my eye I caught a movement outside the kitchen screen
door. My GOD! It was
Charles, (What was HE doing back?!)
I realized it was too
late to liberate George and not get both of us caught, so I quickly I opened
one of the doors, half whispering,
“Charles is here. Stay put, and be
quite,” I didn’t hang around to listen to his reply, I darted out of there into
the main dining room and fumbled around with cleaning Ketchup bottles. I waited to see Charles walk by the cook
station, then I’d go back and let George out.
But Charles didn’t walk
by. Where was Charles? I visualized George in the cooler with
all those vegetables on him and I smirked. I slowly approached the pass through
door to the dishwashing station. The door had a diamond shaped window cut into it
to prevent kitchen help from crashing into one another as they darted in and
out of the kitchen door leading into the dining room. As I looked in I saw Charles opening
the very cooler door George was in. I
couldn’t hear what Charles said, but I could see the incredulous look on his
face, as vegetables rolled out. It was all I could do from peeing my
pants. I ran to the men’s
room so my roaring laughter couldn’t be heard. The idea of our serious all business
manager walking into the shop, hearing an odd thumping coming from the cooler,
then opening the door to find his dishwasher amongst a cascade of leafy
vegetables was just too much! Poor
George!
How
wonderful! But then, in reflection I think he got fired for that
stunt. I confessed being a partner in
the crime. They punished me by making me
the dish washer. How cruel is that?
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