Calamity.

Ahh... and here I am. I would just like to say that I am so ready for spring break, its not even funny. But I have decided that the things that make spring break so amazing are those that make the week before a living place-of-fire-and-brimstone. So, for your reading enjoyment, i thought i'd share just what has been proving my spring break so well-deserved.

This must begin with the fact that today I lost my ipod, charlotte. Now you must understand that i have this deep connection to miss charlotte. not only does she go everywhere with me, but she is the representation of my musical expression and helps balance my mood like a magical...mood balancer. in any case. I couldn't find her anywhere. and I thought that either i left her somewhere or somebody stole her from my truck. to make the long story short and not draw out the suspense so you worry too much, i found her. =) happy suzy. But the agony of not knowing if I had lost a recently acquired $300 piece of metal and non-scratchable glass was sort of devastating.

Next story: Sunday night. now THIS is epic. and potentially lengthy. and about work. again. so if you are bored with that, then spend your time blog-stalking elsewhere.

So it was a beautiful Palm Sunday afternoon, and while my family was headed to simi valley for a cousin event, I was headed to downey for work. Needless to say (though i will say it anyways...) I was not too happy about this. on top of this mound of misery, I had a biology quiz the next morning at 8:30 which i was not prepared for, a genetics worksheet due, which i had not started and a lot of reading for my class right after bio. to answer the obvious question, YES i did know about it all in advance. and YES i did procrastinate. but that is not part of the story. the part that is relevant is that I was under stress and not wanting to work.

The night is relatively slow. 9 pm rolls around. My boss, Rocio says, Well suzy if it stays slow, then you'll go home soon. But there's a reservation for 30 at 9:30. They haven't confirmed their reservation, but we should be able to handle it without you if they do decide to show.

9:30- no party. I start my sidework.
10:00- twenty people show up. church people. who are coincidentally the reservation. and also sadly the most strongly disliked customers we have. they are so picky, ungrateful, demanding and overall sort of rude. Even i don't like them. and i AM a church person.
10:10-Rocio asks me to stay and help a little bit. Then the doors open, and in comes a flood of people. Now i'm not talking like a mini flood that comes when your sink clogs with hair and the water overflows onto the counter. I'm talking Noah's Ark flood. Never supposed to happen again, sealed with a rainbow, flood. But here it was. coming through our front doors. and not stopping. a throng of suit-clad, skirt-wearing, sister/brother-hailing church people. (So very similar to AC's its pretty scary...)
At this point i'm staying for sure. and there goes my sleep for the night. But it doesn't stop. they just come in and take over our largest dining room. and when I say take over, i don't mean like here and there as if they were wild flowers in a meadow. i mean take over as in the storming of the Alamo.

and I was Custer.

They start re-arranging chairs, tables and sitting down everywhere. I didn't count until later, but there were 76 people, give or take two. SEVENTY-SIX. and two servers. and two cooks. do you not realize how TOTALLY inSANE this is!?!? i picked my jaw up off the floor, where it had dropped, and just looked in utter amazement. I was stunned. where do you start in a mass of confusion such as this? which group of twenty do you start with? what about the out-lying families that decided to segregate in little booths but expect devoted attention too? Who looks like they'd be the most mad if i didn't get them their "water-easy ice-lots of lemon...oh and a bread basket" first?

Now normally I would totally flip out over this sort of thing. because I flip out over a double seating on a busy night. This was like a sextuplet seating. of parties of 12. heh. But thankfully Rocio told them that they would have to be patient as we were under-staffed and they had given us no warning.
But I did not flip out. No. I had superb help. My busboys were more than amazing. "Que quieres Suzy?". "Necesitas algo suzy?" "Quiero ayudarte...dime algo que hacer." They refilled drinks, got bread and helped run tons of food! And I smiled...ish, nodded politely, kept my cool and didn't yell at the cooks.

Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles. God took this server by the hand. turned her around and miracle of miracles led her to the cool-calm-and-collected land. And trust me, my co-staff was very grateful!

This was a difficult task though, let me tell you. I mean, we have this woman who doesn't know the difference between "camarones" and "pescado" (shrimp and fish) and cannot speak english. She keeps pointing at some other guy's chicken strips and insisting that they are "mariscos" (seafood) of some kind. but they're not. So i bring her fried shrimp. not what she wanted... So i bring her fish. SUPER not what she wanted. So i brought her a box and said i'm sorry...here, eat cake. she was happy.

I have to say when they first started walking in, I wanted to just turn around and leave. clock out and go home. maybe not even clock out. just run. And throughout the following two hours I would just look at the mass of people waving me over to ask for their umpteenth refill and feel sort of sick to my stomach. and then remind myself that this is not the end of the world as we know it. But that if it was, heaven was gonna be all the more worth it!

Anyways...results: More food on the floor than was left on the tables. substantial tips thanks ONLY due to auto gratuity. a headache. no preparation for my quiz (i get to do a re-do after spring break!) and a firm conviction to never do that to anyone in my life. and legend status. =) trust me, this will get talked about for days to come. maaaybe even weeks =P

Sadly, Rocio said this was the reason she didn't do religion...because if this is the way church-going people treat others, then she wants nothing to do with it. way to undo my months of work, church people. God, you must have something in this...it feels like several steps back. maybe a whole leap. but I trust You.

Oh. And this does not mean that you shouldn't take parties anywhere. please do. But give fair warning in advance. or be prepared to tip a whoooole bunch to make it up to the poor souls that wait on you. and please don't act like you should get the same service you would if you were a party of two in a room with four servers. Just doesn't work that way.

Whew. thankfully my boss has given me Easter, my birthday AND spring break off from work. (which, by the way, NO one gets to request of holidays...) and while I love my job mucho, I am very excited. Its been crazy.

sleep time.
xoxo