The Pollock and the Donkey

 

     Blogger's Note:  Well.. I'm late.  Dang it.  But fret not.  I vow to get back on schedule this week with a post on Thursday.  I was having trouble cranking this one out.  But, at last, I have...
     I went back and changed the title of "The Tea Monster" to "Chapter 1 - The Tea Monster".  I wanted each chapter of our "How We Met" story to be easy to find.  So, if you're just tuning in, I'd suggest scrolling down to a couple of weeks ago to read Chapter 1 before reading this week's post if you'd like to know what's going on.  Well, that's really all to say this week... let's get to it...

     "You'll be seeing some new faces around here today," Rita, our supervisor, was wrapping up our morning, pre-shift huddle.  Our department listened to the routine checklist of the day's promotions, bus schedules, and motivational suggestions.  "Our property is testing a new program that hires foreign exchange students.  They are each assigned to a different department to gain some applicable work knowledge and practical language skills," she continued.  "We may be getting a couple of these students in the buffet."
     She wrapped up the news feed with a "team cheer" as we scattered to our separate departments.  Passing through the dish room, Matt and I headed to our station.  Here, I saw the first of these "new faces."  A young, Hispanic looking fellow wearing a friendly smile nodded as I passed by.  I smiled back, happy to see someone new.  My jokes and pranks had worn thin with the regular crew; here was a potentially whole new cast of victims
     Upon reaching the drink well, Enrique, one of the buffet Sous Chefs, was topping off a drink from the soda machine.  He looked up when we arrived.  Enrique was a rather tall Puerto Rican, three times my size and ten times my ego.  He was the kind of person that could "throw a football clear across those mountains."  When he wasn't frying chicken, he was hanging out with Albert Pujols (one of his personal friends he assured us).  He would've been a professional catcher in the Major League if not for some mysterious injury that he got in college.  If you meet Enrique in a narrow hallway, you have to squeeze to one side because he's too important/big/in-a-hurry to move any himself.  He has this slow and heavy accent when he speaks that makes each word ooze from his mouth like thick syrup.
     "Went golfing yesterday at Silo's," Matt started our morning ritual off with a bit of casual conversation.  "I hit a beautiful 300 yard drive off the tee on Hole 5 and set myself up for a birdie putt."
     Matt was addressing me, but Enrique responded.  "That's nothing," he began with his cliché slogan, pausing to take a sip of Mountain Dew.  "There was this one time that my brother and I was playing golf and he bet me that I couldn't reach the green on a Par 4 and I took his bet..." he paused here to chuckle.  The effect, meant to be dramatic, gave Matt and I time to exchange a quick glance.  "I hit it four hundred and thirty-five yards.  And... it landed right on the green.  I just putted it for eagle.  My brother couldn't believe it.  I didn't take his money though; I would not feel good about taking his money, you know what I mean?"
     He finally lumbered back to the kitchen, wearing a smug grin.  Matt and I just sighed and got to work.
     We continued through the rest of the morning in typical fashion:  waiting tables, cleaning the station, rolling silverware.  That afternoon, after I returned from my lunch break, I noticed a new person near the Hostess Station.  Shirley, one of our hostesses, was talking to a younger girl that had her hair tied up in buns.  Her name tag, I could see as I got closer, read "JOANNA."
     "Try to rotate sections," Shirley was explaining as she grabbed a couple of rolls of silverware from the basket, preparing to seat some guests.  "Talk to them, tell them your name, and keep them smiling."  She demonstrated the "proper" technique as she sat the two customers.  "You can follow me for a couple of hours until you think you're ready to go it alone..."
     "I'm pretty sure I got it," Joanna replied dryly in a charming, eastern European accent that I couldn't quite place.  The sarcasm might have been misguided or condescending coming from someone else; but, from her, it felt real.  Shirley, usually one quick to recoil, simply laughed.  Apparently, she, too, had the same reaction as me.
     The afternoon proceeded routinely.  I left the new girl alone initially while she was getting her feet wet in her new role which was uncharacteristic for me.  Until, at last, she led a lone elderly man to a table in my section.
     "...and my name is Joanna.  Enjoy your meal."
     I arrived at the table to read the drink order just as she was turning to walk away.  "You did that wrong,"  I prodded.  She stopped and turned to look at me rather blankly.  As our eyes met, the first thing she said to me was:  "You stupid."  Yeah, she missed the verb; but, that was ok.  I liked her.  I smiled charismatically but said nothing.  She walked back to the Hostess Station after a moment, and I thought to myself, 'bitch just called me stupid.  Charming...'
     The day continued on in typical fashion.  During one particular slow stretch, I noticed Joanna in the back rolling silverware by herself.  Having no customers on our side of the buffet, I decided I would join her and meet the new girl.
     "Having fun?" I began as I approached.  She replied with a casual, "pfft" layered with a warm smile.
     Matt was busy filling salt and pepper shakers at tables near us making strange, velociraptor noises that were eerily realistic.  Joanna cornered her eyes in his direction and then back at me, as if to ask 'what's that about?'  I replied with only a smile.  The clicks and screeches of long-extinct dinosaurs provided our romantic backdrop.
     "So where you from?"  I asked.
     "Poland," she answered.
     "Yeah?  The other new people don't look like they're from Poland," I conjectured.
     "They're not."  So she wasn't going to make this easy.
     "Elaborate," I fired back amid the predatory ticks and shrieks emanating from our co-worker.
     "Most of them are from South America," she resolved.
     "So you're the different one?" I prodded with a friendly smirk.
     "I am their supervisor," she explained.
     "So why are you working in here?"
     "Once the paper work is done there is nothing to do but sit in hotel room.  I may as well make extra money while I am here."
     "You're staying in a hotel room?  That sucks, huh?"
     "Yeah, but I am lucky.  The students are three to a room.  I have my own room."
     "You got a car, too?"
     "No."
     "Well, what about food?  Your laundry?"
     "I walk."
     "The nearest laundromat is a mile from here.  The grocery's even farther."
     "You Americans are afraid to walk.  That is not far."  I considered briefly that I might should be offended.  After assessing my injuries, I decided I was ok and continued.
     "What do you do for fun?"  I prodded.
     "Drink vodka," she said that as if rehearsed.  I liked it.
     Matt, finished with his salt and pepper-filling duties, joined us.  The velociraptor between us shrilled with a cocked head and an argumentative posture.  Joanna laughed out loud at this, and I couldn't help but notice how much her smile illuminated her whole face.  She looked like a different person suddenly.  She looked lovely.
     "That must be lonely," I sympathized.
     She shrugged with a dismissive shrug, so I let it be.  I changed the subject.  "What's Poland like?"
     "We ride a donkey to school,"  Joanna's casual response hooked me for a moment.  Unaccustomed to being the prey of sarcasm, I flopped around on this line of spurious information like a fool.
     "Really?"  I asked cautiously.  The velociraptor's clicks slowed to a halt as Matt, too, turned to the Polish girl with the Princess Leia buns.  After a very brief moment of silence, Joanna laughed.
     Feeling foolish, I grimaced as Matt commenced the audio track for a Jurassic Park tour.  At last, I, too, laughed.  "Ok, ok.  You got me," I admitted.
     "It's not much different from here, really," she gave in, still smiling as she rolled the last set of silverware, "except better music..."
     "Joanna, can you come help seat while Mandy takes here break?" Shirley called from the Hostess Station.  Joanna picked up the pile of rolled silverware and carried it to the Hostess Station.  Matt and I dispersed as well, heading to the station to prepare for the dinner rush.
                                        (to be continued....)
   
Continue our "How We Met" story:
                                       Chapter 3 - Another Day
   
   
   
   


      

Chapter One - "The Tea Monster"

      Blogger's Note:  I'm late.  I hate that.  Having a strict schedule, a deadline if you will, has kept me on an honest weekly schedule of blogging posts.  I know me well enough to know that if I procrastinate once then I'll procrastinate twice and that'll snowball into the inevitable end.  But this time it wasn't really my fault.  Well, not really.  You see, I'm not too computer savvy.  Yesterday, I fired up my blog, had Mason Jennings radio playing on Pandora, and sat at the keyboard ready to type away.  But when I clicked in the "composition" field, the cursor just wouldn't stay in there.  I tried this and I tried that and I got Joanna involved until.. Jeremy suggested I try uninstalling/re-installing Google Chrome.  And voila.  But, by then, half the morning was gone... and I just wasn't feeling it anymore.  So, I was going to write it last night.  But, Amelia was having a crying fit (a really epic one), and I just wasn't feeling it.

     So I'm up this morning ready to go on an idea I've been brewing over all week.  I promised last week that I was going to try and focus more on some narrative writing; and, as I was brainstorming this all week, I began to remember that lesson I was supposed to learn about not promising anything in future posts.  Because, really, there's not a story to tell on a weekly basis.  My life's not that exciting.  Amelia is still eating, sleeping, and pooping.  Roman is doing that same, ol' toddler stuff.  DJ is still in Teenage Wasteland.  And Joanna and I are hanging in there.  So, if there's a story to tell, it's not going to be from the here-and-now.
     And then I got an idea.  What if I didn't tell a story, but I told the story.  Our ""How We Met" story?  The one where I usually respond  that she was a mail-order bride, and she usually responds that "she did it for a green card."  And the more I thought about it, the more I began to realize... hey, this is a pretty good story...
     But the biggest problem was writing something that could be read in one sitting.  I think a good blog post can be read in about 10 minutes (I've exceeded that before, and it looks like I might do it again today).  There are some really fun and exciting plot points that I'm anxious to get to.  But if I try to get all the way to some of these "points" in one post, well, you'd be reading for a full hour or more...  so I had to break it down.  I began to form a mental outline and tried to connect the chronological dots with markers that might form a complete story in a way that will keep you coming back for more.
     So, I guess I need your help a little bit.  I just need your patience.  I'll try to make each post as entertaining as I can, but you'll just have to take my word.  If you promise to come back, I promise to tie this package in a nice, big ribbon by the time we reach the end.  And, the frequency?  Well, this I don't know...  I suppose it will depend on how exciting (or mundane) my current life is going.  But I promise to add another chapter at least once a month.
     Here, take my hand, step back in time with me... it's December 2006; and, at the time, I had no idea this would be the start of a story...

                                                  Chapter 1 - The Tea Monster

     "Number six!"  Matt rounded the corner, carrying a pitcher filled mostly with ice.  I didn't look up from my lemon-slicing duty; I was in the zone.  And those of us that knew Matt could tell the difference between his tone of mock frustration and actual anger.  "Have you ever waited on this guy?  He's working on his sixth glass of tea..."
     "Which table is it?"  I asked still slicing lemons even though we already had plenty.  I liked cutting lemons; the repetition was a form of meditation that allowed my mind to stray from the mundane reality that I was waiting on tables in a buffet on a riverboat casino.
     "The third two-top in the front," he replied.  I set down the knife and peeked around the corner.
     Mid-afternoon in the buffet is the slowest time of the day.  The few customers that were eating sat quietly as the sound of chattering silverware telegraphed through hushed conversations.  A stray laugh from one of the girls at the Hostess Station alleviated the trance, but not by much.
     "Oh yeah...  I remember him..."  I had waited on that guy last week I went on to tell Matt.  "I think I refilled his tea like ten times.  Just give him the pitcher..."  I joked.
     Matt dumped the ice left in the pitcher in the sink before he turned to address me again.  "That's the Tea Monster..." he explained.  Matt was known for his impressions.  He was really good, too.  He did Christopher Walken, Nicholas Cage, Smeagle (from "Lord of the Rings"), and various co-workers.  I knew he was about to do the Tea Monster... whatever the hell that was...
     He cocked his elbows back and hunched over.  His eyes began darting about like a velociraptor.  I turned to watch.  Matt's antics were always worth a smile and were sometimes peppered with something worth outright laughter.  This might be good.
     He opened his mouth and produced a sound that didn't seem human.  It came out in a loud, short burst a bit like a siren.  He closed his mouth and the sound stopped.  I stared in amazement, studying him with wonder.  I was impressed; this was the best impression he'd ever done.  He opened his mouth and exhaled the sound again.  It was really loud.  So loud in fact, that it nearly hurt my ears.  My eyes widened into amazement for a few bursts of his...
     ...and that's when I noticed the fire alarm above his head flashing.  And while the realization that it, indeed, wasn't Matt making the sound, I was still impressed with his improvised composure to maintain such illusive synchronicity.  A few seconds passed as I processed the revelation before I sprang into action.  Matt was now laughing hard, content with the notion that he'd got me. I was laughing as well.  The serendipitous timing was truly a marvel.  But we had work to do for, after all, the fire alarm was going off.
     I walked briskly to my section to the handful of customers that remained, stifling laughter.
     "Sir," I began at the first table I came to, "the fire alarm is going off.  Everyone needs to make their way to the exit."
     "My food is gonna get cold..." he replied gruffly.
     "If it turns out to be a false alarm, you'll be welcome to come back in and help yourself to another plate from the buffet," I explained.  From the corner of my eye, I could see Matt encountering similar troubles.
     "Can I get a to-go box?" the Tea Monster was asking him.
     "Sir, everyone needs to head towards the exit now," he said with a respectable amount of professionalism.  My customer was finally getting up.  The Tea Monster looked frustrated.  He gulped down the last of his sixth tea before coming to his senses, wiping his face with his napkin, and standing.
     Once all the customers were on their way to the Main Ramp, Matt and I began heading to the back towards the Employee Ramp.  The excitement of something different happening on an otherwise mundane day filled the air.  Cooks, cashiers, servers, and card dealers were briskly making their way outside as the fire alarm (which sounded exactly like the Tea Monster) continued to blare.
     Walking beside me, Matt began to laugh again.  Amid all the excitement, his laughter was infectious.  I, too, began to laugh.  That was one to remember.  In the parking lot, everyone began to scatter to their department's preassigned location.  The buffet's was on the far back corner.
     We reached our destination as the supervisor confirmed that everyone was there.  Firetrucks and ambulances began to arrive.  Over the years, there had been a handful of false alarms or minor incidents that triggered the alarm system.  We were all assuming that this was just another one of those.
     December winds whipped across the Ohio River and stung our faces.  We hunched in a circle with our arms crossed or our hands in our pockets.  In the hurry to evacuate, we hadn't had time to grab our coats, and the excitement was beginning to fade.
     Also on the backside of the parking lot, but on the other end, a group of people I didn't recognize huddled together.  They were wearing  "Visitor's" badges, and fashions that didn't appear to be local.  Many were Hispanic.  One girl in bangs was wearing a long coat and a scarf.  She was laughing along with the other strangers as they, too, seemed to be caught up in the frenzy.
     "Ok!!!  We've got the all-clear!  It was a false alarm!"  someone yelled across the parking lot.  "Everyone can go back in!"
     I had my hands in my pockets, and I was shivering as everyone quickly began to make their way back to the warmth inside.
     I took one last look at the strangers across from me.  New faces always intrigued, and I couldn't help but wonder who they were. 

     I didn't realize it then, but that was the first time I saw her...
                                            (....to be continued.)

Continue our "How We Met Story":
                                           Chapter 2 - The Pollock and the Donkey

Alanaka - Coming Soon!

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