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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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A longstanding waitress has decided to treat a new boyfriend - common-law husband to a spicy treat this Valentines.
She wants to surprise him with some Sex Toys.
We've a lovers boutique near the restaurant, and while the restaurant is closed she decides to haul me over to pick out a toy or two.
Her reasoning is that I'm the only man on staff who's shown no interest in her, is somewhat discreet and - here I conjecture - possibly has some authority on the subject. I don't know, I'm only guessing, but given the choice of coworkers, I'm the one I'd bring as well. She doesn't want to go alone, and as I've some professed academic expertise (I'm online a lot...).
This is her first foray into a sex shop. This shop, the lovers boutique, it's far from the best, overpriced novelty toys from China, imported for a dollar and sold on for a hundred, the quality is low, prices are high, I'm not a fan. I recommend to her a few other shops that by reputation are far better.
She's in a rush, doesn't care.
So we glance through the toys, in the end she's drawn towards a variety pack, I recommend against it - the silicon is lousy, the attachments will be lost, the quality - as far as I can tell, isn't there, and I've never known a woman who really used the full variety of attachments. There are better toys for less.
She won't be dissuaded.
So off she goes to buy her Valentines gift for her new beloved, a variety pack of sex toys for herself. I can say nothing.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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A new salad girl started last week, appeared on a Friday night, pale, looking a bit plump in her chef's uniform, unremarkable in every way. By Saturday night she had disappeared, gone the way (I supposed) of so many others.
Tonight, the night before Valentines, she shows up with her boyfriend for dinner.
Blonde, fit, she gives me a quizzical look: "You don't recognize me". And I'm for a moment terrified. She saves me: "I started last week...." and I breathe a sigh of relief, her name, memorable only because it was a slight variation on a common name with heavily pretentious overtones.
The boys, the boss, all pass by the table and chat with them. And by the end of the night the Nephew has persuaded them to join us at the local dire pub for drinks.
I meet up with them.
I talk to the boyfriend, polite enough, he manages another infamous Italian restaurant in the city. Light conversation, pleasantries, they pay and leave.
No sooner than they have left the table then the nephew begins: 'The boyfriend, he's a nice guy....' And I nod my acknowledgement. He continues, louder:
"...but i want to fuck the hell out of his girlfriend..."
I laugh and shake my head, looking down, looking up I spot the boyfriend perhaps 10 feet away, he's waiting for his girlfriend to finish up in the washroom. I'm not sure if he heard, but he's not catching my eye. I'm guilty by acquaintance in the worst of possible ways.
I tell the nephew, at first he's concerned, when they've left he asks me if I think they've heard, doesn't wait for an answer....
"...I want to fuck her so bad, but not to worry, I have a plan. I'm not very smart with work, but I'm pretty smart with this..."
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1734
For the village idiot he has rare moments of utter, supreme clarity.
Not that he's stupid, not by a long shot, but his intelligence isn't of the sort that's conventionally measured, he wouldn't pass an IQ test. But socially, well, for a guy that eats with his fingers and is more than willing to *uck anything that moves, well, he's not quite as easily pinned down as all that.
Sometimes, at the bar, making a drink or passing time until it's busy, he tells me shit. Shit he doesn't tell anyone else, because, really, who else would get it?
He's talking about his cousin, Fredrica, who "Is such a whore, I'm not kidding, such a dirty fucking whore, she'll fuck anything.....she's like me, only a woman..."
This is the joke, only he's not joking, her damning trait not being that she's like him, or indiscreet or a slut, no, it's that she's like him and she's a woman. Women aren't like that.
And he's telling me about the business cards of the car dealers - today a slow day, but for some reason we have the owner of a Toyota, a Chrysler and a very fine Luxury car dealership in for lunch. They're not talking, different tables, but the nephew is telling me what their business cards should say:
"I sell cars" for the Chrysler and the Chrysler and Toyota dealers.
For X, the owner of the Luxury dealership - he's got the card worked out - "I don't sell cars, I sell dreams....", and it's funny, because it's right, every adolescent who's done well and saved their money finds their way to this dealership to fulfill their childhood dreams, too sadly they don't usually get there until their in their 40's or 50's....
And he brings up another, the character who sold the owner of the restaurant the imaginary luxury car that never arrived - it just says "I sell dreams" - it's brilliant, in it's way, but he has to tell me this in a lowered voice, cautious of eavesdropping, this is still a sore subject no one dares to broach...
In a way he's the Shakespearean Fool, the jester or idiot who somehow speaks truth to power, in all other aspects an idiot, but in some other ways he's dead on the money, but here, of all places, he can only speak his mind to me, his talents are squandered....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1773
They're both good, in their separate (and similar) ways - each knows by name half our regular customers. They schmooze them, appease them, somehow make them feel comfortable. They're each about 10 years older than me. Old, very old, by waiter standards, but I think that it pleases our customers to get better than Earl's
But they don't get along. We've separated them, different sides of the restaurant, still there's the minor, petty feuds.
They're not so quick, but it's good to work with different people.
They know what they're doing. Slow, but they don't have to be told.
But as they dicker and feud, about trivial things, like who's been waitering longer (and where, what restaurants, etc) - I can't help but imagine them working together.....
It's a bizarre tableau.
The one, Z, pushes the other, M, in a wheelchair. This is a first for a waiter, I imagine. They argue the whole way about who's been waitering longer.
When they come to the table they're silent. M holds up a card. It tells them that his name is M and he'll be their waiter this evening.
HE doesn't speak, because - truth be told - our customers don't want to be spoken to.
Instead, the cards he holds up indicate whether they're ready to order drinks, wine, food, etc.
Customers can sign (thumbs up, down, etc) according to the illustrations on the placard that M holds up.
They're not in the least bit curious as to why M doesn't speak, or why Z doesn't either, they're secretly glad to be able to not speak to their waiter.
Maybe, as M writes things down, Z can argue with him about whether he heard things right.
And when he wheels away, with their drink or food order, they can see/hear him feuding with Z about small and trivial things.
This would put us on the map. The wheelchair waiters.
I want to push one of them, push M, or Z...
They fight, feud, I don't hear of it but know because they can't work together, one always has to work with me, and I have this bizarre vision of them working together in some sort of waiter hell, the wheelchair waiters.....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1689
Finally, notes left telling me they've gone down east (final cheque always used to get out of town, the mental image I have not at all surprising) - the job done, well, but not great, requests for revisions ignored (excuses, excuses, transparent...), the request for quotes on future projects postponed until they are less drunk or unavailable, 3 weeks total time but now I can move back in....