The scribe has to act as the fixer when waitress is on vacation
MIDDLEBURGH — Here we are again. At Mrs. K’s. Weren’t we here last week? As Yogi Berra once famously said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
Well, that is what starts to happen at this time of the year. Vacations! Remember what was written about there being only one waitress at each diner? And that waitress knows all of us, and we know her, we can joke with her, and she can joke right back. She can give as well, or better, than she gets.
She knows what we are going to order, where we sit, doesn’t even have a menu to hand out. Having 20 or 30 OMOTM walk through the door pretty much at the same time doesn’t faze her at all.
What happens if she is on vacation? You might get a rookie! I personally have a hard time imagining a scarier thing if I were thrust into that situation. Can you imagine facing 25 OMOTM all at once who get grumpy just for the hell of it, much less if you mess up their breakfast order?
What would you do? It’s hard to get and keep customers, no matter what business you are in. It takes time to cultivate potential customers and you can lose them forever in a heartbeat over a real or imagined issue.
In this case, you could let the powers that be know that you had an issue and could we go to one of the other diners that particular week? But who would that be? There are no “powers that be” with the OMOTM. No president, no officers of any kind.
Wait, wait, I know who I’ll contact: the guy who writes the column for The Enterprise. He will know how to fix it. Right.
John Williams, our Scribe Emeritus, gave me a few hints a while after I started writing this column. On one occasion he said to me, “Along with writing the column for The Altamont Enterprise, you also become the chief cook and bottle washer for the group.”
Oh. OK. Now I'm starting to feel like that rookie I just wrote about. So I looked at my calendar to see what diner I could call. Everything worked out all right and since I also maintain the email list, I let everyone know.
Whew, escaped that issue. It wasn’t all that bad. Then I got another email from another diner, “Hey, we are on vacation on the 27th. Could you ….” Sure I can.
Mother’s Day
We just had Mother's Day this past Sunday.
It was a wonderful day; the weather cooperated and the above-mentioned hardworking waitresses either had the day off or were rather busy working at their restaurants because the OMOTM types, who don’t know which end of the spatula to hold, took their much better halves out to dinner rather than embarrassing themselves in a room (the kitchen) they are seldom allowed in for good reasons.
I stand corrected. Most of us do know which end of the spatula to hold if we are outside at the barbecue grill with a cold beer in the other hand. But this wasn't going to cut it on Mother's Day.
She really is not going to be impressed with a hot dog or hamburger today and beer is definitely not on her list of beverages on this day. Try a nice wine instead.
One more tip, guys: On behalf of those waitresses who drew the short straw and are working on Mother’s Day, doubling the tax is not close to what is considered an adequate tip anymore (and hasn’t been for quite a while).
In my household, what I described above would be pretty close to the way it was. My wife and I didn't get too carried away with presents or flowers but, if I do say so myself, I used to cook up a pretty good omelet for breakfast.
We didn't go out for dinner very often so I would gather up my favorite spatula and take the special steaks, filet mignon, complete with our favorite sauce and sauteed onions, baked potato, etc., and fire up the grill.
She would be in charge of the sauce (that’s the special kitchen stuff only she knew how to make; I have to look up how to spell s-a-u-c-e.) Dessert would be cheesecake made by the Nuns of New Skete.
I could not grill this filet with a beer; oh no, a nice merlot was the order of the day. We enjoyed cooking special dinners together rather than going out all the time. Sort of made the whole day a little more special for both of us.
Don't get me wrong: We went out plenty of times and we had our favorite restaurants. She is gone now, and I have planted a flower garden in her memory. It was in full bloom on this beautiful Mother’s Day, so I raised a nice glass of merlot to my Midge, and to all the mothers on this, their special day. Happy Mother’s Day!
The OMOTM, who, with spatulas not in their hands, joined together for breakfast at Mrs. K'’ were Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Ed Goff, George Washburn, Wm Lichliter, Pete Whitbeck, Frank A. Fuss, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Robert Schanz, Dave Hodgetts, Allan Defazio, Lou Schenck, John Williams, Herb Bahrmann, Al Schager, Duncan Bellinger, John Dab, Paul Guiton, Glenn Patterson, Roger Shafer, Roland Tozer, Ken Parks, Ted Feurer, Jake Lederman, Wayne Gaul, Jake Herzog, Chuck Batcher, Russ Pokorny, Gerry Chartier, Bob Donnelly, and me.