Flashback Friday, etc.

     Before I get into the whole Flashback Friday thing, I just want to take a moment and jot down a couple weird things my co-workers said yesterday.  A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about our busboy Fonzie, and his weird love of Saved by the Bell, among other thing. Anyway yesterday he just came up to me, said "Star Wars" and walked away. Not like, "Yeah, I love Star Wars!" or "Hey, I just watched Star Wars!" just...moderate, calm voice..."star wars" and continued on his merry way. I really have no idea what the fuck that was about but....hey....Star Wars everybody.

Oh and then I had the following conversation with my little Ukrainian co-worker.

He: I am so stupid!

Me: You're not stupid, you're just from Ukraine.

He: What does this mean?

Me: It doesn't mean anything. It's just me teasing you about where you're from. You know, like when you say somebody isn't stupid, they're just from Florida.
He: Oh! Well people from Florida, they are like villagers! Everybody knows this.

Anyway, now I want a t-shirt that says "People from from Florida, they are like villagers."  I would totally wear the shit out of that shirt.

And now, let's wrap up the week with a few tales of Roastings Past.

Dec 16, 2011
Lady was here for about 3 hours, then asked to see the manager. Told Gus she didn't have any money because she's "dealing with settlements" but would pay us by January 2nd.

Okay, I totally remember this lady.  I guess I could have put this in the Funny Money blog from earlier this week, but I forgot about it til now.  Anyway. I remember this pretty distinctly because it was the first person I dealt with that morning.  This customer was a transfer to me from the overnight waiter, and I'd guess she'd been there a while.  So she finishes eating, then asks to see the manager. Then she explains to him that she doesn't have any money, but that the police are "aware of the situation" And then she wrote us this weird IOU on the back of some prescription for rash cream.

Who the fuck goes out to a restaurant with no money??? Who does that?!  I mean luckily it was like a 15 dollar check, and we just voided it but...what? What the fuck is that? And I wondered at the time if she had tried it before. Like....just spend a small amount of money at every restaurant in the city, and then explain that you have nothing because you're "dealing with settlements" but it's okay because "the police are aware of it."

And no, she did NOT come back by January 2nd. 

This also kind of reminds me of the time that my co-worker Cris had a table who only paid half their bill, and then they left her a note with an address where she could pick up the rest of the money.

Seems legit.

Funny Money

    Somebody gave me a traveler's check the other day, and after I figured out how the hell to process that bullshit, it got  me thinking about all the various ways people have tried to pay their bill.  I mean we all know old people can be cheap as fuck, and teenagers tend to just pay down to the penny because they don't know any better, but it's so much more than that.  Like, you know, this bullshit:

What am I supposed to do with this? No...really. I want to know.

Somebody just left my former co-worker a pile of Canadian coins once. I mean...why leave anything? What the fuck am I going to do with Canadian coins?    Fuck that shit and leave nothing. Because this is what we do with Canadian coins. Tape it into the bitch book.  Another time I had a dude pay everything but two dollars of his bill in legit, American money, tell me he was out of American cash, and give me a Canadian 5 dollar bill to cover the rest.  Because that helps me.

Foreign money done right: I recently had a guy leave me a twenty percent tip in proper money, along with a Euro. For good luck, I guess? I don't know. But now I have a cute little Euro in my change pocket and that's kind of fun.  I mean, if you want to unload a foreign coin or two on me, I guess I don't really care as long as you pay your bill in legal tender first.

Loose change and foreign coins aside, the best/worst thing that ever happened to me was when somebody paid his bill in pennies.  Straight up.  A few summers ago (I think it was 2011) I was working a lunch shift and had a guy who was a little twitchy sit at one of my outside tables.  He immediately emptied a large bag of coins onto his table, and though he ordered, he kept insisting that I didn't bring his food until he was finished counting.  He was really intent on his counting and kept meticulously organizing these coins, so at first I thought he was either preparing to roll them, or maybe he just had OCD.  However, towards the end of the meal, THIS was laid out on the table for me:

Five fucking dollars in pennies. 500 pennies.

And wanna hear something fun? This wasn't even the entire payment. Three years later, I remember the exact amount of the bill because the whole situation was so odd.  The bill was 22 dollars and some odd cents.  He laid out five dollars in pennies. He then told me that he thought he had a twenty on him, but he didn't so he had to go get it and he'd leave us his apartment keys as collateral. So for those of you that are up on your math skills, this means a full payment of 25 dollars, which is a less than three dollar tip, and also...fucking 500 pennies.  Anyway, he did end up coming back with the 20.  However, in the meantime I'd made everybody aware of the penny payment, took a picture of my phone, guests were pointing at it etc. So when he came back to drop off the twenty and get his keys, he saw some people looking at the pennies, and got all indignant that he was being mocked or whatever, and proceeded to tell us:

"You know, in Brooklyn this would be considered ART!"  

Fucking take that shit to Brooklyn then.

My bank cashes in coins for free, so I ended up putting all the pennies into a couple of to go soup bowls at the end of the day and lugging them home with me.   That shit was heavy, but I didn't know what else to do with it.

In conclusion:

1) Pay in American money

2) Tip in American money or don't tip at all

3) If you must pay in coins, at least use quarters so I can do my laundry

4) Don't ever pay with those godawful fucking annoying gold dollar coins.  You can't use them in vending machines or laundry machines and they're a pain in the ass.

Above all,

Use your common CENTS!
Get it? Sense/cents?  I made a fucking hilarious pun. Oh my god I'm so smart.

I'm going to end this entry now before somebody punches me through a computer screen for my horrible use of puns.