After about a year of butler-free bliss, we've recently seen a resurgence of The Butler at the restaurant. The Butler is a curious looking fellow. Short, portly, bald except on the sides. Snow white hair on the sides of his head, and a snow white handlebar mustache. He also wears a monocle. I've never met anybody in real life who wears a monocle. Basically, he looks almost exactly like this:
except minus the tux, and plus a monocle.
The Butler is English, and plays up his accent quite often. By the way, full disclosure here, he's actually an ex-butler. He went to a special "Butler School" in England, and I guess worked for a family here on the UWS til they couldn't pay him because of the recession, and now he's a doorman or something. Still, he must be proud of his past, because he seems to begin every other sentence with "Back when I was in butler school....." Now honestly, I couldn't tell you what happened back when he was in Butler School, because I kind of just learned to tune everything out after I heard that phrase. Something about folding napkins into swans, or something. I also somehow got it into my head (maybe because of the whole England thing) that there's some kind of secret Hogwarts-esque butler school out there, where they have secret passages, and I don't know.....magical wine cellars or something. I was actually thinking about this for a while, referring to it in my head as "Butwarts" but I realized that doesn't sound too enticing.
(Also, I was totally tempted to google image search "butwarts" just now, but I completely wussed out.)
Anyway. Back to our friend the Butler. The Butler drinks house vodka martinis with extra olives, no matter what time of day it is. He also loves red wine, and actually threw a fit when we changed the wine glasses around a couple years ago. That in itself actually prompted an entire "butler school" tangent, and a lecture on proper glasses for the serving of red wine. It was quite the kerfuffle, to say the least. He's also got a bit of a pervy side to him, and when I say that...I mean he's a fucking creepy motherfucker. Way back in 2010, when I'd only been at work for a couple months, he added me on Facebook. Because he's the kind of guy who likes to stalk the entire restaurant staff on Facebook. Maybe he doesn't have any real friends? I don't really know. Anyway, I didn't know that much about him at that point, so I added him back. A few days later he was in with his wife. I waited on them and chatted about the weather, and mentioned that I had the next day off and would most likely be going out to Brighton. He looks up and yells, "Oy! Does this mean we'll see more pictures of you in a bathing suit?" I'm sorry...what?!? First of all, don't say shit like that in front of your wife, and don't say shit like that to your waitress. Secondly, I'm not ashamed of my body or anything, but I've never been the type to make a bathing suit pic my profile picture. The most recent bathing suit pictures of me were from an album two years prior. Meaning...he basically went through all of my photographs. That was a little creepy, but I didn't delete him until I got annoyed as fuck by him making weird comments on all my posts. So I "unfriended" him, thinking he wouldn't even notice. Of course he came in the next day and called me on it. So I had to block him completely. Honestly though, this isn't even the weirdest shit.
One time he found out via Facebook about a birthday party for a co-worker of mine. No, he wasn't invited, but I suppose lonely butlers have nothing better to do than stalk wait staff. Anyway, he ended up showing up at this party on the LES, and he was already there when I got there and I spent the entire time hiding from him, which wasn't exactly easy to do in a tiny dive bar.
I used to work with a girl who happened to have rather large breasts. As in, sometimes she couldn't button her uniform shirt all the way up because....well, it just wasn't going to happen. Anyway, one day we caught The Butler taking pictures of her with his iphone....and when we called him on it, he basically laughed and said "Can't blame me for trying!" DUDE. I totally blame you for trying. You're gross.
Lest you think The Butler spends all his free time visiting the restaurant and harassing waitresses, I'll have you know he has a very exciting collection of hobbies. He's some sort of volunteer New York policemen, which I've gathered involves carrying a fake badge and riding a horse around Central Park. I'm not sure if anything else is involved, because like I said....I try to tune it out. I also remember him telling me in great detail about some sort of British war reenactment that he participates in. Again, not sure what all is involved, but he showed me some pictures and I know it involves wearing funny clothes and carrying a musket.
However, probably the most legendary of all his odd jobs would be "writer of erotica." I actually don't know too much about this one because I heard it from a co-worker rather than The Butler himself, and that was traumatizing enough, but apparently The Butler has a little side business writing dirty stories for the internet. Some kind of secret website that you have to have a password for, and also have to pay money for. Fifty Shades of Butlers, perhaps? Honestly I really don't know. All I know is that he gave the "business card" for these stories to my co-worker and she promptly threw it out.
He stopped coming in for about a year, but now he's back with a vengeance. He tries to chat me up by asking about friends of mine who haven't worked there in years, but so far he hasn't done anything too terribly disgusting. Then again, he's only been back a month, so only time will tell.
