It’s seven o’clock on Saturday night. Every seat in the Bistro has someone’s name on it. But that doesn’t stop people without reservations from trying to get in.
“Where’s Fluvio?” an impatient customers huffs, nervously waving his keychain back and forth. “If he was here he’d let me in.”
“I’m sorry sir,” I reply. “I’ll have a table available at nine o’clock.”
“Nine o’clock?” the man says. “That’s too late. You’ve got to do something for me.”
I notice that the man’s still waving his keys in front of me like some sort of amateur hypnotist. Maybe he thinks the pendulum motion of his BMW key fob will lull me into compliant somnolence. Guess again.
“I’m sorry sir,” I repeat. “There’s always a chance someone might cancel. Can I have your cell phone number if something opens up?”
The man snaps his keys back into his hand and stuffs them in his pocket.
“No,” he replies sourly. “There are plenty of other, better restaurants we can go to.”
I ignore the man’s little dig. We’re the best place around. He knows it. I know it.
“I am sorry sir,” I say politely. “Perhaps you can join us another night.”
The man gives me what he thinks is a hard stare and walks out the door.
“I can’t believe people get that upset over a table,” Yeva, our newest hostess says.
“Believe it,” I say. “It can get rough.”
“What a jerk that guy was,” Yeva mumbles.
“Say Yeva, you lived in Israel, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t restaurants over there have armed guards?”
“Some of them,” Yeva replies.
“Maybe we should start doing that over here.”
“Restaurants in Israel have guards because of terrorism,” Yeva says.
“I understand that,” I reply. “But wouldn’t it be easier dealing with difficult customers if you had a 9 millimeter on your hip?”
“There’d be fewer arguments,” Yeva says. “That’s for sure.”
Suddenly I have a vision of little Yeva firing a pistol in the air screaming, “We have no more tables! Get back! Yuppies on the wire! Yuppies on the wire!”
I grin at the thought of my diminutive hostess going all Rambo.
“Maybe we can put that idea in the suggestion box,” I say.
“That’d be hysterical,” Yeva replies.
“Dear Fluvio,” I say, pretending to write on a piece of paper, “Can we give the hostesses firearms?”
“He’d never do it,” Yeva says.
“Why not?”
“He’d be the first one to get shot.”
I think about all the hostesses the Bistro’s gone through over the years.
“You might be right about that Yeva,” I reply laughing. “You might be right.”
OK. So giving the hostesses guns is a bad idea. They’d probably turn the Bistro into the OK Corral overnight. But I can dream can’t I?
lol! that would be something! say… not a bad idea at all… and Israelis kick butt! Yeva would be one awesome hostess!
If my restaurant gave me firearms…~evil cackle~
I suppose I’m a good example of why NOT to give hostesses firearms…
~Super Hostess
Reminds me of the day I found out my matronly Hebrew teacher won the contest in her high school for taking her assault rifle apart and putting it back together in the dark faster than everyone else (because learning how to take apart and put together your assault rifle in the dark is standard in Israeli high schools).
No, Brynn, it really isn’t.
“Yuppies on the wire! Yuppies on the wire! It’s a good thing I was between sips when I read that.
Did Yeva do her Israeli army stint? Because if she did, then she knows K’rav Maga and her fists are a deadly weapon already.
It’s amazing how people can’t hear the word “NO.” That guy was an idiot. Obviously since you are so filled up you are an excellent eatery and sure as hell that guy knows it like you said, but he will go someplace “BETTER.” I would of said “so what the hell did you come here for if there are other better places out there.” LOL. Face it you spoiled rotten man you aren’t always going to get what you want.
>> OK. So giving the hostesses guns is a bad idea. <<
So a taser then?
I agree: Taser. Bear grade pepper spray at the least.
i still want to talk about dogs!
just finished waiter rant– “the book”– and i know your name is steve. cat’s out of the bag. waiting on the “vook” which will soon not be in quotes.
noticed you used not one — (dash) in your book. please use many in your next book, if only for fun? they’re so…dashing!
admired your vocab. sent me to the dictionary. love being sent to the dictionary. so thanks for that.
writers are made from potential. you grew into yours. the product of an elegant mind.
hope you have no window to be sad-looking from anymore tho i think you always will. be. could be worse. no window? writers live windows, as you said. and are usually sad. in between wisps of bliss.
thanks. please keep writing in notebooks for me to read what you write. i said please. i’m one of the nice ones. table 25, if available. but please don’t call me madam! and i promise not to bid on artwork or have a stroke on your watch. another perfect cosmo, however…
susie