I’m telling a five top the specials when I feel a hand slide into my pants.
Catching a whiff of perfume I enjoy the sensation of delicate female fingers wriggling around in my pocket. Grasping the hard object she’s looking for she pulls out…..
….. my wine opener.
Nonplussed I continue reciting the specials. Drink order in hand I grab some tumblers and head over to the service bar. I’ve gotta make four chemistry experiments.
As I’m shaking and mixing, Beth, our cute new waitress, comes up to me.
“Sorry to grab your opener but I had to uncork a bottle on table 12,” she says meekly.
I look at Beth. She’s very pretty. I have to remind myself when I graduated college she was still wearing Underoos.
“Not a problem,” I say sliding the tool into my back pocket, “What happened to your opener?”
“I lost it.”
Pulling a spare opener from my apron I place it in Beth’s hand saying,
“Your wine opener is your life young Padawan. Don’t lose it!”
“Oh thank you Obi Wan!” Beth chuckles delightedly, “Don’t you need it?”
“I have a thousand of ‘em at home. I won’t miss it.”
Although a wine opener is one of the most important items a waiter carries – you can bet a night’s tips at least one waiter will forget or lose theirs.
“Thank you,” Beth says heading onto the floor properly equipped.
A little while later I find Louis in the kitchen smelling his corkscrew.
“Now that’s interesting.” I deadpan.
“Smell this,” he says proffering me his opener. Warily I take a sniff. It’s a pungent sweet odor I can’t place. It isn’t wine.
“That’s weird. What is it?” I ask mystified.
“Pot resin.”
“Huh?”
“I cleaned out my bong with the foil blade last night. I guess I forgot to wash it.” Louis says grinning.
“So when a customer smells the cork they catch a whiff of Maui Wowie instead of Merlot?” I ask.
“Actually it’s BC Bud.”
“Whatever. Use the steamer to clean it off.”
Louis laughs and blasts his opener clean with a sterilizing blast of hot water from the espresso machine.
Louis takes the term “Waiter’s Helper” to a whole new level.
Wine openers. They’re not just for wine anymore.
Dear Waiter: Great anticipation there 🙂 Yes, a waiter and a corkscrew are quite a team indeed. Thanks for the laugh and the good feeling I get when I read your blog 🙂
A great read. Funny, entertaining and filled with concise insight into a waiters world. Keep up the blogging!
Thought I would stop in to say, “Hi”!!!
Howdy
‘Thought & Humor’
http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/
FRED IS GOD!
Hello! New to Blogger and was flippin’ around different blogs and came across yours. Brilliant idea. Anyway, good work and I’m looking forward to reading your entertaining little bits in the future.
I was never a waiter…so learning vicariously through your blog what waiters and corkscrews go through is both enlightening and entertaining. Next time Beth loses her opener, make sure you bury it a bit deeper in your pocket…you may get more “pleasure” out of helping her in here time of need.
I found it ironically funny that you used a star wars reference after noting that she was probably to young to understand it fully 🙂
Bradley
Oh, how I miss those days….It was such fun, and hell at the same time…Party on!!
Your Blog is great. What’s a 5 top btw?
But Bradley, with the new Star Wars trilogy everyone knows who Obi-Wan is now and what Padawan’s are. I’m barely out of high school yet and I make Star Wars references all the time. But Star Trek ones are more abundant, admittedly.
In the summer of ’92, when I was still a bartender, a friend of mine and I spent a month driving around France and Italy. Because I was a bartender, I had a corkscrew that I carried in my pocketbook at all times. It was invaluable! That little foil-cutting knife sliced sausage and cheese, spread mustard (from the bottle of Dijon we’d bought in Boulogne and carried with us the entire time), opened packages of cookies–who needs a Swiss Army knife?