March Blog Baltimore Happy Hour
When: Wednesday, March 16th
Time: 6:00 p.m. to whenever
Where: Dizzy Issie’s, 300 W. 30th Street, Baltimore, Maryland

It’ll be my first ever Blog Baltimore Happy Hour, and my first Happy Hour - hell, my first time in a bar - in more years than I care to remember. I know, I have to get out more, bite me. Anyway, I’ve got to work Wednesday night, but as soon as I’m off, I’ll be barrelin’ down I-83 …

That ole’ saying, “The Best of Times … the Worst of Times” … literally? Today.

Already, I was looking at a marathon day - in at ten, and I’d grabbed Sketchy’s closing shift, so out at nine. Of course I beat Noah into work - you remember Noah, don’t you? He’s the idiot who cut his finger off - which meant I had slicer duty. The slicer is a smaller version of what you see in your grocery store’s deli section, and we use it to cut lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, meats for the sub-preps, cheese, etcetra. Luckily, I guess we did a lot of prepping last week because the slice list was actually kind of short today.

Then Noah called. His car was broken into, and he’d be late. Gary was busy talking with Mike, the Sysco rep, and as a result failed to ask Noah for an ETA on his arrival. As it turned out, there would be no arrival …

… great. Of course, just thinking he would be in late, I finished up the slicer crap, cleaned it off, and started work on the rest of the prep list: chopping mushrooms (manually), making a bucket of sauce, making cold cut setups … I think we still had to prep the turkey and ham setups, and make salads, when the clock hit eleven.

Usually, no big deal. Most Mondays, the store can be handled with three people - even if we only have one insider, you’re almost guaranteed that at least one driver will be in the store at any given time to assist. Now, see, Zap, the other day driver, is down in the Dominican Republican this week, basking on topless beaches, getting drunk, and engaging in a lot of activity that would make even moderate Christians blush and run screaming for salvation.

So it was just me and Gary. No biggie - Mondays are usually pretty quiet delivery wise. Even as the only driver, I’d be lucky to get ten runs by two. But of course, everyone somehow knew that Zap was out getting sucked by some prostitute, and Noah was being a slack ass, and so everyone wanted a delivery. And everyone who didn’t want a delivery wanted to come in for a slice of pizza. And while I was out running from building to building dropping off subs and pizzas and whatnot, Gary was getting his ass kicked inside, the phones were ringin’ and he was lucky to take one in three orders (and losing business don’t make the Boss Man happy, me neither if it was delivery business!).

The day actually went by really fast. Easy for me to say that as I spent most of it zooming around Cockeysville. Gary, as always, did great, and had my deliveries bagged up waiting for me each time I came in. I stopped at the Verizon building three or four times over the course of the day, and the security guard — not Joe, who is the morning guy, but the afternoon guy, don’t know his name — suggested that as much time as I was spending in the building, I could probably do his job at the same time. Possibly. Somewhere along the line, some woman bitched about no one picking up the phones for awhile, and I told her Noah’s car had been broken into. “That’s too bad,” she said. I shook my head, “No, you don’t understand, last year his grandfather died six times.”

I can’t really complain, I earned brownie points with the Boss Man and got to listen to him describe how he wanted to drive down to Fort Washington and ram his boot through Noah’s assorted orifices. Noah and I don’t exactly get along, so this was certainly pleasing, although having to work my ass off to cover for his slack ass certainly wasn’t too enjoyable. What was enjoyable was the large number of generous people I delivered to today. Actually, about half of them were generous - I think the other half goofed their math.

We survived the lunch rush and managed to have the store put back into a somewhat reasonable condition for the dinner crew. Gary even complimented me on my non-half-assed working ability - since you’re not familiar with Gary, that’s sort of like Bill Gates walking up to you on the street and offering you ten million dollars … it just doesn’t happen.

Gary had managed to get ahold of Noah later in the afternoon. Noah doesn’t have an apartment phone or a cell phone, but Gary found his roomate’s cell and got ahold of Noah. Wouldn’t you know it? Noah decided it wasn’t worth his time trying to get in, because his car wouldn’t start, and then decided he didn’t have to call to tell anyone. After relating this to me, we both observed, “Didn’t he say his car was broken into?”

As Mondays go, today was excellent, and I left with about twice as much tip money as I had expected. Now I’m home, my legs hurt, my body aches, and bed is calling to me, it’s saying, “Jeff, take a fucking shower before you fall on me, because dammit, you smell!”

Roger that: shower, then sleep…

(Edit: If I was Noah, I wouldn’t come into work tomorrow. As a matter of fact, I’d be getting as far from Gary as possible. Most likely, Noah will wind up with a long list of menial tasks to accomplish, quite possibly including cleaning the toilet with his tongue. In any case, boy am I glad I’m not him!)