It's OVER...

It's over.

Valentine's Day is done for another year...a sentence every server "Loves" to hear.

I went into work at 10:30 this morning and the phone was ringing off the hook and never stopped.

Who calls the morning of Valentine's Day to make a reservation for dinner?

Obviously a lot of procrastinating husbands who dread going home to their wife holding a bag full of Whoppers or McRibs to impress their sweetie.

At 11:00 the phone rang and a woman asked to speak to the owner. I asked who was calling and she said she was with a local magazine calling about advertisements.

I know every person hasn't worked in the restaurant industry...but it just seems common sense to know that on Valentine's Day...right as lunch is hitting and you are preparing as well for the manic dinner that will follow, that the owner/chef of a restaurant isn't interested in talking to a sales person.

I almost told her she wasn't helping her cause...but just asked for her name and number and threw it in the trash can when I hung up the phone and continued getting the restaurant ready for the massive crunch we expected and luckily received.

Around 3 Pm it leveled out and I clocked out to my cell phone buzzing. Zach needed a ride home from the CEC where he attends classes and I had to pick Massey up from the high school. I swung by and picked Zach up and with no time to spare headed to the high school. Zach balked at going to the high school with me so I let him jump out of the car at the red light by our subdivision. Walking two blocks won't kill a boy and he could spend the time texting his buddies as he "walked twenty miles to the house barefooted uphill in the snow".

I picked Massey up and dropped her off at the house, checked my email left money for Chinese food to be delivered and headed back to work.

I worked a double shift yesterday and my feet were still aching when I woke up this morning...by now they were throbbing like I HAD walked twenty miles in the snow uphill.

I got back to work and continued eating what I had been eating all day....Massey's fund raiser candy I had taken to work. I had eaten a box of Sour Patch candy and some Twizzlers...that took care of my fruit intake. I moved on to a pot of coffee and a huge Kit Kat bar.

The bottom dropped out by 5:30.

My section of tables were in an area I like to call "Way north of nowhere". It is further from the kitchen than anywhere in the store. You have to take a tray with you because there is no where to sit dishes down, no where to make drinks or drop off dirty dishes...you have to plow back through the restaurant to the server area for any kind of plates, pitchers, cheese, pepper mills or to go boxes.

I was in Antarctica with my buddy, Hoke. After thirty minutes I hid a pepper mill grinder on the hutch that holds the computer we use when we are in Antarctica.. After thirty five minutes I hid a Parmesan cheese grater up there as well. I opened the bottom drawer of the hutch and put to go boxes and bags for us to use.

I came up to ring on our computer and Hoke had tickets and payment books spread all over it. I told him it wasn't his personal dresser...was I going to open a drawer and find it filled with his socks and whitey tighties? The hutch has three drawers...one filled with silver ware and the other with napkins.

We already had our pepper mill and cheese grater stashed there...I told Hoke we should put some bread in the bottom drawer.

I thought about putting a bus tub in one of the drawers so we could dump our dirty dishes in it but knew Barb (the owner's wife) would flip.

The new guy (Mr. Freak out) did pretty well tonight...I don't care who says he didn't.

He goofed up a few orders but didn't have a tantrum. I think he is on to me....I gotta quit laughing every time I see him.

At least he bought five candy bars from Massey's box (he's already moving up in my book).

By the time I got off work I had seen so many Valentine's Day sweaters and red shirts that I wanted to puke.

Not to mention even my TOES hurt.

My feet felt like I had been walking around with my toes curled underneath my feet. I don't know if it was stress or just old age but my dogs were barking...and I don't mean the three idiots at the house.

I clocked out right before 11Pm.

Tim leaves for work at 11:10 and is still using my car.

I limped in on my feet that feel like they have been binded by an angry old Chinese woman. Google foot binding...it ain't pretty.

I came into the house to two teens in bed, a husband walking out the door and me looking around for someone to rub my feet.

A beer later I feel better.

What a long long day.

At least it was profitable and will only be a memory when I wake up to work another double shift tomorrow.

No wonder I have so much gray hair...
Til next time...COTTON