Southerner's Listen to the Warnings...

It was really slow at work tonight. You would have thought there was a tornado warning or blizzard prediction....it didn't help that the world was ending at 6PM.

People in JawJa listen to the forecast...even the spiritual ones. Tell them there is a slight chance of tornadoes and they all head to the bomb shelter they built during the Cuban missile crisis. Tell them it may snow and the store shelves are empty in two hours and they lug it all back to the bomb shelter (in case the blizzard collapses the roof of the house.)

So we are all at work ...knowing that people are at home nailing up crucifixes and dusting off the family Bible and replacing the TV Guide on the coffee table with The Holy Book.

"Game Time!" We (me and my co-hort) decided to play a little game. They recently re-hired a former employee that the server staff wasn't overly fond of. We decided it would be fun to see who could slip one single ice cube into his server apron without being noticed.

You don't notice it until about fifteen minutes later and by that time it has started to melt and all your paper work, orders and pens are a wet mess. Sounded like fun to me..."Sign me up!"

We put up a score card on the ice machine. It started out just me and my dastardly co-hort but as we began to realize it was going to be a slow night....we added people one at a time. We made up the rules as we went along and changed them every fifteen minutes.

We let one of the newer servers in on it...she's best described as a "Nervous Nelly." She is cute and sweet and is nervous from the time she walks in til the time she walks out. It's a hard job when you first start...the menu is massive, the wine list even more so and when you work in a restaurant that you can wait on four tables and walk out with a hundred dollars...you gotta be good at your job. She will be fine but we often find her curled up in a fetal position on the restroom floor and have to coax her out with free food.

She sidled up next to the guy we targeted and was so obvious dropping the ice cube into his apron that even HE said "Man..don't do that, it'll mess me up."

Okay...rule change. New Girl is eliminated and now that she has screwed up she is a target as well. Double points go into effect.

By this time it was apparent tonight was going to be slow. Time to add more players.

Pretty soon every one was paranoid. "If they kicked the new girl out...maybe they are targeting us too."

It turned into an episode of "Survivor" with us all making alliances with each other... plotting against the weak links and constantly checking our own apron pockets. We still had a decent crowd and made some money...the game was just a bonus. We backed around each other and looked for a server with a melting ice cube dripping from their clutched fist. Hey...it passed the time and ended up being pretty funny. I went up to one of the male servers we had let in on the game and said "Is that an ice cube melting in your apron or did you just go swimming?"

So the Rapture didn't feel like rappin'...guess God was right after all, only HE knows!

I got home early...after checking all my apron pockets. Came home to a house still there. I was kinda hoping it was a "Cleansing Rapture" and the only thing that would be gone would be the dust and dirt...but there seemed to be even more.

We are a "Literal" folk here in the South...I guess that last war taught us something..."The Yankees are coming" has evolved into "The tornado is coming, the blizzard is fixin' to hit, God will be here in twenty minutes...are there fresh hand towels in the guest bath?"

Til next time... COTTON