My First Semi Celebrity

Woke up when the alarm sounded on my cell phone this morning. Got up immediately remembering how I had turned it Off instead of Snooze the other day. Left the house right on time. I had to clock in at eight thirty so being Sunday with no business day commuters using the MARTA lot allowed myself an hour twenty minutes to get there, park, catch the train to the airport, catch the Sardine Shuttle to International, go through security and fast walk across the atrium climbing the escalator steps two at a time to Ecco.

Clocked in eight minutes early!

The Jehovah Witness peeps have been swarming like purple flies the entire last week at the airport for their International conference being held here in Atlanta. For a religion that doesn't celebrate holidays they sure looked like they were. I got kicked off the Sardine Shuttle for the first time the other day because they had it all filled with their bags and huge yard signs. I made the second bus with a lone straggler toting her sign.

I know a few JW's and even worked with a couple. My most vivid memory is when they built a "Kingdom Hall" about a mile up the road from our house. My two younger kids were still in elementary school and I was working for the After School Program in their school. The ASP art teacher was a JW and one day my son, Zach asked her during art class why they built their church without windows? He continued on , while painting his art project and asked if they were they doing secret experiments in there?

Zach is WAY too much like me!

I'm feeling more comfortable with every shift and kind of getting used to working in an airport restaurant. It feels like working in a hospital. There's no day time or night time. No weekends or holidays. The busiest airport (like a hospital) in the world always has people in it.

I learned me yet another trick yesterday. When I open with peeps who really don't know that well I simply walk across the food court and get "Whatever" from "Wherever" close by and bring it back to eat before we open.

Yesterday morning opened with two peeps I really like and once we got through setting up said they were going to Concourse C to get food from Atlanta Bread Company. We get up to nine bucks of free food from certain places so like a lost puppy, followed them. I LOVE Atlanta Bread Co. !!

Unfortunately I was chatting with them the entire time there and couldn't find it again if I had a compass and map.

The good news is I got one of my favorite sandwiches ever, Chicken Waldorf and a bowl of vegetable soup for free ninety nine.

Today I opened with just one of them and got all excited when we got ready to open early and she mentioned making the trek to Atlanta Bread again.

I tried to pay attention to all the twists, turns, different elevators and which plane train we took and which way we turned when getting off but just gave up. I got me a freebie Bella Chicken sandwich, huge cinnamon bun and a fresh banana to boot!

At this rate I'll be up to my fighting weight in no time.

This place all depends on departure times and preferences of destinations.  You don't get slammed with peeps traveling to Yemen but Paris, Italy and Amsterdam will profit you greatly.

It started slow, good thing with my little belly full of good grub! By two o'clock the Italy and Paris flights were nearing, things picked up and by six walked out with over two hundred dollars.

One of my last tables was an older couple who told me they were flying to Italy. They were very nice and after the man ordered the Trout told them it was caught locally in Rome, Georgia. The wife said her son lived in Rome and managed a baseball team. When they paid the bill,  noticed on the card his name was  John Scheurholz.

 Dang, he was president of the Atlanta Braves organization!

When returning his card with the check asked if he was with The Bravos? He smiled and said he was. I told him my sister was their biggest long time fan. He nodded but when I added, oh she's loved you guys since  Rico Carty

Bob Didier

Felix Milan

Phil Niekro

and Hammering Hank!

That got his attention.

He commented I certainly had a dedicated sister to the team.

He don't know the half of it!!

I told them both to stop back by on their way home from their trip.

After they left, thought of a story about my sister's older son, also a huge Braves fan. When he was little, very little my sister and her husband bought him a rocking horse for Christmas. This was almost twenty five years ago.

Steve Bedrosian played for the Braves back then. On Christmas morning my nephew was all excited about his new rocking horse and his dad said as he was rocking away on it, "You need to give it a name."

My nephew Casey (Casey at the bat) simply and quietly said he already had. His dad asked him what he named it and he said "Bedrock."

I keep thinking I'm jinxing myself by talking about how great I'm doing but have  just decided to accept the fact that "Karma" finally rolled around our way.

It's so pleasant to go to bed without the fear of foreclosure, it's not even funny.

Rolling into bed and back to the airport tomorrow.

Til next time...COTTON