As I predicted/cried over/thought would never happen, the details of my trip are falling into place.
My ticket is purchased, the passport I lost was replaced in record timing AND my living accommodations have FINALLY been secured. The only issue that remains, is figuring out what I actually hope to accomplish with this very costly and stressful attempt at “finding myself” and “regaining inspiration”.
On the one hand, I want nothing more than to walk along the streets of Paris and have its citizens marvel at how stylish my series of vintage coats are – particularly for an American, negotiate the price of produce with french farmers with my lackluster grasp of the language and fool around with as many “artists” as my dwindling self-respect will allow. Surprisingly, my Rosetta Stone lessons have not covered how to say “I promise… I won’t tell anyone… but… is that a wedding ring?”
It’s not slutty if it happens in another country.
On the other hand, I would like to be able to add something onto my resume. I’ve been reluctant (and perhaps too late now…) to solicit help from my culinary school instructors, all of whom are still very well-connected to the French culinary world and offered their help to us, should we wish to take our learning to the next level. The issue is that in their minds, if we are serious about becoming a chef, then we must be willing to commit to the (abusively) rigorous lifestyle of the apprentice. I’m sort of… past that. I’m not interested in paying thousands of dollars to live in a country that I’ll never get to see, work (for free) six days a week and only understand half of the insults hurled in my direction about my culinary capabilities.
I need to find a balance.
But for now, I’m comforted by the fact that I am definitely going and that I have a gorgeous place to rest my head. I knew flats in Paris were small. I’ve seen more than my share of Househunters International so I wasn’t going to be all American about it. My requirements were pretty reasonable… close to metro, sufficiently cute surrounding neighborhood, a SEPARATE bathroom, internet access and a balcony to smoke cigarettes on. Decor was not a priority… but it just so happens that my “landlord” is either a real artist or an aging hipster because it’s decorated to please – lined with books, artwork and jazz music. Not unlike my current living place. As a bonus, there is also a fireplace and washing machine. Below is an actual photo of “my” apartment.
Life was pretty good. My European adventure nearly finalized, my last day very much in sight, and celebratory gatherings in the works. All of the hotel had been buzzing about my approaching last day and random staff would stop to inquire, “Is it true you’re going to Paris?”
Then…
Shit hit the fan at the restaurant…
One of my favorite cooks, “Aaron”, an uber gruff-looking biker/budding chef, who I often give permission to fondle me on line and dance to Britney Spears and Katy Perry songs with, came to a head with one of my favorite servers, an early twenties, Moroccan, college student with lots of confidence, who I…also grant permission to fondle me (when Aaron isn’t around).
They have never liked one another for unknown reasons. Of course, in my mind, they are both vying for my affection and that’s the sole reason.
It was a service like every other… Aaron and I were working the line, chef was at the bar drinking gin and the busboys were sort of hanging out, polishing glasses and savagely inhaling leftover frites that we leave in a bowl by the heat lamp.
A ticket came in with a substitution – the third one of the night. The customer ordered the steak frites but wanted roasted, marble potatoes instead of the fries. Simple enough BUT Aaron and I both being who we are, could not resist the opportunity to talk about what garbage that customer was and give the server a hard time for it.
It’s fun for us.
The server was my Moroccan “boyfriend” so after one or two mild gripes, I let it go after he gave me a wink. After all, I didn’t really care. and he was handsome. We were pretty slow that night and it wasn’t that big of a deal for me to saute some potatoes instead of dropping fries in the deep fryer.
But Aaron wouldn’t let it go.
“What the fuck, man? This is like- the third time you rang in this type of shit.”
At this point, everyone was totally desensitized. This type of exchanged happened nearly every time they worked together.
“Well, what do you want me to do? It’s what the customer wants.”
Now… I get the level of crazy that a cook feels over this statement. It’s what the customer wants is the servers’ way of ending the exchange. It means that their hands are tied and there is nothing they can do. It means that we are supposed to be here for the customer. It means… shut up and do it.
With just a little rephrasing, he might have begrudgingly honored the request but Aaron, for some reason (me) needed to vent. I knew he would eventually do it but he hated the server. and the customer. so he wanted to give them a hard time.
“They can fuck go themselves.”
Those five words had been said so many times before in the kitchen but this time, there was a misunderstanding. It seemed that the server thought that Aaron said “You can go fuck yourself.”
He raised his voice and belted “YOU CAN GO FUCK YOURSELF!” to Aaron.
Aaron calmly replied, “I didn’t say YOU could fuck yourself, I-”
“YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF!”
My beautiful server had snapped. and Aaron was more than happy to really give him something to snap about.
It happened so fast. Aaron’s hand jolted and an object flew at the server’s forehead.
They had been arguing and insulting one another for months but this was the first time, things got physical.
Everyone in the kitchen fell silent and bug-eyed at what they had just witnessed.
The server stopped in his tracks. He was in a total state of shock but then quickly recovered and began to transform into a madman. He eyes were surveying the kitchen for the first thing he could get into his hands to hurl back at Aaron. He settled on a metal condiment holder and sent it flying in Aaron’s direction. I don’t know if it hit him or not but Aaron took off his apron and moved from behind the line toward the server.
Holy shit… I’m going to have to break up a fight.
I yelled for Aaron to come back and thankfully, the server flew out of the kitchen. Lucky for me, Aaron did not go chasing after him. He returned to the line and casually said something like, “Well…. that was interesting…”
It was over…
…or so I thought…
Since we were, after all, in the middle of service, Aaron and I moved forward with plating dishes and a few minutes into our dance of moving hot food from pan to plate, a wooden business card holder flew in between Aaron and I and shattered against the backsplash. We both turned around but already knew who it was from.
“YOU MUTHA FUCKER! DON’T YOU EVER THROW SOMETHING AT ME! I’LL FUCK YOU UP!”
Again Aaron moved from behind the line and again, the server ran from the kitchen.
“If he comes back in here again, I’m gonna kill him.”
Shit, I’m gonna have to find chef.
But a few minutes later, the server returned with a heavily buzzed chef.
“THIS MUTHAFUCKER HIT ME IN MY FACE WITH SOMETHING! I HAVE NEVER HAD ANYONE DO THAT TO ME IN A WORKPLACE!”
He turned back to Aaron and yelled once again, “I’LL FUCK YOU UP! I DON’T CARE IF CHEF IS HERE!”
“DO IT!” Aaron yelled back.
“GUYS! HOLD IT!” chef said. “Bobby, what’s going on?”
I opened my mouth to try to recount what had happened when the server tried to pick up another object to throw at Aaron but chef stopped him.
He sent them both home out opposite sides of the restaurant and instructed both of them to call him tomorrow morning, after he had a chance to wrap his head around the incident.
The guys both disappeared and I was left with the remaining couple of tickets on the board, not even sure what temperatures they were to be or how long they had been in the oven.
“You got this?” chef said.
“Yeah?”
I assume he went back to the bar while everyone around me was all abuzz about what just happened.
Early the next day, I got a call from chef and learned that both guys had been suspended indefinitely, pending an “investigation” from HR.
So now we were down two more employees until further notice and I was about to leave as well. But none of us could dwell on it. We had to get back to business as usual.
When I finally entered the kitchen for lunch service, I bumped into one of our busboys, Jose, who had recently been making a big deal of my departure, telling me how much he was going to miss me and how great of a person I was – stuff I would never tire of hearing but humbly thanked him and shared his sentiment, telling him I would miss him as well.
“Bobby…”
I knew what he was going to say and in an i know…i can’t believe it either… tone, said “yeah, two weeks…”
“Yeah…,” he said “so, do you know what is going to happen with Aaron?”
I had a couple more misunderstandings like that one throughout the day until I finally realized that the interests in the kitchen had changed and that my departure was now playing second string to the near fist-fight that erupted and the possible termination of two employees.
Am I going to have to slap someone to reinstate myself?
By the end of the night, I was so tired of talking about what happened that one of the last people to question me about it, was informed that I didn’t know what was going to happen – but I DID know that they were NOT going to PARIS.
Let’s not totally lose focus, people…
