November 3 - The Fish 'n' Chips Jackass

It's five minutes before closing time in the kitchen of the bar where you work.
The orders have been trickling to a halt, allowing you to get a jump on cleaning the place up, and you're just about there. You've got the perishables back in the walk-in, the line's been wiped clean, the floor's been swept, and the place is as tidied up as you can get it before the kitchen is officially closed at 11pm and you stop taking food orders. Once that time comes, you can finish up all the rest of the cleaning, get the hell out of there, and get to your girlfriend's show--the one you really kind of need to see if you're ever going to get back on her good side, the one you couldn't go to until after your shift was over because none of the worthless bastards you work with would cover for you, the one that's been going on since 20 minutes ago.
That show. That's the show you have to get to.
But you'll be leaving soon, in just another 15 minutes--that's five minutes until the kitchen closes and ten more to finish the cleaning. Just 15 more minutes and you'll be on your way, and you should get there in plenty of time.
And that's when an order comes in: fish 'n' chips.
Fish 'n' fucking chips.
Fuck your ass.
This is the biggest, most labor intensive pain in the ass on the menu.
So many steps, so many things that need to get messy. The fish has to come back from the walk-in, you have to make a new batch of batter, you have to clean off some lettuce for the side salad, and chop another potato for the fries, and on and on and on, all so this miserable fuck can have his precious fish 'n' chips.
He's pulled this shit in your bar before. And that's what it is, a bar. Not a restaurant, a bar. And yet this fuck, this worthless bastard, has to decided yet again that five minutes before the kitchen closes on an otherwise deader than fuck night that he's going to treat your place of work like it's a place where somebody would actually order food.
It's him.
It's the fish 'n' chips jackass.
Fucker just knows when you're in a hurry and you need to get going. Fucker just knows the right thing to order to fuck your night in the ass.
The fish 'n' chips jackass is here again.
That motherfucker.
So you make his dinner.
And inevitably, this prompts a late night rush.
Oh, the kitchen's still open?
What's that, fish 'n' chips?
Oh, that looks good. I'd better get me an order of that too, not because I'm hungry, but because I'm a syphilitic asshole of the highest magnitude. In fact, fuck it. Make mine a double.
And so you get on it.
You make their food, you make all of their late night burgers, nachos, potato skins, and, yes, fish 'n' chips. And it's all because of him, the fish 'n' chips jackass. He started the late night feeding frenzy. It's because of him that instead of getting out of there ten minutes after the kitchen closed you're getting out of there 45 minutes after the kitchen closed.
The fish 'n' chips jackass.
That fucking cocksucker.
But you get it done. You bust shit out like it's E.R. meets The Iron Chef. Like you're John Elway on the two-minute kitchen drill. You expedite like a motherfucker and crank your way through the shit because you are Superfly Jimmy Snooka.
There.
Done.
And yet, not done. Not yet. The place is a disaster. Pots and pans everywhere. Shit dripping from the ceiling.
And it's not a self-cleaning work space, so you rush through your cleaning like your parents are going to be home in five minutes, you mop the floor like it's an athletic event and you're going for the Olympic speed record.
You wheel the garbage through the thickening crowd and out to the street.
You lock the storeroom door.
Turn the lights off in the kitchen.
Smack the sassy cocktail waitress's backside.
Shoot laser eyes at all the possible fish 'n' chip jackass suspects in the joint.
And then leave.
Fucking fly down the street on your bike like it's the second event in a new Food Service Industry Olympic Biathlon (the first being the floor mop, which you already crushed).
And you're halfway there when you realize you've got the only set of keys to the storeroom in your pocket. You'd put them there when you locked the door after taking out the garbage, and you forgot to put them back behind the bar.
FUCK.
Beyond FUCK.
They're fucked without those keys. You have to go back.
And so you do and it's extra hard because the adrenalin is fading and you're going uphill.
But you get back and you leave your bike unlocked on the street because you're only going to be inside for less than a minute.
And you get in and the bar is crowded. And it's clear, it's painfully obvious, that after you left everyone got together and made an agreement that if you came back they would work together to stand in your way and do everything in their power to prevent you from getting to the bar. And it's wonderful and magical that everyone has finally found a way to come together despite their differences, and on another level you're getting choked up over the beauty of it all, but on the much more pressing level of here and now, you need to get to the fucking bar, so would you please, kindly, for the love of God and all that is holy, step the motherfuck out of my way?
They do.
You finally prevail. You get through the crowd to the bar, throw the keys to Karen the bartender, exchange a salute, and go back out on the street.
And your bike is still there.
It's a miracle.
Emboldened, you get back on and slalom your way through the traffic. Red lights, green lights: all the same. Weaving through the drunk pedestrians, the clueless morons, the homeless, and the people who are all three. Near misses. Narrowly averted catastrophes. More close calls than you don't even know what. You don't have time to come up with something clever because you're there. You're at the club.
You throw some money at the door guy and he has the common Goddamn decency to be quick with the change, but it's not quick enough because you get inside and there she is.
There she is unplugging her bass and helping her group get their equipment off the stage so the headliners can start their set.
She looks up at exactly the right/wrong time to see you come in. There's no hiding it. You missed her set.
There will be words later. An extended stay in the doghouse.
That's if you're lucky.
You may not even get to pay the price. This might be the last straw.
She looks at you. Shakes her head. And not in a good way.
And you know you should go backstage and apologize. And you know you should explain what happened. And you know you should try to give your version of the evening's events, and about how you truly did do everything in your power to make it there, but it just didn't work out.
You know all that, but you also know she needs some time.
So you go to the bar and get a PBR and pay for it. And then you ask if the kitchen is still open and when the bartender says it is but you'd better hurry because it's closing in five more minutes, you decide that your first move toward setting the karmic balance back in your favor is to tell the bartender that you're OK, that you don't need anything to eat.