all I need to know I learned from Chicken man

I grew up in a small town. I started working at a restaurant at the age of 14, the minimum age to begin working in the U.S. The restaurant was called "Come & Dine" and the owner was a friend of the family. My entire family (minus a couple of us) worked for the restaurant throughout my childhood. There was always a need for help during the Art Festival at Amish Acres when the restaurant would be packed with customers on the second and first floors and in a small town, everyone pitches in. Everyone gets paid to pitch in as well. My first "supervisor" was a mennonite woman named Loretta. She was something else. My Mom would tell me, when we drove past her house (she lived less than a mile away on the same county road) that she burnt their house down so that the insurance would pay for the new one they planned to build. I didn't think much of it. She was the cook at the restaurant and also cleaned houses for a living, even though her husband, Lotus, worked as a farmer and other odd jobs. Seemed to me all the mennonites and German Baptists cleaned houses if they could.  Anyway, I learned the job and started to take over the hours.  I think the owner preferred me to her (as I probably worked for less).

So one day, late in the afternoon, when there are very few customers (about 3:30 or 4 p.m.), I got an order for one breast and one wing of fried chicken.  Well, there was chicken in the warmer.  It wasn't very fresh, but it was the chicken we had.  So I put them in a container and sent it up front.  Well, not long after that, I was asked to come up front.  I met chicken man that day.  He was pissed.  He wanted FRESH, piping hot fried chicken and would not settle for less.  He had been coming to the restaurant for ages, and whenever a new person started, he had to train them!  He didn't mind waiting for fresh chicken.  He enjoyed the wait as he got to chat with the gals in the front.  So from that time on, whenever we saw him drive into the parking lot, we put a load of chicken in the fryer.  Many times, I heard Loretta shout, "Chicken man is here!"  And down the chicken went.  We would pull out the old stuff and pull it off the bone for chicken noodle soup. 

Now I am chicken man.  When I am a regular customer, I expect service.  If I do not get the service or product I expect, I will no longer be a paying customer of that establishment.  Chicken man seemed like a complete you-know-what the first time I met him, but he was actually a lovable old fart who was one of our best customers!

trains and elevators

Every day I ride the train for an hour to work. Not the subway, but a train with conductors dressed in uniforms and cushioned seats where you sit with a seat-mate. Every day I think of J.D. Salinger and how life is all about riding up and down in elevators and sitting next to people on the train with bad breath. That pretty much sums it up for me. That is the commuter's life. It's not exciting, it's annoying. After being away from home for 12 hours each day, the last thing I want to hear is the ipod headphones (cheap pieces of junk) of the guy next to me. Typically, I can hear this over my $99 Sony noise-cancelling headphones unless I blast Brian Setzer or another loud band into my own head.

December 19, 2003: toilets

E-mail to my mother regarding personal events:

So, big day yesterday.... I get this email around 4:00 from the boyfriend... he is saying, man, I don't know what you did this morning in the bathroom, but after I did my "normal" thing (uh... #2).... I flushed the toilet, and it overflowed... the water wouldn't stop coming and there was a huge mess that I "cleaned" up.... but it's not really taken care of yet... I just soaked up the water."

I'm thinking okay... well, yeah, I had an emergency yesterday morning (and wound up being 10 minutes late leaving the house).... and it wasn't pretty at all.. right? So, I get home at the same time as he did... and he gets a mop and bleach out of his car, so I'm thinking oh, geez, it HAS to be bad for him to go and buy cleaning supplies. So, we go upstairs to the apartment.... and he's like, oh, don't even go in there (he has the door shut).... and then he's like, why don't you keep rubber gloves around here? I don't understand why there aren't any rubber gloves... (no one ever uses them, but I had one pair a long time ago)... he says, I found one though.... so, finally I go in the bathroom. The floor is covered with soggy newspapers that have laid there all day long... and right on top is the ONE rubber glove he found.. (it's laying inside out on top of the nasty newspapers soaked with human waste, right?).. and he has the nerve to grill me on why I don't have 20 pair of rubber gloves stashed away.. what a goober... (well, you know, i'm sure it was MY turd that clogged up the toilet, but still... when I left everything was fine)... so I scooped up all those stinky papers with a plastic bag over my hand. Then use the bleach and mop to clean it up a bit, you know? Meanwhile the cat can't keep his fat nose out of there, cuz he's way curious as to why he hasn't been able to go in the bathtub and lick the wet sides of the bathtub all day. So, that problem is being handled... the toilet tank top is lengthwise in the toilet tank, causing the tank to be completely dry (which I thought was weird, but whatever)... so I pull out the lid and the tank starts to fill up, and the toilet itself is totally nasty.. makes me sick to think about it in fact. So, because it has been over 10 hours since this happened, the goo in there is sort of down to nothing, drained out, you know? So, I thought for awhile.. and took a chance and flushed it (mind you we DON'T have a plunger)..... it's still clogged, but it didn't run over this time... but the boyfriend comes running, shouting... "what the **** are you doing!!??? Are you crazy!?" and "I'm not cleaning it up again if it runs over..." hahah. I said, oh, just relax... I have clogged up lots of toilets :) So, anyway, oh, I forgot to mention.... the bathtub is covered with black footprints... I guess somehow he got ink from the newspapers all over his feet... and I was like, what happened to the bathtub? He says, oh, that is from my feet (I'm thinking EWWwwww.) Anyway, so I soaked the tub with bleach also... in the meantime we have to get a plunger or use the toilet at Denny's or something.... he says, well, Jewel-Osco didn't have any plungers... Okay (all the time he has just decided that he's not going to even bother with the bathroom anymore, he's cooking the dinner instead, which is fine with me).... so I ask him, where is Ace Hardware... I dunno.... so I call them, and find out.... ask em if they sell plungers... and the girl laughs and says yep... so, I leave the boyfriend while his onions on the stovetop and have to drive to Ace and buy the Korky plunger.. the most industrial one they had, I guess (I don't see why anyone would buy that little tiny plunger they sell)... anyway.... finally, we have a plunger... so I go back and show the toilet who's boss... long story short, I spent over 3 hours cleaning the entire bathroom with bleach and cleaners and everything... so it is pretty darn clean now! My rug (that white thing).... got all nasty, and it's sitting in a bag waiting to go in the laundry room for two or three washes...but it was quite an eventful night. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

August 7, 2008: Why I enjoy working

From my mother (letting me know how her day off went):

Yesterday I was home all day, had my work planned, was happily getting things done when your father called fom the Vegetable Auction out on Co. Rd. 9. You would not believe what he bought!. It was bad enough that on Monday he bought a bunch of cabbage heads and 20 lbs. of blueberries. Your sis-in-law took the blueberries and sold some to some church friends and gave some away so I didn't get any of them, but I must have 15 heads of cabbage. Then last eve. here comes sis with a car FULL of 120 lbs of cherries, and probably that much of grapes!! Sis & I began to shred cabbage with the Quisineart. We almost got 4 heads shredded when the shaft broke off. So I went ahead and canned those 4 heads for sourcrout, that gave me 7 quart. Then we began to steam cherries in my Mahu Majha (Juicer,steamer). Father had cleaned enough cherries for the first batch which produced a whole 2 quart and then he cleaned up and went to the tent meeting. I cleaned enough cherries for a second batch and got 3 quart that time. Sis went to the tent meeting after the cabbage was shredded so I had to finish everything by myself and I didn't go the the tent meeting.
Tonight they are having an icecream social after the meeting and I'm going, canning or no canning. Not sure when I can get back to the major job of canning things. I think your father doesn't realize I'm not 20 years old anymore and all this extra work is very hard on my physical well being. I told him he was not allowed to go anywhere on Friday and Sis told him he is not allowed to go to any livestock auctions because she can't get a calf in the backseat of her car. Anyhow, that's why it's nice to be at work today. I can sit on my butt and just work away and it doesn't pay bad either.