Valentine's Day of doom

But I had the best! I got a left handed maroon with black pick guard fender stratocaster and pedals!!!

Hope you feel better.

For me the happiest Valentine's Days have been those where I had to work late, because I didn't have to see conspicuously coupled others.

I haven't had a bad one yet.

I should never. It's my birthday and people will pay if they ruin my birthday.

we were supposed to be "prepared" for the evening, with enough servers to allow for 4 table sections, 3 seperate reserved seating times an hour and a half apart, and plenty of food in the walk-ins. needless to say, everything totally fell apart. our first mistake was generosity. $45 per couple bought a 4-course meal, a free glass of champagne, and a free glass of wine or beer. when everyone came in at the same time, the kitchen got killed. average time between courses shot to about 30-90 minutes. the expediter/exec chef was so angry that he kicked out all the servers, leaving just one runner to run food for the 150-200 diners (suddenly my tables were getting dessert before their entrees!). the bar was just as bad. we had two tenders, and they couldt keep up with the service bar at all (its not that they sucked, its just that the drinks were free!), not to mention their own clients. at around 7:30, we ran out of wine and champagne glasses. the only way i could serve my table was to bus empty glasses from other tables (with people still seated), wash the glasses myself, and take them back up to the bar.

at 8pm, out of frustration, one of our bartenders quit. the anarchy began. all the servers began pouring their own drinks, and began to pour extra drinks for all of their disgruntled customers. at around this time, we began to run out of food (one of the two appetizer options and both desserts). of course, since the kitchen was so behind, customers would usually only find out they couldnt have what they wanted an hour after they ordered. needless to say, anger was abundant. after one of the most hellish days in foodservice history, i had made less than $90 on the 13 hour shift (i only had 6 tables at dinner, one of which was just beer, even though management said we were "booked"... i made so little because we ended up discounting so much). i then proceeded to take advantage of the anarchy, after i was cut, by serving myself until i was utterly trashed. i then walked home, ate, went to bed at about 4am, and woke up at 9 to start serving again at 10am. today was even worse.

last night's anarchy was strangely liberating. at a certain point, there was no responsibility, no accountability, no nothing. just collpase. imagine if you were sent to hell and could only feel incredulous!

happy valentine's day!

This is the theme of my radio show tonight. I had listeners submit stories like this for me to read between songs. Heartbreak makes for good radio banter. (Incidentally, you can listen http://georgetownradio.serverroom.us:6860/listen.pls).

i just got an email from a hair salon that opened with, "Love is in the air my mon cheri's!"

and i have a grave suspicion that whoever composed it was ganged up on by the rest of the salon and forced to do the writing on the grounds that they're the brains of the outfit.

disappointed that a google of mon cheris doesn't bring up a geographical feature on mars or venus

So anyway, Rhodri Marsden is doing one of his crowd-sourcing story collections today via his Twitter on, indeed, worst Valentine's Day experiences. He's putting together a compilation of them as they come in here:

http://storify.com/rhodri/worst-valentine-s-day-experiences