Pumpkin shakes and 20-tops

Another night, another round of adventures.

I made a fabulous discovery on the way into Moscow today. There is a radio station in the area (98.1, for those of you who listen to the radio) which plays nothing but Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving to Christmas Day itself. I've been flipping to that station recently in hope that maybe, just maybe, that would start early. Well ... they did. They must have started today, because I know they weren't playing Christmas music yesterday. I screamed. I was that excited.
So I listened to Christmas music the whole way to work, and was AMAZINGLY pumped by the time I pulled into the parking lot. I shut off the engine, strode up to the doorway singing Sleigh Ride at the top of my lungs, and flung the door open. Robert had apparently been watching me singing as I came up to the door, and thought it was awesome that I "come to work singing", as he said.

Tonight I was the only one working the evening shift who had not also worked the morning shift. Thus, by the time I got there, everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) was completely burnt out. It was incredible. I've never seen our staff that exhausted before. I know what it feels like to work a double, so they had a right to be dragging; I really cannot blame them one bit.

So I blew into the kitchen, called "merry Christmas" to everyone I came into contact with, and clocked myself in. Curtis decided I'm a nut (but he decided that a long time ago. He calls me peanut, remember?), Kristin said I was her best friend, Patrick told me to leave, and Bryan and Teresa just laughed at me. It was awesome. I love making my co-workers laugh.

Its always fun to empty my pockets when I get home. The things I stuff into my pockets while I'm at work can be surprising, sometimes. I love to save the funny tickets, or the huge ones, or the special ones, and put them on my wall. So I end up shoving them into my pocket after I finish their order. In addition to that, though, I found a rubber band (which was what Tenadore owed me, since he stole mine two weeks ago), a paperclip, two pens, the cap from the knife I steal from the pizza line each week, Kristin's phone number, three bobby pins, and my paycheck. My pants have lots of pockets, by the way. That's the only way I have space for all that.

Oh! One of the tickets I saved was for a Riverwalk, a pumpkin shake, and a peppermint shake. I liked the look of it, because they're all very fallish. Even the Riverwalk is pretty fallish. We have THE BEST PUMPKIN SHAKES I'VE EVER TASTED, by the way. Y'all ought to know that. If you haven't come to Smoky Mountain yet, you need to come, and you need to get a pumpkin shake. They're a seasonal thing, obviously (we just added them Wednesday night), so we'll stop serving them in a month or so. I don't like pumpkin flavored things, so the fact that I love these should tell you something about them. I have yet to try the peppermint shake, but I'm sure they're really good too.

The highlight of tonight was when we seated two 20-tops and a 15-top at the same time. If anyone of you ever take a job in a restaurant, don't EVER seat that many people at once. Unless you want the kitchen staff to gang up on you and murder you. Then by all means! Do so. But for the sake of the cooks, don't do that. I counted up the salads that came in after those 20-tops were seated, and I had 40 salads to make at once. Their tickets rang up simultaneously, and I wanted to die. Thankfully, Patrick came to my rescue and helped me turn them out. It took us ten minutes, but we eventually got through them all, and breathed a sigh of relief. Compared to those, the 15-top was a piece of cake.

Other things of interest:
I finally learned how to use the can opener. That thing is huge and dangerous. I almost cut off my finger a few weeks ago trying to use it.

Three people who's birthdays were today came in for dinner, so the servers sang to them and gave them free ice cream. And I got to go sing with them the last time! It was awesome. Casey made me drag Caleb along with us. Caleb hates singing happy birthday, but Casey wanted him there, for some reason, so he put me in charge of making sure he came. So I told him I'd make him a shake when we got back. That did the trick, and I did make him the shake.

Our "official song" is Disturbia by Rihanna. Since the dish pit and the sando line and the pizza line all have their radios set to 106.1, we get to hear Disturbia a lot, and we all end up singing and dancing along with it during clean up. Its a blast.

Robert gave me a Red Bull. Woooooo, that was fun. I was totally ready to rock after that. Technically we're not supposed to have Red Bull back there (since we don't serve it), but Robert decided we deserved it after those three death-tops. That was fun.

I forgot to clock myself out. I remembered when I was halfway home, and felt so stupid. Cameron is going to lecture me on Wednesday, and Robert will say it was okay. Cameron isn't even a manager. I like Robert better. lol

And last but definitely not least:
Matt + Addie in the freezer is a baaaaad combination. Every time we're both in there something bad happens. Every ... single ... time. Tonight we knocked all of the mushroom boxes off the shelf. Then later I slid in a puddle of water and made both of us fall over. And then he slid the next time and took both of us down again. After that we took turns going onto the freezer and avoided both being in there at once, glancing nervously at each other whenever one came out and the other went in. Haha. We decided that one of these days we're going to kill ourselves in there. Well, I don't know about Matt, but I'm now veeeery sore from falling/being knocked over.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!