Top 10 Reasons I Am ready for Summer To Be Over

Summer Vacation has finally come.  Actually it started at 12:00 last Tuesday in my world to be exact.  I was actually really looking forward to it this year.  My husband is back to work so I have been able to stop waitressing so damn much.  I was also was looking forward to a break from Lunch Lady Land for a couple of months.  I was excited for some quality time with the kids.  Well, that was then and this is a week into reality.  So here I go, counting down the reasons I am ready for September 6th to arrive.

1. SICK OF HEARING "WHAT ARE WE DOING TODAY?"
    Last Tuesday night I called my kids from work to say goodnight.  My youngest said to me "What are we doing tomorrow?"  I replied with "Going to Auntie Jessica's pool."  I was pretty happy that I had actually already made plans.  He replied to me with "Then what are we doing after that?"  I was going to shoot myself.  Seriously, school had ended eight hours ago and I am already hearing this.  It has now continued on EVERY morning for the past eight days. 

2. HAD ENOUGH OF KIDS AT THE RESTAURANT
    Summer vacation also means parents looking for things to do with the kids (much like me) so what better thing to do than take them out to eat.  Anybody that has been a regular reader of my blog in the past knows how I feel about kids at the restaurant so I feel no need to continue on with this one.

Yes, welcome to my work world.

3. HEAT WAVES
    I am not a fan of the heat.  However, I can deal as long as it stays below 85.  Of course, the first full day of vacation is was 100 degrees and humid as well.  It continued on like that for 3 more days.  Thankfully I have friends with pools.  And that is where we were all week.  Now I hear that we have another heatwave coming tomorrow.  Of course this burst of hell weather falls on the days I have to work.  There is nothing worse than putting on long black pants with socks and sneakers when it is 100 friggin degrees.  Plus, the air conditioning where I work is very temperamental.  I have been crying since I watched the news.  Also, I am not one of those parents that can afford to take my kids out to my restaurant for dinner to entertain them.  I have to cook, in my hot kitchen, with my oven on.  I only have so many crock pot recipes after all.

Sounds about right.

4. THE CHICKEN COOP SMELLS
    Those damn chickens of mine stink to high heaven in the summer.  I feel like all I do is clean it out in the summer and it is NOT a fun job.  Between the heat and humidity it smells like something died in there.  All so I can get free eggs, ugh!

HAHA the pigeon coops smell too.

5. THERE ARE ONLY SO MANY FREE THINGS TO DO AND WE HAVE DONE THEM ALL
    Yes, I am cheap.  I hate paying to entertain my kids.  And they hate to not be entertained.  I have looked up every free thing I could do in this state.  The kids are sick of hiking.  I hate the beach.  In between heat waves it has been too crappy for the pool.  Even though there is a company that hosts Free Fun Fridays across the state, that is only once a week and the offering this year kind of suck. 

How come my kids don't look this happy when hiking?

6. CAMP HASN'T STARTED YET
     Maybe my attitude will change in a couple of weeks when the kids start camp.  They are going for three weeks to a local camp that is dirt cheap and the kids love.  However, it hasn't started yet, and that makes me bitter.  What the hell is taking so long for it to get here?

Yes, they will still be bugging when when camp starts.

7. MY HUSBAND IS CRANKY
    Although this is an occurrence that happens all year, it is worse in the summer.  He is a mason which means he spends a lot of time outside.  He is required to wear jeans and work boots to work everyday.  He is on a roof a lot.  He takes 10 t shirts a day with him to work because he sweats through them so much.  His back is also not feeling great thanks to those herniated disks so needless to say, he is a barral of laughs when he gets home.  Not that I can blame him, I would probably be the same way.

8. NEVER ENDING LAUNDRY
    See Number 7 for this one.  Yes, 10 t shirts a day.  Oh and bathing suits, towels, muddy sneakers, you get the point.

9.  BUGS
     Bugs suck, bite, sting and swarm.  They love my yard thanks to number 4 on my list.  Enough said.

10. LACK OF JOB MEANS LACK OF PAYCHECK
      I am always excited about the Lunch Lady gig giving me the summer off until it dawns on me that I lose a paycheck.  Tomorrow is my last payday until mid September (from that job at least).  I survived with one job for a long time, but when you become accustomed to that little (and I mean little) bit of extra money every two weeks it hurts when it stops.

So there you have it.  My top ten reasons why I am ready for September.  Let me assure you however I am not totally cynical.  I am sure I can come up with 10 reason why I am happy summer is here.  Ok, maybe 5.  I need to save those for my next posting however.

And to think I used to like Paula Deen.

So I have a little time before I am off to BBQ so I figured since it has been requested of me to tell the story about the evil Paul Deen look a like I dealt with at work last week I would put it out there.

As you all know I am a waitress.  I have been at the same place for four years.  It is at Gillette Stadium (yes, home of the New England Patriots).  We deal with a lot of crazy stuff over at the stadium, depending on what kind of events are booked.  Last week it was the NCAA Lacrosse Finals.  It was three days of pure hell.

On event days we are supposed to park over in East Bum fuck.  For anybody who has been to Gillette, we park at Bass Pro Shop on these days.  My restaurant is located as far away from there as you can get.  I give it a good mile walk.  So thanks to lacrosse hell that was our designated parking area for the weekend.  Seeing that I am a rebel I wasn't gonna deal with that so I parked illegally.  Hey, I didn't get caught so no harm done, right?

The managers were expecting a very busy weekend.  Actually, I was too.  It turned out to be a total dud.  It was beautiful outside so everybody was tailgating.  It was the slowest Saturday night I have worked in a very long time.  It was a good thing I brought Mr. Grey with me as I got to pound out a good 200 pages of my book that night.

We did have a private function booked for the first floor.  It was for the Maryland Lacrosse team that had played the late game of the day.  They had booked the event for 150 people.  The staff working the event was all ready for them.  What they weren't ready for was the 300 people that showed up.  The event ended up being understaffed and the food that had been ordered for it was not enough to feed the 300 rabid college kids that were there.

The managers were running around like crazy trying to prepare more food.  I really felt for Russ, Ryan, Pete and Greg as they were truly doing all they could to fix a situation that they had no control over.  They had two other floors of regular guests to take care of in addition to the mess downstairs.  I was working on the second floor taking care of my own tables but I heard about what was going on downstairs so I took a peek ever the railing to check it out.  Big mistake there.

Next thing I know the Paula Deen look a like comes running up the stairs.  I was so not prepared for her.  She runs over to me, gets in my face and the abuse begins.  First of all, let me put on the record that I really had no idea that Maryland was considered the deep south.  This lady sounded straight out of True Blood Bon Temps Louisiana.  She starts poking me in the chest with her index finder and shouting "Y'all need to get downstairs and cleaning my tables!"  My first response was "Excuse Me?"  She then followed up with "Y'all are standing up here doing nothing when my people need to be taken care of.  There is no food and the place is a mess.  Y'all get your ass downstairs now!"

Ok, first of all, I certainly do not deserve abuse from any guest like she was dishing out.  For one, I am not  a busser, I am a server.  Second, I had my own guests to take care of, guests that I am actually being paid to take care of.  Third, oh no you did not really just touch me!  That is my biggest pet peeve, there is no reason for a guest to EVER touch me.

I turned my back and walked away and found Ryan in the kitchen to deal with her.  Well, after I walked away she started in on Charlotte, the hostess.  Seriously, the hostess, whose job it is to seat people.  I love Charlotte to death and it really pissed me off that she was "Y'all ed" as well.  Thankfully for Charlotte, our executive chef Pete stepped in to sort the crap out.  Now I have seen Pete mad before, more times than I can count, and I have been on the receiving end of Pete's anger, it is not pretty.  I was siked that he was going to be the one to sort this crazy lady out.  Thankfully he was able to calm her down and send her back down stair to her people.

I seriously hid from her the rest of the night whenever she came upstairs with a new rant.  I have a short temper as anybody that works with me will confirm.  I somewhat like my job and I knew if I had come across her again I would end up fired.  I can only image what the poor staff that actually had to work the event had to deal with.

It all did have a happy ending however.  Maryland lost in the finals to Loyola so out PD look a like got her just desserts in the end.  Karma will always come back to get you.