Week Three: Doing Things "Right", Work and June "the cat lady"

Kiwi slang of the week: 

cruzy (adjective, pronounced crew- zee):

being relaxed, easy to get on with.

example: (my manager, Janna, has a six month old named Archie) "Oh yeah, Archie is a very cruzy baby, he goes to bed at a regular time".

 

*    *    *

I appreciate infinitely people who stack their own plates, wait patiently for me to use an electronic order taker (it's a mini-till I take with me that is beyond annoying), and ask me how I am. I feast on little compliments I get during the day, these are my life buoys that save me from my massive screw-ups that are all too frequent. Saturdays are a little busy. Today couples brought their children to break glasses, pee on chairs, and generally wreak havoc upon the Mannequin. Normally, I work Wednesday through Sunday, some 8 hour, and quite a few 11 or 12 hour days. 

Ever get the feeling you can't do anything quite right? My coffees are too watery and I have to throw them out several times, I forget cutlery for tables, I don't wait on customers or give them their receipts the exact right ways, I forget orders, or have the customer repeat them five times because I can't understand what they're saying.

I fantasize frequently about taking the coffee machine and throwing it out the front window of the store, yelling maniacally at passers-by in a fake-Kiwi accent, and running home to eat a whole bag of chocolate chip cookies.

In short, it's been a rough week.

*    *    *

I've been manning the bar by myself in the mornings. Thursday morning my first customer was a really hungover 20-something year old. While I was making his flat white, he began philosophizing about life and death, and how we "just die". Needless to say, his coffee was a take-away (a "to go"). 

Last night a 30-something year old man named Charlie came in and ordered a few beers. This was a normal circumstance, that is, until he ordered a double shot of whiskey, and I accidentally gave him a quadruple. Charlie rambled on for two hours (hovering over the bar all the while) about how he'd been to the Ghaza Strip, Egypt, and how his father was ashamed to be from Florida. 

Charlie's accent was so thick that he might as well have been speaking French to me. I had no CLUE what he was mumbling about until I heard a proper noun come up: "Disneyland", "Obama", "Helen Clark". He was escorted out of the bar after two more drinks. Yikes.

*   *   *

I was supposed to have tomorrow off to go to Christchurch with Simon, but we have no way of getting there. Saddened that the trip I had been dreaming of was cancelled, I decided to a) make chocolate chip bars with chocolate and coconut on top (instead of throwing the coffee machine out the front of the coffee shop) and b) give some of these bars to June, the cat lady, across the street.

Tonight I went over with three chocolate bars and knocked on her door. Excited to see me, she invited me in, and we had a chat in front of her heater (summary of this so far: I went over to an old woman's house on a Saturday night because my social life is in need of a boost only an 80-something year old can give it).

Our conversation mainly consisted of June's stories about how she used to live next to a crack den (a place where meth is bought and sold (crack is meth in New Zealand I guess, June gave me the heads up)), gossip about the neighbors, and also June's description of how she is DEATHLY ALLERGIC TO CHOCOLATE. June regaled me with tales of spewing (puking) all over her friends toilet when she only inhaled a bit of chocolate, and then of course she ended up in the hospital. 

She had assumed that the bars I brought over were fruit bars, but luckily I took them away after talking for a little while longer, and a kiss on the cheek. 

Talk about not quite getting things right. I could have literally killed June, the cat lady, with kindness.

*   *   *

Tonight I'm making dinner, having a few glasses of wine, and watching a movie. Tomorrow I work from 11:45 until sometime at night. I've got to run errands on Monday, maybe look for some transportation so that Tuesday I'll do something fun.

Anyway, hope all is well with you, and that you're enjoying your weekends.

Cheers,

Abi