NANOWRIMO Day 11

Click here to read day one if you haven't already


“And I asked my manager for you, the food is all fried in peanut oil.” I said to the lady.

She scrunched up her nose at that. “Then we’ll pass.”

“Do you know what you do want?” I asked her.

“Yes, I’ll have the garlic herb chicken.”

“And I’ll have Philly burger, no mushrooms.”

“Garlic herb chicken and a Philly burger without mushrooms. Is that all for today?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, that will be up shortly.” I said, walking away to enter their order in. Then, I printed the ticket up for the business table, the orange chicken had been taken off, and ran it to the table.

“I am sorry for the almond issue. I’m sure my manager told you that we’d cover the expense of your meal.” I said, holding out the check. “So your discounted check is here. When you are ready to pay, just lay it on your table and I’ll come by and get it.”

“Here.” The younger man grunted, pushing his card towards me. “I was ready five minutes ago,”

Crap. I thought to myself. This table had ‘no tip’ written all over it. I took the card, with a smile on my face, and went to ring up the table. When I returned to the table with the card, the guy took it from me and grabbed his to-go box. I yelled after him, “Sir, I just need your signature on the restaurant copy!”

The guy stopped, looked at me with a purely evil look that plainly said “Are you kidding me? Well hurry the heck up and get over here.” I walked over to him quickly, pen in tow and held the receipt out to him.

 He yanked it out of my hand,with the pen and quickly signed his name. In the spot marked “tips” he wrote in a gigantic zero and circled it a few times. “There you go.” He said, pushing both the receipt and the pen back into my hand.

I put the receipt in my pocketbook and went to clean the table up. On my way back, NormaJean’s table called me over.

“Are you ok dear?” Asked Mira.

“I’m fine. Just some grouchy businessmen upset cause the cooks put almonds on top of his dish.” Normally I don’t complain to customers about other customers. It’s not even allowed, yet here I was telling three customers the woes of another table. I could get in trouble for that. “Don’t mention that I said any of that, please.” I said.

“That’s fine. We won’t tell anyone. Besides, you didn’t tell us anything we didn’t know.”

I sighed. “Would you ladies like a refill on those drinks.”

“One more, I think.” Answered Mira.

“Did your ribs come out?” I asked Annie, trying to think and figure out if I had put the order into the POS or not. Her plate looked nearly empty.

Annie let out a hearty laugh. “Ten minutes ago. I am just finishing it up. It was delicious.”

”I’m glad you have enjoyed them.” I said, getting back into my stride. It wasn’t like I never had customers that didn’t leave tips. I think he just got me all shook up because of the way he didn’t even stay to sign the credit card receipt. Still, I got a weird kind of comfort from the fact. I mean, if he didn’t want to leave a tip he could have just signed the receipt and left. He must have felt just a little guilty that he wasn’t leaving a tip at all. “Should I get your check for you?”

“Don’t you worry about it honey. Just get it out here when you can. Ain’t no rush. We just gonna be talking.” Said Annie.

“I’ll at least be right back with those drinks.” I said, rushing to the front counter and jabbing the refills into the POS. Then I grabbed the birthday ice cream that was waiting for me, dressed it up in whipped cream and sprinkles, and ran over to the bar to get the drinks, collecting as many fellow servers as I could. I spotted Jason and got him to join me and five others in singing happy birthday to NormaJean.

  “Applebee’s is fun it's true. Especially when we sing to you.

Good news is we sing for free. Bad news in we sing off key. Happy brthday!” we all chanted/sung together. I gave NormaJean her birthday ice cream and passed around the refills for the drinks.

NormaJean blushed as the party of servers dispersed.

“Well now, I wasn’t expecting that.” She said to me, drinking up her mango fizzer.

“Well I thought you’d like a small free ice cream. Also, ninety five years is quite an accomplishment.”

“Don’t seem to be so much these days. I got a friend who’s a hundred and five.”

“Wow. That’s insane.”

“Not really dear. You just have to be careful and love life. If you love life you don’t stress so much. You know they call stress the silent killer. And it is. It don’t kill you off quickly, and it hardly ever is blamed. But you get all stressed out and you die a lot sooner than those that love life. Take Miss Annie here, she’s bound to outlive anyone you know.”

“Oh, NormaJean, don’t be ridiculous. I’m so careless with my life I coulda died yesterday.”

“True enough Annie, but you didn’t. You just gotta be more careful with yourself.”

“Don’t really matter to me. I do what I want when I want, and pray to heaven it don’t kill me. And if it does, well then I pray it it fast and painless. I wanna go in my sleep. In a skydiving dream. I wanna be zonked out here on earth, enjoying a free-fall to the earth in the safety of my bed, and then find myself outside those pearly white gates. Though I suppose anything quick and painless wouldn’t be too bad.”

“You’re not going anywhere so long as you stay with us.” Mira said.

“And that being the case, should you die you’ll be the culprit of your own death.” Said NormaJean.

 “Enough of this gruesome talk. None of us are dying anytime soon. 

I laughed, handing them the check book. “Ok, so I’m not rushing any of you. I just don’t want you waiting on me. Here’s your check, if you want to order anything else please let me know and I can add it on to your check. If you don’t want anything else, then just put your payment on the inside and lay it on the table and I’ll come by and pick it up.”

I then left the table and checked on the health nut table, who had just had their food delivered while I was dropping the check off at the elderly ladies table. Such strange ladies they were. They almost reminded me of the elements, only there should be four of them, or possibly five for that to happen. Annie was definitely fire, intense and wild. NormaJean was Earth, natural and strong, and she seemed to almost leak a certain brand of healing into the air around her. Mira would be air I think. Calm and wispy. Maybe NormaJean’s mom was like an element too… though I don’t know that water could be considered “cool-ass” at all. Maybe, if there’s a missing person then she could be spirit maybe. That could be pretty ‘cool-ass’.

Of course, I knew that idea was ridiculous, I mean, NormaJean’s mother would most definitely  dead by now. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something special or odd about my table of three. The way they interacted didn’t suggest there were any missing members, so perhaps the elemental theory was wack.

“How’s the food?” I asked the health-conscious woman. Honestly, she’s not the worst ever. Once I had someone ask if the ‘seasonal vegetables’ were organic. We had to go up to management to figure that one out. I’m not entirely convinced that he knew, but an answer from the manager shuts people up and so whatever the answer was, is fine for me. It’s not like they are served raw.

“Marti.” Sean called to me as he passed by. “Oh, sorry. Give us a second please?” He said to my table, then he turned to me and pulled my arm, dragging me away from the table. “Listen, Jason saw a bunch of kids outside loitering around. There’s no way they are good news. They’re unequivocally up to know good.”

“Sean,” I said, laughing, “you don’t even know what that word means.”

“Actually, I do. It means  admitting of no doubt, clear and unambiguous.’

“You memorize dictionaries in your spare time?”

“I was studying for SAT’s. Anyways, I know what it means. I just… don’t know how to use it in a sentence.”

“Well half points for trying. Why doesn’t Jason tell them to scatter?”

“Cause they aren’t doing anything. And they aren’t actually on company grounds. They’re standing on the sidewalk.”

“Well then I highly doubt they are up to no good.”

“I dunno Marti, you should see them, hey keep pointing in towards the restaurant and rearranging themselves.”

I laughed at Sean. I didn’t think of him as a dramatic person, and this was over the top even for a dramatic person. “So they want to have it figured out where they are each sitting when they get in here.”

“They’re all wearing all black.” He stated, deadpan.

“Well, I’m sure Jason has it under control I’m going to go check on my table now before the calvary arrives.” I shook my head at Sean and turned back to my table. “Sorry about that.” I apologized. “So how is the food?”

“It’s good. Thank you.” Said the woman.

“Great, I’ll take another Coors light.”

The Epic Nerf Gun Ambush

I walked away, going to retrieve a Coors light bottle and another pomegranate lemonade for the woman. As I walked back to the tables I was one of the teens in black enter the restaurant. “I’m meeting a friend here. He should be here already.” Said the teen to our hostess.

“Ok."  She said warily.

The boy walked past her to where he was standing just before the middle section started. He glanced all around the restaurant and then turned and motioned for his comrades to follow. Another kid crept in, crouching halfway down as he crept down the aisle that made up the far left side of the restaurant. He came to a stop behind the trash bins, crouching to blend in with their heights, and gave a firm nod to his leader. The leader held out one finger to him, then turned to the door and made the same quick motion with his hand that had led to the appearance of  kid two.

A third kid, also dressed in all black, came in through the door, he looked around himself, then snuck, or at least looked like he was trying to sneak, to the far right-hand corner of the restaurant. He knelt down at the end of the row, and like the other kid nodded to the leader.

The leader than glanced around the rest of the restaurant, turned back to the door, but before he could motion for the next agent in black to enter, he found himself following the body in front of him up until he was looking at Jason in the eyes.

“What are you doing?” Jason asked the kid.

“We gotta kill Fredrick. He’s killed half of us alone already. His time has come.” The teen said in hushed tones. I moved closer so I could watch the hilarity of this scene unfold.

“Well, I hate to damper your plans,” Jason began, “but I just can’t allow you to ambush my restaurant and kill someone. You’ll have to wait till he’s done eating and get him off of our grounds.” Jason said calmly.

“I’m afraid he’ll know what we’re doing. We have to do this now.” The kid said with more force, motioning for the next kid to come out. Once the kid started creeping across the restaurant, he kept motioning. The last kid took a while to figure out they weren’t supposed to wait. The last kid walked over to the near-left side of the restaurant and crouched down behind the POS station. He and his counterpart in the other corner of the restaurant were both crouched low, keeping their eyes on their leader, except for the occasional few seconds that they glanced around the restaurant, before refocusing their attention on their leader.

The leader looked back at all of his friends. Then to my manager. “My men are all in place. If you get in our way you will be shot too. Even if it is pointless. You’re just an innocent bystander. So I advise just letting us get this over with.”

Jason blinked several times, but decided that it was best to step down. He turned toward the phone and began to dial what I’m sure was 911.

Personally, I wanted to know what they were going to shoot. They sure looked unarmed. The leader once again did a sweep of the restaurant, and I could see his eyes sending some sort of message to his comrades before giving a last swift nod of his head and pointing to the middle table. This guy seemed to have a slightly insane temperament, based on what I had seen so far.

All around the restaurant people were staring at the boys crouching near the ground, wondering what was going on. A few of the older people seemed scared. Everyone, especially those near the corners with ninjas hiding in the corners, was wondering why a bunch of teens covered in black were crouching around an Applebee’s restaurant.

When the leader pointed to the center table, all of the black-covered teens stood up and raced to the middle table, pulling nerf guns out of the pockets and firing them  every-which way around the middle table. The teen sitting at the table cried “oh shit!” and ducked underneath the table before running to get the nerf darts that had been shot at him. Once he got three he pulled his mini-nerf gun out and started shooting at the black ninjas, who were all out of ammo and rushing to get to the used ammo before the boy who had been sitting at the table got it.

The boy that had been sitting at the table shot the shortest of the ninjas, at which point the boy in black handed over the rest of his nerf darts, and got out his wallet, turning an identification card to the boy who had shot him.

“Well, I tried.” Said the kid, shrugging and walking out of the restaurant. “See all of you on campus. Hope you survive.”

The rest of his friends continued collecting the fallen nerf darts. Then, three of them, who had been grabbing every nerf dart they could get their hands on, waited until the boy they were hunting had shot off all of his darts. Their leader dodged a few very close ones, but survived the onslaught that the other boy had shot at him. When the kid was out of darts, and scrambling frantically to find more, the three remaining teens started loading their guns and closing in on the kid who was now hopelessly out of darts.

One of the kids, the one behind the target-kid, aimed the nerf gun right in the back of the kid’s head. The one on the left pointed his toward the target-kid’s chest, and the one on the right pointed his at the target-kid’s head. The all pulled the triggers that sent darts flying in three different directions, but the guy that fired from behind hit the target-kid square in the head.

The poor kid came out of his crouched surrender, reached into his pocket to get his wallet, and then pulled out his ID card and handed it to the kid that shot him in the head. He then stuffed his mini-nerf gun back into his pocket and climbed back into his chair to resume eating dinner with his mom and dad.

Click Here to Read More