"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well..."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am daydreaming. I am thinking about the climactic scene from one of my favorite movies, which--oddly--stars one of my least favorite actors. I am daydreaming about "The Last Samurai".



I am thinking about the movie, but in reality what I am doing is debating in my mind the concept of honor.


Honor is important to me. Integrity, honesty, reliability--all of these nearly-forgotten terms matter to me the way they used to matter to most people years ago. Nothing gives me more pride than the fact that I have never broken my word.



I remember hearing the quote once, that "the best friend is the one who dies being owed the most favors".



I like old school shit like this--it is the way I have lived my life up to this point.



Toward the end of "The Last Samurai" the Japanese regular army is coming to capture or kill the last Samurai lord--the motivation is purely political, driven by a craven, power-hungry douchebag whose character [or lack thereof] is eminently recognizable to anyone who pays any attention to modern American politics.





The Samurai and his American companion [played by the patently insane Tom Cruise] have crafted a noble defense--one that will salvage their honor, make their point, appeal to the greater honor of Japan, and--not incidentally--most likely result not only in their own deaths but also in the deaths of every single one of the Samurai Lord's followers.





And they joke about it. They even enjoy themselves to a certain extent amidst the carnage because they are comfortable in the fact that they are doing the right thing. They know the end is coming and they don't care--because they know that eventually the end comes for all of us and they also know that their ending will be glorious.





Glorious. This Samurai and his men meet their end against insurmountable odds and it is glorious in every sense of the word. The scene reduces me to tears every time I see it.





So, here I am thinking of this movie. And I am thinking about right living and honorable living and making the right choices and the hard choices and-----------





"so, what do you say?





SO, what do you say?





LAST ONE HOME! WHAT DO YOU SAY?"





"Wha--?"





"I said, there's going to be a place for you. And there's going to be at least the same amount of money for you. And I need you! Can I count on you?"





As I snap back to reality I remember where I am. I'm sitting on the huge seating veranda of one of our other restaurants, deserted except for me and my employer. It is a Friday morning at 10am and he has been telling me about the deal he has just inked to sell his restaurants to a large multi-state operator. He has been telling me about how this company approached him after hearing from their law firm [also his law firm] that he was looking into either curtailing or completely halting his operations. He has been telling me about the last month and a half of meetings he has had, and about all of the offers this company has made--each one richer than the last. He has been telling me about how he refused all of them out of hand just as he has refused hundreds of other offers over the years.





And then I hear him say three words--"Board of Directors"--and then I understand. These people--these suitors of ours--are very astute. They have read my boss like a book and have identified something about him that I had overlooked. My boss has gotten tired--not tired like I get tired, with the sweat-through shirt under my jacket and the bloody feet and falling asleep at my desk after everyone else has gone home for the night--tired like, "I don't want to worry about all this shit anymore" tired.



These people are going to bank him up--which I'm sure is important to him, but frankly not vital. More importantly, they are giving him his easy out--he's not quitting, not selling out, not abandoning hundreds of loyal employees --he's merging with a multi-state company that has a track record of success and a very well-known name, and he's "staying on" as part of their Board--not quitting, no, of course not.



"So, what do you say, are you coming along?", he asks again.



"I've got to get back to Steakhouse, I'm short-staffed for lunch. Let me know how the announcement is going to go down, please."



"YOU DIDN'T ANSWER ME. I NEED YOU ALONG. ARE YOU COMING ALONG?"



"I'll let you know, Bill." And with that, I walked off the veranda and toward my car.



A few minutes later as I drove toward my office something occurred to me--in well more than a decade, that was the first time I had ever called my employer by his first name while working. We have shared countless social occasions over the years, including a couple of vacations with our significant others during all of which we acted as the friends I always believed us to be--but in the restaurants or in any professional capacity I never spoken to him or referred to him except as Mr. LOH'sBoss [not too much of a stretch to admit that his real name isn't Bill LOH'sBoss, but you get the idea]--not because he wanted it that way, much to the contrary, but because I thought it was the proper thing to do.



Just as that fact was sinking in and I was pondering what such a subconscious slip like that might really mean, another thought occurred to me--one that nearly drove me off the road. Suddenly shaking as if I had been sucker-punched, I managed to pull over to the shoulder and get into a fast food parking lot. Something wasn't right. Something was missing from the story. And I also realized that I had left before the meeting was supposed to be over. I was suddenly sure that if I had stayed on that veranda and agreed to "come along", I would have heard what the late Paul Harvey would have called "the rest of the story". After a few minutes taken to compose myself, I grabbed my cellphone and called.



"I was really hoping you would call--I really didn't like the way you just walked--"



"Why do I have to "come along", Bill? Why can't I just stay where I am? What's the new plan, Bill? What do our new bosses have in mind?" My heart was beating out of my chest and I was sweating and chilled at the same time--and I was angry.



tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick



"Bill?"



After a seemingly endless silence, "The reason the talks took so long and the reason the offer got so--"



"Bill!"



"They're going to close everything but The Mountain [our catering and events business, housed in a massive sixty-year-old facility and nicknamed "The Mountain" because getting to the top of the five-story faux-mansion building while moving tables, chairs, portable bars, etc, can be like climbing a mountain--and frankly it even looks a little like a mountain] and install their concepts. The only one of our places showing positive revenue right now is Steakhouse, and they feel that with current competition, the two pending chain openings, and the continued recession that it will be a loser pretty soon as well."



His statement sounded almost rehearsed, like he had been dreading the moment when he would have to give it and had been trying to get it straight, but it also sounded pretty genuine.



"Why not The Mountain?" Even though I knew the answer, I was in shock and it was the only thing I could think to say.



"Money. She's mostly booked for the next nine months--that's nearly $2 million in potential sales and we've already taken in nearly $300,000.00 in deposits. They don't want to give up the sales or give back the deposits."



"I'll call you back from the office, I'm on the road right now." Click.



When I got back to my office and spent some more time on the phone with my employer I received what can only be described as a brutal closure schedule. The first of our places would close at the end of business the next night [Saturday], and on Sunday and Monday all their food and beverage products would be moved to my property. Within a month all of our other restaurants would close using the same program--the process slowed only by the fact that we would need at least a few days after each closure to use up enough of their inventories that we would be able to accept more stuff from the next victim. Five weeks and one day after my Friday morning meeting would be Steakhouse's last operating day, and the following Sunday and Monday I would oversee the transfer of my final inventories to The Mountain.



End of story. Done. Finis.



Restaurants close every day--it is literally almost the worst possible business to open. Definitely over 80% and possible over 90% of all restaurants close within one year of opening. That is a terrible figure by itself, and when you include among the survivors those stores belonging to gigantic chains [how many Subways, McDonald's, and Wendy's have you ever seen close within one year] it becomes a nearly insurmountable challenge for any independent operator. Over the years we had received inventory from a failed sibling more than once, but in addition to Steakhouse we were also able to field a number of winners--if not for the current poor economy and the anti-small business attitude at the federal level, I don't think I would be writing this now.



As for my employer, my feelings are conflicted to say the least. Many people would see no difference between his closing up shop over a pending health care debacle [still happily unresolved and hopefully soon defeated] before it had the chance to destroy his business or make all of us wards of the federal government, and doing what he actually did--"merging" with a larger company whose announced plan included the closing of the very same restaurants for other reasons. After all, the net result is the same.



In the first case, I found his position surprising but not objectionable--a matter of self-determination, a sort of "this far and no further" kind of stand. After I got over the initial shock of his statement, it reminded me a little bit of when that awful woman attempted to pressure Augusta National several years ago on their men-only membership policy. Augusta of course hosts the Master's Golf Tournament, and this woman demanded Augusta--a private club legally entitled to an exclusive membership policy--admit women, or she would organize a boycott of the Tournament's sponsors. The president of Augusta at the time, the unfortunately named Hootie Johnson, was delightfully non-plussed. He announced that in order spare the Tournament's long-time valued sponsors from being sullied and bullied, he would suspend sponsorship of the event [it went on television commercial free and made the event and the Club even more beloved]. Further, he announced, the Club's membership policies were their own and would only be changed for reasons of and at a time of the membership's own choosing. If the Club's neighbors and sponsors continued to be harassed, he said, they would probably just stop having the Tournament altogether. Not surprisingly, this show of resolve, so uncommon in the modern era, resulted in the woman being marginalized [rightfully so] and the "controversy" disappearing.



It is sometimes right to declare that if something cannot be done my way, it will be done no way. A vital component of freedom.



In the situation of our "merger" however, its harder for me to find and recognize his high ground. A point he tried to make to me on the phone after the Friday meeting was that the negotiations took so long because he kept refusing the closures--at the time I cut him off, but later, when we were meeting about severances he was finally able to make this point, which was clearly very important to him. As this particular meeting was one of the low points of my entire career [figuring out what to pay people who were being laid off for no good reason before sending them out into the worst job market in history], I did not ask my boss what changed his mind. Of course, I didn't have to ask him, because I knew--they made it easy for him. The easier they made it for him, the less important everyone else's potential difficulties became. The restaurants are his, the decision is his. Throughout his career he has been an honorable and respectful employer, evidenced by the huge group of employees who have stayed with him for over a decade at numerous different properties. It would never occur to me to say, "You can't do this", or anything similar. Still though...



It just doesn't seem right. Maybe I'm just feeling sorry for myself, or regretting the end of an era that, at the very least, I was hoping to end my involvement with on my own terms. More likely, I'm picking up on the fact that he feels guilty about the decision himself, that he knows he took the easy way out.



But for me, it is not so easy. Easy doesn't appeal to me. In all honesty, I have quite a bit of contempt for easy. I have his open job offer. The money is very good, the position probably less physically demanding than the one that I am preparing to leave, and I want to work. I don't need to work, which is a luxury that also embarrasses me right now, but I want to work. If I take the job I can probably find jobs for many of our past employees once the properties are re-concepted and start to re-open [all will be re-concepted and re-modeled except for our perennial loser which will become the big company's new corporate offices], and that is important to me. On the other hand, if I take the job I believe I will also ease my employer's conscience, and I believe that my acceptance will be a tacit endorsement of the whole deal, and that I do not like.



It has been a long time since I had to hunt for a job, usually being hired from one place to another, and staying at the last one through three Presidents and four administrations has me a bit out of practice even before you get to it being the worst market in history.


I have to tell you, I still kind of like that climax from The Last Samurai. That's a good way to go out. The only problem is that when I went in the hut to put on my armor, my Samurai lord walked down the hill and surrendered.

"The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap..."--Ayn Rand

"What are you doing right now?"



"Finishing up a schedule and getting ready to make up a liquor order. Why?"



"Forget about that...Come on over to the office as fast as you can, please."



"On my way."



I can't remember the last time I was in my employer's office, which is also to say that I can't remember the last time he was in his office either. The corporate offices for our small company house our controller, a receptionist who covers the phones for the office as well as for all of our places during down time and shift changes, and my employer himself--technically. For the last four years or so my boss has pretty much done business via Blackberry and "ask Last One Home". On my last visit to this facility to drop something off for our controller, the open door to his office revealed a pile of military memorabilia [he is an avid collector] that covered the desk and the two visitor's chairs as well as the blueprint table left over from the last store we built from scratch--it was obvious from the dust atop this priceless pile of crap that the room itself had not been occupied in quite some time.



As I grab my jacket and briefcase and head for my car, I wonder what's up.



"Thanks for coming so quickly. You know, Last One Home, when we first started working together all those years ago, I didn't give you nearly as much credit and recognition as you deserved. I hope that I have remedied that over the years, but I know I've gotten lazy as time has gone on and I also know that I don't always communicate as well as I should--so I just want to start by telling you that, truly, none of this would exist without you. Seriously."



"Am I getting fired?" [You have to imagine the situation for me, as I asked this question out of honest curiosity as well as with some eagerness--I don't mean to belittle the financial trouble that so many are facing right now--but for me getting fired would be, in a way, like being paroled from prison].



"No you're not getting fired...sorry to disappoint you. [apparently the eagerness in my voice came through more than I had expected]



I'm seriously thinking about closing, however. I wanted to tell you before any of the financial people I've had preliminaries with start to blab."



"The Steakhouse??" At this I was truly surprised. We have been by no means immune to the collapse of our nation into Socialism, and both our check average and general revenues have suffered. However, financially speaking we weren't anywhere near where closing should be any sort of a consideration. We were still profitable, as a matter of fact.



"All of the stores."



"What the fuck is going on? Are you sick?"



"I'm not sick. No one is sick. Did you ever read the short story the movie 'The Shawshank Redemption' was based on?"



"I don't think so, but I did see the movie a long time ago. What was the story called? And why?"



"I don't remember exactly, but it had 'Shawshank' in the title. Anyway, in the book the Tim Robbins character was talking to the black guy about how, when he knew he was probably going to be convicted, he started to protect his assets. The Tim Robbins guy made a comparison between two men who live on the beach, both with priceless art collections. A hurricane is on the way, and one guy thinks that God or Providence or whatever would never let all his beautiful art be destroyed, and so he is sure the storm will turn and he does nothing. You know, those storms are so fickle anyway, they almost never end up where anyone expects. Well, the second guy also hopes for the best, and knows alot can happen in between the storm forming and it hitting land, but he still doesn't want to take any chances--so the second guy takes down all of his art and crates it up and moves it inland away from the storm, to protect his investment."



"Riight?"



"I believe you are aware of what is going to happen when the stimulus money that extended unemployment benefits and raised benefit amounts runs out next year, yes?"



"Yes. In return for the states getting the money, they had to guarantee that those longer terms and higher pay-outs would be maintained indefinitely--that means that when the "free" money is gone, our unemployment insurance rates and fees go up."



"They will go up substantially, even though we haven't laid a single person off."



"And that's why you are thinking of selling out?"



"Not selling, just closing."



"I have to tell you, boss--I'm at a total loss."



"Do you think this ridiculous health care bill is going to pass?"



"Unfortunately I do."



"So do I, and I have spent the last week with our lawyers and accountants and the controller looking at numbers--some of our well-connected friends back east have made sure we got the text of the bill as soon as it became available--you know they didn't have it when they voted on it--but it is out now.



Businesses like ours will have two choices--pay for the health care for our employees, or pay a penalty that amounts to 8% of total labor cost if we do not. Paying for the health care puts us out of business--straight up. Paying these cocksuckers the penalty almost puts us out of business--and those two conclusions are drawn using last years' numbers, which are a damn sight better than 2009."



"Why close them instead of sell them?"



"A few reasons. I can't imagine that anyone is looking to buy restaurants right now even without this health care bullshit, and I don't want to have them on the market forever just to get lowballed. Half of them are almost worthless without our name anyway, and I'm not going to sell the name. In closing them, I can eliminate most of the operating debt on the properties through the process and in the case of Steakhouse and [one other restaurant] avoid the two big improvement assessments that are about to hit at the same time. And finally, if I close them, the cocksuckers can't tax me like they could if I sell them. I don't think I'm going to be able to save them like the guy from he story, but I'm damn well going to decide what happens to them myself.



I'm fed up with it. I'm thinking about fronting some of our long-time guys in little places--bars mostly. Two or three or four guys working as partners--so there aren't technically any employees. Small footage places, pubs and cool little places like that Pegu Club and PDT we went to when we were in Manhattan last year--but smaller. Maybe some of our kitchen guys want to do the same kind of thing with a little bakery or sandwich shop or something. Nothing too big--no more big equipment, big rents, big anything--and no more employees. I'm thinking of fronting "hospitality LLP's".



I'm so tired of everybody's hands in my pockets constantly. Do you know there are three fucking music licensing companies now? I swear to God if I could play only music in the public domain I would do that too--or maybe just no music at all--just turn up the TV's. Licenses--do you know when I started with 'Harry's' thirty years ago I had two licenses on my wall--the occupational license and the liquor license. Two. How many are on the wall at Steakhouse right now?"



"Twelve or thirteen."



"And how many of them make any fucking sense at all?"



"Two."



"Exactly. Listen, my friend--we've come a long way together. I've made you rich and you've made me richer--but we have both worked till we bled for every penny--you a good deal more over the last ten years or so than me, but I had plenty of hard, lean years in the 70's and 80's. You know, when 'Harry's' opened it took every last penny I had--I sold my car and got evicted from my apartment--I slept on the bar for three months till I could afford an efficiency finally. But my own place was my dream, and I'm so sad and so angry that we are where we are right now--but I can't see any other way if this shit gets passed--I refuse to get sucked down with everyone else. I always believed that my people worked with me instead of for me--everybody. But all this new stuff has made it so that I'm going to be working for them--and I can't abide that--I just can't."



"You know we're talking about over 400 people, unless you plan to back 200 bakeries and underground bars."



"I know it. I'm sick over it. But here's how I look at it. I have given thousands of people good jobs over the years--great working conditions, good salaries, hourly wages, and good shifts. I've given millions in bonuses, spent hundreds of thousands on parties [our holiday and anniversary parties are legendary and epic]. I've never been able to afford health coverage for the whole staff, just management, but I've paid for emergency room bills, root canals, appendectomies, broken ankles, and all sorts of surprise shit that could have really hurt my guys when they weren't prepared for it--I've fronted down payments, tuition, and bail--I've cosigned a hundred loans. I have paid people more than the going rate because we didn't have insurance, and hoped they would put the extra money toward their own program. I have been stand-up my whole life--my whole life.



But this. This is just like a union trying to push their way into my business. The only difference is that the employees don't have any more control over it than I do. If a union successfully pushed into our places I would close them the next day, I told you that a long time ago. I'm thinking about doing the same thing here for the same reasons--once some other group decides they can tell me what I'm going to do beyond what is right and decent in my own business, I'm up up and away."



My employer might be a little ahead of the curve here, but by no means do I think he is going to be alone in his conclusions. I believe the recent passed and pending legislation in congress will close more than half of all US small businesses.



In responding to a recent comment on another post, I mentioned that I might possibly exit restaurants in a year or so, and that when and if I did I would identify myself and answer any and all questions anyone might have. After the meeting I just came back from, I'm guessing I might be able to do that somewhat sooner than originally anticipated.

"We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge..."--John Naisbitt

"Good evening, thank you for calling--"



"Frankie playin' tonight?"



"Yes, sir, Frank is playing the--"



"ahright listen! I need a table for two in the showroom in 'bout twenty minutes--we're gonna eat early before the show. And I want a nice table, don't bullshit me! Close to the stage, but not too close!"



"Sir, I'll be happy to take your reservation for two, but--"



"Just put it down--this is Carmine." Click.



As I stare at the handset, one of our hostesses asks, "What was that all about?"



"That, apparently, was a reservation for two for 'Carmine' in about twenty minutes...in the 'showroom'."



"What?"



"Yes, in the 'showroom'. And make sure he gets a table close to the stage, but not too close."



"What stage?"



"The guy on the phone asked if Frank was playing tonight, and when I said that he was the guy directed me to make sure he got a nice able in the showroom close to the stage--he wants to eat early, you know, before the show."



"What show?"



"I don't know. Maybe Frank used to be in a band or something. I tried to explain to the guy how our entertainment was set up here, but he was all talking and no listening. Hold a table in the bar room for him and we'll see what happens."



The restaurant's current entertainment is a pianist who has one of those machines that provides extra orchestration for a huge number of songs. The machine allows one musician to sound like a band. He also sings. He plays four or five nights a week, and while he is located in our small bar and lounge room, his music is played thoughout the restaurant on our sound system during his sets. He's been with us for about three years, and does a very good job. He doesn't drink [many lounge musicians are huge drunks] and he constantly updates his set lists [most lounge musicians find thirty songs they like and play them ad nauseum for the rest of their lives--usually in the same order each night]. However, he plays alone, and is set up on our carpeted lounge floor. There is no "stage" and no real "show".



Approximately thirty minutes after Carmine's call, the man himself arrived--along with a companion best described as his "moll". Here was the woman keeping Estee Lauder and Frederick's of Hollywood in business.



"I'm Carmine, you got me a table in the showroom to see Frankie."



"We're all set for you, sir, but if I may, I should probably take a moment and describe our entertainment to you--"



"No grease!"



"Sir?"



"I said no grease. No grease the first time. If you treat me right this time I'll duke you when I come back, but no grease now--you need to impress me the first time--so there ain't no reason for you to 'explain' nothin'. Got it?"



"Show Mr. Carmine to 602, please."



Thirty seconds later, "Ay pal! I said the showroom near the stage, not a kiddie table in Siberia!"



"Well, sir. We showed you to a table in our bar room near our piano. The piano Frank will start playing in about forty minutes. We'll certainly be happy to show you to any other unoccupied table in the restaurant--we were just trying to seat you according to your request."



"No showroom?"



"No sir."



"No stage?"



"No sir."



"What kind of supper club you people trying to run here?"



"Actually, we're trying to run a steakhouse that offers live piano music a few nights a week in addition to a number of other amenities. We've been trying to do it nearly every night for the last fifteen years.



Sir, are you sure you have the right restaurant?"



"If you've got Frankie playin', I've got the right place--I just wasn't expectin' such a crazy set-up. Ahright, the 'bar room' it is."



Carmine and his lovely guest returned to their table in the bar and ordered quickly, probably not wanting the food to interfere with the 'show'. They were halfway through their meals when our musician arrived and began setting up for the evening.



While I didn't see it transpire, apparently Carmine hopped up and approached Frank as soon as he saw him. What I did see was Carmine and his "special lady" making a bee-line for the front door, doggie bags in hand, about five minutes afterward.



"Not staying for the show?" [I couldn't help myself]



"You got me! You really got me! All I can say is you got me! That's not Frankie Jacuzzi!!"



"You never gave a last name when you were asking on the phone, sir. I tried to stop you on the phone and I also tried to explain before you were sat--I didn't think you were in the right place."



"Whatever you say, hotshot. You got me, that's all. You got me."



"Sir, with all due respect--you called us."



Shaking his head in disgust, Carmine exited the building positive that I was revelling in my betrayal of his sacred trust.



"What was that guy's problem?" Frank asked, coming up behind me at the desk.



"He thought you were some guy named Frankie Jacuzzi."



"Seriously? That guy died like eight years ago."



"Well, thats not too bad. He outlived supper clubs by about thirty years."

"And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor..."--the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence

"On Independence Day, a few hours ago, they killed my son, Aaron in Afghanistan"--David M Masters

One of my favorite speeches of all time I discovered just recently was actually the work of Rush Limbaugh, Jr., the father of the very popular radio host of the same name. I suppose it is odd to brand something a favorite when it brings tears to my eyes every time I hear or read it--but this speech is perhaps the most succinct expression of what actually made this country--the attitudes and sacrifices and the sheer will--that exists today.

A girl I dated several years ago [who, unfortunately, I realized I was in love with only after she had moved 2000 miles away and gotten engaged to someone else] had the speech framed for me. It is a big piece--a little larger than a full-size movie poster--and it hangs in a prominent place in my home office. To this very day it is difficult for me to walk past the piece without reading at least a little of what is printed there.

When most of us think of the men who created this country we think of the fighting kids in the militia that evaded, outlasted, and eventually outfought the British--and we think of those patriots who had the strongest hand in guiding our young country once it had been created--Washington, Jefferson, and Adams. That fighting force and those individuals deserve all the credit given them and more, but for me personally the men I think most of when I think of our founding are those other signers, the ones who in many cases lost nearly everything after affixing their names to the Declaration.

Jefferson, Adams, and Washington [the general, in the field at the time, was not a signer] all risked their lives and property, but for the most part lucked out for lack of a better term--their homes, estates, and businesses survived largely untouched. For many of their brethren however the toll of freedom was high and harsh indeed.

The vast majority of these men were rich and had large families. Most of them committed to the cause knowing full well that their possessions, families, and lands were, for the most part, located in areas under the direct control or within the near reach of the British forces.

Francis Lewis of New York lost everything, including his wife who was captured, raped, and tortured by British soldiers. She died shortly after being returned to him in a prisoner exchange.

William Floyd of New York saved his family but lost all of his possessions and was forced to live as a fugitive for seven years.

Phillips Livingstone of New York lost all of his great wealth and his life before ever getting to see the dawn of the new nation he had given everything for.

John Hart of New Jersey was nearly captured trying to return home to see his dying wife. When he finally snuck back to the ruins of his property his wife was already dead and his thirteen children gone. He never found his children and died broke and broken in 1779.

Robert Morris of Pennsylvania spent his vast fortune in support of Washington's army. The effort destroyed his merchant fleet of nearly 150 ships and reduced him to a pauper.

Abraham Clark of New Jersey was offered the lives of his two captured sons near the end of the war if he would publicly renounce the Revolution and endorse the British throne. He refused, and his sons died in captivity.

My favorite of these generally unknown heros however is without a doubt Governor Thomas Nelson of Virginia. Nelson commanded the Virginia militia throughout the war and was in command at the epic battle of Yorktown. As American artillery began to zero in on the British, their General Cornwallis ordered his command relocated to Nelson's own immense, opulent home. American cannoneers would not fire on the residence.

"Why do you spare my home?", demanded the angry Nelson.

"Sir, out of respect to you," replied the artillery commander.

Nelson cried, "Give me the cannon!", and went on to demolish his own home in order to defeat Cornwallis.

In total, nine of the signers died during the war, five were captured, twelve lost their homes, seventeen were completely bankrupted, and two saw their wives ravaged at the hands of the enemy.

I have often wondered if I could have made any of the sacrifices that these men did, just as I wonder sometimes whether I would have found myself at a recruitment office on 09.12.01 had I been a younger man.

I have lived my life doing things the hard way, because usually the hard way is the best way. I understand, as apparently fewer people do each and every day, that in order for something to have real value and foundation there must be labor expended, sacrifices made, and even sometimes little blood drawn. I comfortably admit owning a tremendous amount of contempt for those who have decided that their life path will be the easiest, simplest one--no matter how many broken promises, cut corners, failures, and disappointments are left in the wake of that path. I would rather accept responsibility than pass the buck, would rather break trail than follow meekly, would rather do battle than dodge the draft.

When someone says, "I've heard of you," I have no worries whatsoever. My word is good, my credit is good, my bills are paid, my businesses are successful, my reputation is intact, and I sleep like a baby--if a baby only slept about four hours a day, that is. That is the only way I know to live my life.

Could I have made the sacrifices that many of those fifty-six signers made? I don't know--I suppose that is a question that can only be answered just as the deadline looms.

The problem, unfortunately, is that I am much more sure of the answer to another question, namely: "How many of those in our current government would make the sacrifices that many of those fifty-six signers made?"

The answer to that question is a very low, disgustingly low number--and I'm speaking about both parties.

Ironically, the only name that hits me right away as a resounding "yes" is a man in such questionable health that he probably wouldn't last two weeks in such a stressful situation--former Vice President Dick Cheney. Probably Senator Lieberman, who has shown a refreshing willingness to speak plainly about important issues regardless of party line. Probably former President George W. Bush, if he has anything left in the tank. Maybe the two magnificent senators from Oklahoma--but I don't know enough about them personally to be sure. Maybe crazy Dennis Kucinich--his idea of America is diametrically opposed to mine, but he nevertheless seems to go about his business--his insane business--in a pretty forthright manner.

Not only would our current "leaders" have recanted revolution to save their two sons as Abraham Clark refused to do--they would have recanted for a 757 ride [private of course] home to San Francisco, a trip to Paris [excuse me, fact-finding mission], a post office named after their grandfather, $1.2 trillion for the union thugs that get them re-elected every two, four, or six years, hair plugs, custom-made Allen Edmonds loafers, a cheese steak, aluminum collar stays, a can of aqua net, etc. Not only would they have recanted for the most minor of trinkets and geegaws, they never would have considered revolution in the first place unless they could have been exponentially enriched by it--not the other way around.

Yes, I am still furious.

"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength..."--Eric Hoffer

"We need another bartender over here."

"Is something wrong, sir?"

"She's got no sense of humor. Me and my buddies are just trying to have a good time, she's supposed to help us have a good time, and she's acting like some kind of robot."

The gentleman and his "buddies", for the moment, are enjoying the benefit of the doubt. They are in our empty lounge on a very slow Sunday, and up to this point have done nothing I have noticed that would brand them as troublemakers.

The bartender is one of my best, but she does have a tendency to be a little sparing with her words. She has lot of regular guests who love her, and she can rock and roll when its busy like few others I have seen--but she is much more focused on the mechanical aspects of her job than the social ones. Normally such a trait would go virtually unnoticed, but because she is quite beautiful and graced with a flawless body, some men take her natural economy with words personally.

I find her in the kitchen, and as I suspected she is clearly upset. She is sensitive to this type of situation, and has trouble with the concept of being blamed for simply being herself.

"What's up with the three stooges?", I ask.

Looking stricken, and near tears, she responds, "I don't know what to do. They sat down, and I asked them if I could get them a drink, and the first thing one of them says is 'I don't know, can you?' so I say 'I'll certainly try' and one of the other one asks 'Well, what else do you like to try?'

Then they asked me how my 'rack' was like they were talking about the lamb, and when I finally got a drink order and they settled down a little and started looking at menus, one of them called me over to say there was something in his drink--he had eaten a mouthful of barsnacks and chewed them up and spit them back into the beer glass and--"

"OK, that's enough--I get the idea. What are you doing back here now?"

"Getting their bread."

"Forget the bread, they won't be needing it. Head back to the bar in case someone else comes in, but say away from them."

As one would suspect, my benefit of the doubt evaporated at "what else do you like to try". I suppose I could dismiss them as three drunks, but it isn't my style to allow people to blame unacceptable behavior on chemical deviation. As I entered the lounge to expel the 'gentlemen' I see a large party gathering for an 80-something birthday--as they weren't the normal crowd for a barfight I quickly and regretfully soften my game plan.

"Sorry gentlemen, I'm afraid I don't have another bartender available this evening--so, this round is on the house and we'll wish you a good evening. Thanks for stopping in."

"That's OK--we'll make due with this little filly--once she gets to know us I'm sure she'll come around."

"She's not going to get to know you. We're not going to serve you anything else. It's time to go, gentlemen. Drinks are on me, I'll walk you to the door."

Like the rising dawn, I can see the realization come over one of the guys that he and his buddies are being thrown out.

"JUST YOU are gonna walk ALL THREE OF US to the door, now??"

"Without a doubt."

--First, It should be mentioned that while I relate a fair number of stories like this, and such incidents are ever more numerous, they don't happen constantly. However, I don't need to write about the five hours of bright, beaming smiles and "everything was wonderful, as usual" comments that I often experience in order to keep myself sane--I need to write about 'The Amazing Douchebags' and people like them to keep myself sane. Secondly, I am more surprised each day by the ever-growing number of men willing to imply or outrightly threaten violence during similar confrontations who immediately and shamelessly back down when I, or people like me, don't immediately yield. Its like they've been watching way, way too much TV.--

"Uh, uh, you're making a big mistake here. We're just havin' some fun--she's too uptight. Uh, you know, we're gonna go right down the street to [insert new outpost of national steakhouse chain that we are currently demolishing] and spend our money there. You're makin' a big mistake."

"I make mistakes all the time."

"You don't know what you're doing, pal!"

"Opinions vary." [Yes, I know, its a line from a bad Patrick Swayze movie--but I've always loved it and do use it on very rare occassion--always to great effect]

"Come on guys, we're outta here."

As they exited the restaurant I returned to their spot at the bar, which in fifteen minutes had been ravaged. Bar stools pushed up against each other on either side, snack mix all over the floor, bevnaps balled up everywhere, a rubber drink pad that they had pulled out of the well stretched sideways across the bar for some inexplicable reason.

After a quick clean-up I turned around to find a little tiny fellow from the still-gathering Octegenarian birthday bash standing right behind me, and I steeled myself for a complaint about the 'scene' I had just made.

"Yes, sir?"

"Thanks for throwing those guys out. When we came in, they told my grandmother she had a nice ass. Thank God she's almost deaf!"

"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary..."--Thomas Payne



--Olbermann said so, so that means you don't know what you're talking about, so you should just shut up."

The speaker, as the above-imbedded citation would indicate, is a moron. One of my most disappointing hires--a scatter-brained under-achiever more concerned with text messaging than seeing to her guests. She already has two written warnings and a one-week suspension and though she has been informed that the next violation of policy will trigger her dismissal she is unafraid, because, as she puts it, "I've never been fired before". The fact that she has never worked for anyone besides her father before apparently hasn't affected her logical reasoning on the matter.




I catch the statement fragment as I am moving through the kitchen near an area where staff hangs out before we get busy, and I know I should ignore it. I know that facts only matter to a tiny and apparently shrinking few these days, I know this foolish girl is under the thrawl of MSNBC and their Wizards of Bullshit, and I know I should just keep on going--but it is so hard.








I heard a story once about an old man who used to go to one of the Naval storage yards every day and paint the rusting hulls of the WW II era vessels that had been left there at moorings, naked to the ravages of time after years of proud and valuable service. He was a naval veteran who couldn't bear the thought of all that decay--rot coming to noble vessels once so proud and vibrant and special--and so he bought his own gray paint, brushes, and ladder and he painted. And back then, in the days when the right things were sometimes still allowed to happen, the yard master let him go about his business--who knows, in his heart of hearts he may have even wished he could grab a bucket and join him.




I feel about this country the way that sailor felt about that mooring yard. My rational self knows the fight is lost. I know the rot is everwhere, and I know the decay is too deep in too many places for the paint of my words to remedy--but I can't ignore it. The job is so big, and has been neglected for so long, that I don't know where to start--as I'm sure that old man didn't know where to begin either--but I still cannot accept in my heart what my brain has already reconciled.




I should just keep moving toward the front of the restaurant, but instead I grab my brush and my bucket, so to speak, and turn back toward the small grouping of staff.




"What you guys talking about?"



Immediately, two long-time servers and one nearly brilliant new-hire perk up--the oldtimers know what is coming, and the newer member of my staff and I have had some very interesting, very civil, and very specific debates on politics and the American future over the last few months. The new employee is a life-long democrat born and raised in Illinois who finally admitted to me that she had been terrifed at the prospect of President Obama's election and can already see the "Chicago Way" spreading through the federal government. She is probably interested to see how I handle the cable TV professor in front of everyone else, while the oldtimers just smell blood in the water--they can see my big, sharp fin sticking up above the waves and headed toward their poor, doomed co-worker.



"Climate change", the server piped up.






"Global warming bullshit", came the slightly accented reply from a surprising source--one of our line cooks, Carlos.



"Fuck you. Go back behind the line before I call La Migra", chimed in my darling server.



"Actually Hanna, Carlos is a US citizen. I know because I attended his swearing in last year. Before he was a citizen he was a legal resident. I know because I hired him and checked his new hire paperwork completely, as I do with everyone, in all of our restaurants. I came over here because I heard you mention Kieth Olbermann like you were citing the Encyclopedia Brittanica instead of a bad sports announcer turned Democrat apologist. I was going to give you some factual information in the hopes that you might actually listen, but I don't need to get involved. Carlos lived in Mexico for 18 years before he came here. No one here understands corruption, ignorance, and misinformation better than he does--you don't stand a chance."

As I leave the simmering battle behind and head toward the front of the restaurant my assistant hands me a new menu draft for approval and asks, "what was that idiot talking about back there?"

"She was commenting on the great global warming hoax. Not surprisingly, she believes everything MSNBC tells her about it."

"Maybe all that time in front of the TV is the reason she can never make her lunch shifts on time. Or maybe its just the stupidity. I fucking hate her. My birthday is coming up, please fire her for my birthday present."

My assistant, my invaluable assistant who is worth her weight in gold, does not mince words.

"I doubt she'll make it that long, but you can sit it in when I do it if you like. I'll tell her I need another manager present as a witness."

"Don't tease...[long pause]...Actually, I guess I should't be so mean about her--I used to be that stupid, I used to be just like Hanna. I used to believe President Bush stole the election because Dan Rather said he did. I used to think the best job in the world would be a union job because I couldn't get fired. I used to think that everything could be fixed if everyone would just sit down and talk."

"What changed your mind? 9-11?"

"No. 9-11 made me appreciate President Bush. I remember thinking the day after, after the shock had worn off a little, I remember thinking 'thank God its not Al Gore'."

"So what was it?", I asked again, now truly intrigued.

"It was you. You changed my mind about alot of things. All those nights at the door when we would talk about what was on the TV's [the TV's in our lounge can be seen from the entranceway and front desk]--you would never argue. You would give your opinion and tell why you thought something was the way it was, and you would ask me why I thought certain things. Over and over. Why why why."

"I didn't mean to badger you."

"No, you didn't. It wasn't mean, you actually seemed interested in my opinions, where they came from, but I could never answer you--because they weren't opinions, they were just feelings. So I started to pay attention and get the facts on stuff so I could answer you and beat you, but once I started to get real facts I started to come to the same conclusions as you."

Years ago, before she was my assistant, this young lady was a hostess. She was so obviously intelligent and able that I always made sure she was scheduled for my shifts on the door--in all honesty I don't remember us having many political or philosophical discussions, but apparently we had. In answering my question, the young lady had given me one of the greatest compliments I have ever received.

Later that night over a drink I remembered something from my past. I went to a very small private elementary school, and actually had the same teacher from second through fifth grade. The class was the "gifted class" [a sort of new invention at the time], and it was actually made up of kids from all grades second through fifth. She taught us all--sometimes different lessons tailored to our particular age and skills, sometimes general lessons presented to everyone. The woman was remarkable. I honestly could have gone from that class directly to high school--that was how much I learned while there. Not just simple data either; but logic, reasoning, problem-solving--even a little practical philosophy. I credit that woman for whatever mental acuity I have to this day.

Though I never went back after moving on to junior high school and beyond, she came to my mother's funeral mass roughly ten years later--she must have seen one of the obituaries. I was touched beyond measure--and had the occassion not been so glum it would have been a true delight. After a few minutes of small talk I walked the lady to her car, parked next to mine. As we said goodbye, I opened the back door to retrieve my overcoat [the weather was turning and I was going to need it at the mausoleum service], and she let out a disgusted little whistle, then, "Oh my God, another one!"

She was looking at my Bush/Quayle re-election bumper sticker.

"So many of my kids are Republicans now. Where did I go wrong?", she asked theatrically. She had a smile on her face when she said it, and as I kissed her goodbye, I told her that so many of us were Republicans because she had taught us to always think for ourselves and never stop searching for the facts [I didn't mention that becoming aware of the world during the Carter Presidency probably hadn't hurt, either].

It would be many years later before I remembered that exchange, and it was during her funeral that the conversation came back to me. In that packed church were countless success stories, including three men and one woman whose names grace the tops of their respective fields to this day, in both practical professions as well as the arts.

If we pay attention and are taught the right things in the right way, we all learn. If we don't get lazy, I guess we all teach. I've been painting and keeping the rot away and I didn't even know it, and that is a really good feeling.

The problem comes when you realize that no matter how many ships are sea-worthy, there may simply not be anywhere left to sail. Both political parties are steeped in self-serving corruption, the media turns a blind eye to the crimes, and the government itself is so bloated and intractable that soon nothing will be able to escape its stifling grasp.

The story is disjointed, and for that I apologize--but then again everything is disjointed and polarized these days to the point of being farcical. Daily our soldiers commit acts of unimaginable heroism that go unreported. A young lady is murdered on the streets of Tehran during a protest that could have begun seminal change in that oppressed country--technology allows us the horror of actually seeing the life leave that young lady's eyes. From our government, tepid words--only slightly warmer than those used to acknowledge the death of a pop music star.

"Lawmakers" ram though nonsensical, contrived laws that literally have not even been completely written--much less read--with sanctimonious, condescending smirks toward their opponents. The Honduran people remove a President trying to make himself into the newest Hugo Chavez, and rather than celebrate their commitment to their country's constitution, we publicly side with Communist Cuba and Dictatorial Venezuela in condemning the act.

I'm told Hanna's attempt to defend her position on "climate change" after I left the argument included references to both "The Day after Tomorrow" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" as if they were National Geographic documentaries ather than theatrical works of fiction. When pressed on her choice of MSNBC as a primary news source she demurred, insisting proudly that she also watches the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. A 26-year-old mother of one who thinks a show on Comedy Central is "the news". Too bad she hadn't seen "The Happening"--she might have won the debate using the "Shamaylan Killer Tree Principle".

How big a brush do I need? Do they even have that much paint? I'm so furious.

"What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous..."--Voltaire

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever..."--Napoleon Bonaparte

"Someone on the phone says they need a private room".



"No problem, let them know the events coordinator will be back in the restaurant on Monday morning--they can call back, or leave a voicemail now--also ask them if they would like her email address."



"They want a private room at 5:30..."



"Tonight??"



"Yes, tonight. He says there is someone very famous and very important in the party and they need privacy."



With a sigh, "I'll be right there...



This is Last One Home, how can we help you?"



"We'll be at your restaurant in about two hours for dinner and I need to make sure we have absolute privacy--and believe me, this is as much for you as it is for us--if people see my client your restaurant will be mobbed, absolutely mobbed."



"I'm sorry, sir. All of our private accommodations are booked for this evening--I'm afraid I just don't have much to offer--"



"Move them!"



"I can't do that, sir. What we might be--"



"Just move them--we'll pay for their dinners--just tell them someone more important needed the room, but was nice enough to pay for their dinner--I don't care how big the party is."



At this point in the exchange I have to admit that I was struck dumb with surprise--and after nearly a quarter of a century in these trenches almost nothing remains that has the power to surprise me. In all the countless instances of blustering, staging, and social wrestling that I have endured, no one has ever actually put their money where their mouth was in the way that this man was doing. As soon as he uttered the words, I knew he meant them. And if I agreed to his terms, and showed them into a room that was supposed to have hosted a wedding reception for 80 guests, and later handed him a bill for $15,000 in addition to his own dinner bill, I am sure he would not have blinked. This guy's tone was, while somewhat abrasive, absolutely matter-of-fact.



It didn't mean he was going to get what he wanted--but it was impressive nonetheless.



"I believe you, sir. And I would like to help you. But I simply cannot do what you are asking--it would be betraying everything we are about."

"My client wants to eat at your restaurant as soon as we land. He simply MUST have privacy. We are at an impasse, and I am paid very, very well to make sure we do not EVER encounter an impasse. I presume you are paid...paid to make your customers happy. How can you make me and my client happy under these circumstances? By you not doing your job you are making it impossible for me to do my job.



Fifteen to twenty seconds of silence on the phone, followed by...



[sigh] Very well, what CAN you do for us?"



"Your party is arriving very early in our evening, sir. We can seat you in the very back of the restaurant, and most likely no one will be seated in your vicinity for the greater part of two hours. The earlier you arrive, the longer you'll have to yourselves."



"Back of the dining room? I'm afraid that won't [voice in the background]...hold on, please...[more voices]...very well, it seems that is acceptable. We're seven, we'll be there at 5:30."



"May I have the name, sir?"



"You won't need it." Click.



The gentleman on the phone was right, too--we didn't need a name. At 5:25pm two blacked-out suburbans pulled into our driveway and one giant man got out of each vehicle. One giant made a perimeter walk of the outside of the building while the other bounded though the doors of the restaurant and silently surveyed the interior.



"We're good," he said into a small microphone, and a moment later after the occupants of the vehicle apparently heard the same report from the exterior giant, the doors of the two vehicles flew wide--expelling first two more giants, then four devastatingly beautiful young women, and then three nondescript looking men--or more specifically two nondescript looking men and one man wearing a gigantic white panama hat.



The hat itself was a magnificent indicator of things to come. Think regular panama hat-- white, straw, almost fedora-like--and then literally make it as big as a Mexican sombrero. A caricature of a panama hat really--so big and floppy that I was oddly reminded of the Rick Moranis character "Dark Helmet" from Mel Brooks' Star Wars spoof "Spaceballs". True, the gentleman beneath this monstrosity was properly hidden from view, but the hat itself would automatically draw the attention of anyone within sight of it. The only thing that could have made it worse was if one of the giants had started screaming, "move along, move along, nothing to see here..." to the empty street adjacent to our driveway.



As this spectacular group entered the restaurant I retreated to a safe distance, wanting to observe the festivities without being personally involved.



The group was shown to their table and began to sit, until "phone guy" saw the arrangements.



"This won't do, we can't be exposed to the windows."



My maitre d', a pro's pro, smoothly began to respond, "Sir, if you're concerned about the security of the glass, it is ballistic and over an inch thick--tornado-qualified for all office buildings in this area."



"No, not bullets. Cameras. Papparazzi. We need to move--we'll sit in there," gesturing to a room filled with balloons, wrapped gifts, four tables of ten, and a huge banner reading "Happy 60th Wendy".



"No."



Apparently my polished maitre d', a bit off his game after the "papparazzi" comment, decided "direct" would be the best approach from that point forward. And for the next three minutes as he toured the entire restaurant with "phone guy" and the rest of the party in tow [exposing themselves to all of the other guests already in the restaurant, all 20 of them] he continued to say "no". "No" to the room with the AV crew setting up an LCD projector and the long table of twenty covered with literature, "no" to the small one-table room with a party of eight already seated in it, and finally "no" to the empty room that had been reserved for a party of six--a little odd in itself because those guests had readily agreed to the $2000 revenue minimum for such a small party just to have the privacy.



"That room is empty--why can't we sit there?"



"The reserved guests will be arriving within the hour, sir."



"Then we will sit here," gesturing to a hemispheric booth usually used for parties of four, with direct sight to the empty private room and in clear view of 80% of the restaurant and its soon-to-arrive guests, but away from the windows and those pesky papparazzi.



"If you believe your party will be comfortable there, sir, you are welcome to the table."



And so the six members of the party [all but "phone guy"] squeezed themselves into the booth, while "phone guy" made a beeline for my position about thirty feet away.



"I know you're the one in charge, you're the one I talked to on the phone [part of this guy was utterly ridiculous, but part of him was very impressive]. I want you to know that if that empty room doesn't get sat with a private party, I am going to be very troubled. Very troubled."



"How did you know I was the one in charge when we were speaking on the phone--I could have just been a host, or the maitre d'?" I asked the question out of real curiosity--another rarity for me these days.



"I could tell."



"Phone guy" proceeded back to the both, squeezed himself onto one end, and they all proceeded to have, presumedly, lovely meal. "Mr. Hat" turned out to be unfailingly polite, to the point of making sure everyone at the table, speaking a foreign language amongst themsleves, all spoke English whenever my staff was present. He chose two excellent $600 bottles of wine with dinner, tipped extravagently, and joked with me about the world record for the greatest number of people ever seated at one table for four.



And, when one of our closing [and foreign-born] cocktail servers arrived about an hour into his meal, we finally found out who the utterly unrecognizable man in the gigantic hat actually was. When I googled his name, here were over 6 million hits--mostly in other languages. I have no doubt that "phone guy's" concerns would have been perfectly valid--in New York, Rio de Janiero, Jakarta, Mexico City, Johannisberg, or even Miami. Here, however, he was just another guy in a ridiculous hat. Someone may have wanted to take a picture, but not of the man, just of the hat itself.



And when, also about an hour into his meal, a very well-known US governor [not ours, and not Mark Sanford] walked into the vacant private room as a guest of the host, and everyone in the restaurant recognized him--I was even off the hook with "phone guy".

"In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher..."--The Dalai Lama


Our Easter service this year was picture perfect...almost. Not quite masochistic enough to subject ourselves to brunch, we do open an hour early for dinner service and generally receive throngs of pink pants, scores of baby-blue sport coats, and wagons full of screaming children just as the doors are unlocked.



This year was no different, and within fifteen minutes of opening a full third of our evening's reservations had been seated. Easter is easy--a couple of classic holiday specials are added to our regular menu, and while the check averages are unusually low due to the hordes of kids and once-a-year diners--guests generally keep the glory of the day in mind--its hard to be a pompous ass while out with your family to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.



The cherry on top of this relatively painless Sundae [pun mildly intended] is that because we open early and see mostly very early business, we close early as well--a full 90 minutes early--allowing me the rare thrill of NOT being "the last one home".



I could taste the getaway, was actually planning out a productive early evening campaign of drinking and relaxing, when it happened...



At 8:25pm a fat, slovenly, haphazardly dressed man strode through the door like the Saracens through the Christopher Gate--dimwitted, oafish son in tow.



"Your still serving, right--of course you are, its barely dark out...come on Nimrod [throughout the meal he referred to his giant, intensely stupid 20-ish son by name and in a fashion as if he were not even there--and while that constantly repeated name was not actually "Nimrod", it was pretty similar in timbre and foolishness], I'm going to pick my own table because I'm very particular and everything has to be just so and a third will be joining us eventually but we'll start with drinks and wait for him to arrive have someone follow us with menus...", and away he went.



The restaurant was nearly empty at this point, and the last dinners had been sent out of the kitchen over a half hour before--we were literally five minutes from being home free before this clearly troublesome man entered the building. I began to consider my options--the most attractive of which was to turn the dial on my watch ahead to 8:30pm, and then fetch the rude, fat man from my dining room and send him away to spread his personal brand of terror elsewhere. But then conscience got in the way.



Easter means alot to me--the years working in restaurants have not deadened the holiday's magic for me as they have for many other holidays [and my birthday]. Raised as a Roman Catholic and forever delighted with the comfort and elegance of the Rite of Mass, my religious philosophy is much more Deist than based in classic Catholic theology. The details of Easter as they relate to resurrection do not hold my attention nearly as much as the miracle of the story, the moral it delivers, and the myriad lessons that can be learned from the Easter Scripture. After all, nothing puts a bad day in perspective faster than the Stations of the Cross.



It was with these monumental events in mind that I considered how to approach my own personal King Herod. The answer presented itself in the form of the party's third guest, a delightful, frail old gentleman who entered the restaurant apologizing for his tardiness and telling me how much he had been looking forward to finally dining with us and how this visit from his departed wife's brother seemed the perfect occasion.



This nice old man enjoyed his meal and has since been back twice, thankfully with other companions. Before leaving that Easter evening, he also apologized for his brother-in-law with a simple, honestly-meant, "He's a lawyer, I hope you can forgive him".



It has taken me a while to describe this event because the verbatim exchanges between this most evil of men and my servers and between my servers and myself would go on nearly forever [even though the visit itself listed less than 90 minutes--the son apparently can't contain his truly bizarre behavior more than about an hour and twenty], and I have been trying to figure out the best way to indicate the travesty of the visit without boring anyone to tears.



In the end, a synopsis seemed most direct and effective:



1. Demanded a new waiter within five minutes of sitting down because the original server didn't "try to sell him" on tap water. To be more specific, the server approached the table and poured ice water as per policy. The guest then ordered a bottle of sparkling water, and when the waiter asked if he should remove the ice water or leave it, the guy asked how the ice water was. The server responded that our water was filtered and that he thought it was very good and often drank it himself. The guest tried the water, and then told the server that he could go ahead and bring the sparkling water anyway[dismissively, in the description given by the waiter, which I have no reason to doubt]. When the waiter returned in about one minute from retrieving the bottle of water, he was ordered away from the table because even though he had been specifically directed to get the bottle of water, he had not stayed to take the appetizer order that the guest had secretly wanted to place.



This guy replaced his waiter for not pushing bottled water as most restaurants do, pouring ice water, honestly giving positive responses to questions regarding he ice water, and then delivering the bottled water that the guest continued to request even after receiving the positive review of the tap water. Although, in the guest's defense, the waiter did fail to telepathically realize that the guest, whose party was incomplete, wanted to order appetizers at the same time as the drinks even though he had not yet opened the menu. So there is that, I guess...



2. Became very upset that he could not specifically pick his replacement from among the terrified cabal of servers clustered around me begging not to be given the table



3. Was then consecutively upset by first, how happy his "rejected" server seemed at losing the honor of waiting on him, and secondly by the replacement server's refusal to agree that what the original person had done was reprehensible.



4. Returned his caesar salad because he did not like, "a creamy caesar dressing--the only real caesar salad dressing is the vinaigrette caesar salad dressing".



5. Was put out that we did not have some sort of hand-held video game available for his gigantic son to use.



6. Ordered without consultation a bottle of wine, tasted and approved it, refused to have any poured beyond the initial taste, refused to admit any dissatisfaction with it or allow us to replace it, and at the end of the meal insisted on only paying for 7% [yes, seven percent was the quoted amount] of the bottle because it was "repugnant" [I declined to charge for any of the wine, which was quite nice, and drank the entire bottle myself in record time once he was out of sight].



7. Ordered his steak black and blue but demanded that only one side of the steak be charred. Was unhappy with the steak because it didn't "taste charred enough" and because it wasn't medium rare--which is not surprising given the fact that the steak was ordered black and blue. When the server suggested cooking the steak a bit more and charring the other side to alleviate his concerns the guest at first refused, then relented after entreating the server "not to let any cooks or that terrible first waiter spit on my steak". When his charred medium rare steak was returned to the table he complemented us on providing a "perfect black and blue" on the second try and was kind enough to let us know that there might actually be hope for us to be successful one day.



8. Left a 4% tip



Now, I have mentioned on more than one occasion that I have never, in my entire career, witnessed true sinister adulteration of someones food. Never seen anyone make a phlegm burger, or a butt steak, or a visine daiquiri [not even back in the day when such drink would have really acted as a violent laxative], or a "broom sandwich" [where the bread is slid along the dirty kitchen floor for a ways before the mayo is added and the sandwich finished],or any of the other legendary evil payback dishes. I have seen a server heat a cappuccino to such a degree after having it sent back three times for "being cold" that the woman left the first seven layers of her lips on the edge of the mug when she attempted to drink from it, and I have seen a server purposely dump a full bottle of wine all over the biggest prick in the world all the while making it look like a simple comedy of errors, but I have never seen an attack on food. With that said, I will bet you that this particular guest has consumed more restaurant staff biological matter in his life than a band of cannibals attacking a Cheesecake Factory. This guy absolutely begs to be poisoned.



Google result on the guy I call my "Easter penance": a personal injury lawyer from Saskatchewan.