Buns and Guacamole Guns

I was going through our file box and I dug up an old project I did for a creative writing class. It makes me laugh every time I read it, so I figured I'd post it for a pick-me-up on a gloomy day. Enjoy!

Buns and Guacamole Guns: The Wonderful and Misunderstood World of Fast Food

I've heard several people tell me that they don't ever want to work in food service. The excuses given for this aversion vary, but the general underlying reason is implied as "I'm too good to work fast food." Not that I could ever voice that conclusion out loud without getting an earful of protest, of course. For some reason, fast food has a bad reputation of baseness and a lack of dignity and refinement.

At fifteen, I had the same mindset. Someone out there was bound to recognize that although I needed a work permit with a parental signature, I was really much more mature and skilled than just any fifteen-year old. Surely there was a job I could get that didn't involve flipping burgers or frying chicken. After several weeks of inquiring in store after store in strip mall after strip mall, I got hired on at the local dry cleaners. I was elated - it actually paid above minimum wage (by fifteen cents), I had Sundays off, and I didn't have to ask if you wanted fries with your order. My teenage pride, swollen from avoiding the food industry at my first job, overshadowed the pit stains, dust, dingy lighting, and ubiquitous smell of starch and B.O.

The next summer, I was not so lucky. In April, I went back to the strip malls to look for another job, but as before, my skills and maturity somehow seemed undervalued. I heard my best friend Megan had a job at the new sandwich shop that was opening up on Broadway. She said that three or four of our other friends had been hired there too, and wouldn't it be so much fun if we could work together all summer? I wouldn't have hesitated a second in giving her my usual line about the food service industry if she hadn't told me how much she was making. It's amazing the amount of pride people sacrifice for money.

The next few weeks found me in an ugly, oversized polo and a matching flesh-colored ball cap, training to be a cashier at Schlotzsky's Deli. The polos became more of a blow to my ego as they got to be varying degrees of khakiness with every wash and mustard stain. But once I got over the hideous uniforms, I began to discover the hidden and under appreciated world behind the cash register.

You'd think that one of the major benefits to working in food service would be eating the food. I thought the same thing when I started working at the deli. I soon discovered that this is a myth for the most part. Sure there are messed up sandwiches every once in a while, or cheesed bun halves (if you're lucky), and as much free soda as you can drink, but those are small consolation for eight-hour work days. No, the greatest perk about the food in the food industry is playing with it. 

The greatest fun to be had int he back of a restaurant is found in tricks or games played with whatever you're supposed to be cooking, baking, or selling. My personal favorite was Jenny's discovery that if you squirt garlic butter onto the toaster oven belt, it gives off a bluish haze and makes the kitchen small like a Chinese restaurant for a good fifteen minutes. Eating jalapenos to induce hiccups and warring with guacamole guns were additional sources of endless entertainment on slow weekday afternoons. Once we exhausted those options, we turned to bread.

Schlotzky's Deli owes a great deal of its popularity to its bread. Rosalina and Juanita got there early every morning to bake it fresh. The savory scents of sourdough, jalapeno, and rye that wafted around the block were by far our best marketing strategy. The most popular variety was a spongy sourdough with sesame seeds baked about an inch high in a round pan. In the mornings, we sliced the buns, put the shredded cheese on, stacked them on huge metal trays, and covered them with plastic for easy use during lunch rushes. The fun started when one side of the bun fell on to the floor. If the fallen half was pre-cheesed, but lonesome half made for an excellent snack. If not, both halves made for excellent Frisbees. Dropped pizza crusts flew just as well, if not better. In any case, waiting until the manager's back was turned was vital to maximum enjoyment.

Unfortunately, food service isn't all fun and games; on rare occasions, there is work to do, which may explain why food service is generally avoided as an industry. One major complaint about food service is the cleaning involved. Cleaning your oven or bathroom once in a while at home is a chore, so cleaning an oven or bathroom every day that has been much more trafficked sounds like an absolute pain in the neck. This assumption is true, to a certain extent. I cannot say that I enjoyed sweeping up the little bits of shriveled lettuce that dropped from the tables and stuck endlessly to the broom. I cannot say that scrubbing the inside of the walk-in freezer when all you're wearing is an ugly, oversized polo and a matching flesh-colored ball cap is pleasant either. What I will say is that if you can manage to look past the dust balls and sticky soda spills, you will find a world of opportunity.

Take, for instance, a simple sanitizer rag. According to FDA regulations, the rags you wipe down tables and counters with in restaurants have to contain a certain percent of sanitizing solution. On the one hand, the solution the rags soak in chaps the hands and offends the nose. If the tables and counters  have been sufficiently and recently cleaned, the acrid smell of something between vinegar and bleach pervades the entire restaurant. On the other hand, there is no tool more useful in flirting than a wet sanitizer rag. Proper usage of sanitizer rags may be summed up in the following steps:

1. Drain the rag to a decent degree of dampness. Do not over-drain or your rag will not snap. Do not under-drain, or your rag will splash you in the eyes with sanitizer.
2. Take opposite corners of the rag in either hand and twist the rag into a tube-like shape. The tighter the rag, the more pain you will incur on your victim. 
3. Snap or flick the rag in the general direction of your flirting target with desired degree of vigor. Aim for legs, arms, back, and/or rump. Add a giggle, laugh, smirk, or witty one-liner for maximum effect.
4. Watch for the return snap from your flirting target. Repeat steps as necessary.

I have found these steps to be incredibly effective. If followed correctly, they result in hours of late-night entertainment, a small audience of Amish tourists on vacation, bragging rights from various battle scars and bruises, and, if you're really good, a date to Senior Homecoming.

Despite my discoveries in the wonderful world of food service, I continue to hear boasts in disguise of "I'm too skilled, mature, experienced, or other adjective for the food service industry." to that engorged teenage sentiment I reply, "Take your desk job and your coffee mug. I'll keep my sanitizer rags and guacamole gun." It appears that the world's best kept secret might remain hidden behind cash registers and ugly, oversized polos a while longer.