Sunday, and the boss is giving me grief for not having given the little darlings colouring-in stuff, crayons and what have you.

"It's the only way to stop the little sticky fingered bastards smashing the place up eh...", suggested the boss as he fingered the Crayola with the distant stare of a Vietnam Vet.

Personally I thought the chefs had enough to be doing what with a full restaurant but what you gonna do.

Heh.

Sheeeeeeit, I resent having my section turned into a pre-school arts and craft class. No, honestly, I don't want to look at the picture you've drawn of me. It's FUCKING SHIT and I look like a maniac dwarf in a goth styled comedy pirate shirt...okay it's fairly accurate but I still don't want to have to look at it and fake fucking smile and tell you it's great. You'll never learn that way matey.

I fucking hate kids, your kids that is. Mine is a top chap.

I'm not some Johnny-come-lately either. I've always hated kids, didn't like them at school, don't like them now.

And then every so often a little doe eyed darling crosses my path with more cuteness than a wheelbarrow full of fluffy puppies and my hard heart melts and I see the joy in children and remember the happy times from my childhood.

But that wasn't this fucking Sunday right.

Fuck no.

"Hello, can I get the bill pwease?"

I could hear a tiny voice, and not just the one in my head telling me to run away and live in a Scottish croft in the Highlands with nothing but a crow and a wise cracking owl for company, but couldn't see from which pie hole it emanated.

"Hello?"

"I did say can I have the bill pwease mate"

And looking down I could see the delicate hand of a child...the delicate but yet sticky hand of a child. Why are they always sticky? Is it, as I suspect, nose harvesting or are kids just too stupid to keep their hands clean?

"Oh hello young man, the bill is it?"

The little doofer nodded.

I printed the bill and as I handed it to him I said, "And are you paying the bill today young man? Have you got all the money?"

Kids love it when "the man" talks to them...or something...I dunno. But the boss was loitering so I thought I'd better make the effort.

"NO! MY DADDY HAS THE MONEY!", said the wee chap. It was all good fun. The kid was laughing along and from the corner of my eye I could see the boss's approving nods.

A little part of me died but I ploughed on. In for a penny in for a pound and all that.

"You don't have the money? Are you going to do the dishes then?"

"NO SILLY! MY SISTER DOES THE DISHES I'M TOO SMALL!"

"Okay then, well here you go", and I  passed him the bill.

I followed him down to the table...not in an Ian Huntley kind of way you understand but just so that I could check satisfaction levels from the non-tiny people.

Obviously I didn't want to steal the child's thunder, I could have, easily, I mean I could totally beat a kid in a race, even like a fit 9-year-old so I let him get to the table first.

Which is when I heard this...

"Here Da, yer mawn thinks he's a fucking comedian wah..."

WHAT THE WHAT?

In an instant the kid had skipped a decade or two and was now a bitter 45-year-old taxi driver with a failed marriage, kids that resent him and a slight touch of bronchitis that's why he only smokes the mild fegs nai. Gone was the doe-eyed darling of a moment ago and in was this nasty sweary little bollocks with the bitter attitude of a bus driver suffering from piles.

I looked to the father in hope that he would chastise his child and force the little twat into apologising.

But alas the behaviour is learnt from father to son so both the kid and I were ignored.

So there you go, swore at by a kid younger than most of my sock collection.

That Highland croft with the crow and wise cracking owl and no children sounds more promising by the day.

In the course of my day-to-day work I am required to contact future punters to check that the reservation they made a day a week or a month previous is still a thing they want to do and wasn't just booked on a whim. Customers make reservations mostly in good faith but are inevitably let down by others welching on the plans and such. Or there is of course the shitty little trick of making equivalent reservations in various restaurants and then choosing which one to fulfil at the last-minute.

That's a cunts trick and no mistake.

But if I don't phone to confirm then I'd never be told that the table of 30 is now a seven or that the table of 45 has changed their mind as they are a bit fucking tired having pissed about the Giant's sodding Causeway all afternoon.

Fuck you buddy, fuck you right here. **punches chest**

Reservations made on Friday nights are the worst. They are without a doubt the least reliable of all the reservations made. They are as reliable as weather forecasts made on the sitting/standing position of cows or whether or not the dog is eating grass in the garden. And don't even start me about weather warnings that rhyme.

Picture the scene it's 8pm on a Friday, yer three-sheets-to-the-wind on bottles of offer and half price cocktails and that bullshit (I'm not bitter honest) Friday feeling has you wrapped in that special kinda fuzz where everything is fucking awesome and you don't have to take the kids to various sports, dance, orchestra or other-parent commitments. You're not really married, you have no responsibilities or family. Hey Bob from marketing and Sue and the gang from HR are your family and you fucking love those guys now that yer juiced like a teenager and drinking from the premium whiskey selection. Being so utterly trollyed and happy that the working week is over you make plans that YOU are totally definitely, and not just saying honest you guys, going to fulfil. So yer all sitting about having a great ole time and in your mind you're recreating one of the happy house parties from 20/30-something mid 90s drama This Life and everything is totes amazeballs so you suggest they keep the good times rolling and all go out again the following night for dinner. Bob or one of the Brians or maybe it was Donna knows this fucking great place where the waiter is a hoot-riot and they can take a table of 15 no problem.

So you phone me.

Ya dick.

And I, being good people, take your reservation.

But then Saturday morning hits and it's like the scene after the house party in This Life and everything is less attractive and yer Da is knocking off one of your mates...metaphorically speaking of course. Then you realise you are actually married and you do have to take kid one to ballet and kid two to football and kid three, the eldest, was supposed to be at his actual Da's house an hour ago and the wife is pissed with you and the dog now has more rights to sit on the sofa than you and you really really fucking wish you'd gone home after one drink like you said you were gonna. And if you could get just one minutes peace to sort out your headache and hangover you'd be able to deal with everything.

But you can't and pretty much everybody in the house is shouting at you.

And then I phone...like the fucking legend I am. I am the polite end of the hangover pain but I am a pain all the same.

Now you can try and lie and say you never made such a booking. But how else would I have your name and number hmmm? Don't bullshit a pro-bullshitter, I bullshit for a living for fuck sake. "Yeah, the salmon's totally organic and that's not a hair, that's a rare Japanese flower fibre that we use in all our burgers."

Bullshit me my ass. But nine times out of ten tables booked late on a Friday evening for a Saturday for six people or more will never happen.

Anyhoo, I am getting so off the point of this post Imma need a road map to get to my original point.

Yeah so I have to contact tables, normally by phone, to confirm their reservations. It's normally a fairly quick , "All y'all still coming? Same time? Wonderful!" type of call.

Normally.

But I had to phone one the other day...that wasn't normal, not at all.

Ring Ring Ring..

"Ah-woe", answered a tiny person. (A child, not actual tiny person)

"Oh ah-woe, sorry, hello, can I talk to your mummy?"

"MUMMY!"

No response

"MUUUUUUMMMMMMMEEEEEEE"

No response. Which was surprising as I'm sure that darling little rug rat could be heard all the way back to the start of time.

"MUM MUM MUM MUM MUM", shouted the child. Eventually I heard the tell-tale response of a hassled mother. "WHAT?"

"Daddy's on the phone"

Say what? Fucking sure he isn't! I know kids are essentially dumb but you'd think they'd know what their own Da sounds like.

The receiver was passed or rather snatched from child with a snappy, "Gimme that". Pfft, no need thought I, as under 6-year-old secretaries go she wasn't bad.

"Right, what the fuck do you want now?", snarled a sweary country woman from the country...country of Fuckthefuckupyefuckeristan...probably.

WHAT THE WHAT? I was momentarily taken aback and rendered speechless. I also wondered if the kid was still sitting there but mainly in my mind I was moving them out of my section for Saturday night and into somebody else's.

"Oh hello it's Manuel here...you have a table for Saturday night..."

"Oh fuck boys a dear you're not the child's fether!"

We laughed, well she did, I was still too busy playing table Tetris in my head to care what she was saying.

Regretfully she confirmed the table.

I await the sweary bastards with bated breath and earplugs.

Anyhoo, stop booking tables on Friday nights when yer pished and don't let the kids answer the phone.

***

coming soon...

A reliable source, Deepthroat (LOL), contacted me late this afternoon with a tale so tremendous, so utterly magnificent I was sure it was made up. But Deepthroat (LOL) assures me the information is both accurate and reliable as he was there himself to witness and overhear the incident itself.

With this in mind I offer it you as it was told to me...but with slightly bigger words. Heh.

Obviously as citizens of the Internet you are all aware that today is the abhorrent Steak & Blowjob Day. A hideous thing created by tiny brained men with even tinier appendages, to make themselves feel big and powerful by getting their imaginary or more likely World of Warcraft girlfriends to cook them cow meat and "blow" their woo-woos.

It's almost beyond tragic, beyond sadness that it is almost to easy to take a pop at.

Anyhoo, I digress.

Cut to a busy central Belfast restaurant at lunchtime today, Thursday, and in walk two men in black suits (MiB) freed from the bonds of their office work for an hour or so.

These MiB are normal clean-living dudes, sensible haircuts, sensible shoes, nothing out of the ordinary, possibly even, dare I say it, religious types. In a town like Belfast, you have an 83% chance of running into a "religious type", therefore this is a fair assumption.  Deepthroat (LOL) really could've been a double-O agent had it not been for that minor "incident" in the charming, delightful, quaint and picturesque Bolton, on his otherwise unblemished personal citizenship record.  Mmmm pies.

So, the MiB have been seated comfortably at their table by their verrrry friendly waitress, enjoying the various mis-matched soft furnishings at their disposal and perusing the menu.  The perusal of the menu at this particular establishment is a task requiring some degree of concentration, which is presumably why they didn't notice Deepthroat (LOL) gawping at them.

Said verrrrry friendly waitress eventually returns to their table to take their order. Says MiB #1 "I think I'll have the fish pie".  "Why of course sir", responds the verrrry friendly waitress...  "And for you, sir?"

Says MiB #2 "I'm going to go for  the steak".

Upon which the verrrry friendly waitress responds "And will sir be wanting a blow job with that?"

Well, Deepthroat (LOL), who was in the middle of gobbling his lunch, nearly spat his cow pie all over his poor dining partner.  Spitting, so unfortunate in a situation that really lends itself to swallowing.

You know the bit in the real MiB movie, where TLJ and Big Willy look at each other with a silent, knowing gaze, then disappear off, leaving people wondering what just happened? Well, that just happened. MiB #1 looked at MiB#2, not a word was spoken, and the two of them got up and left.

Now, dear reader, as you will know, Manuel is no stranger to the upsell. More sales mean bigger bills mean bigger percentages mean more lovely lovely tips.  Manuel flirts, cajoles, titillates, titivates, lies, bullshits, blows smoke up so so so many arses.... but he always keeps it clean. Manuel is all about the classy.

Obviously the verrrrry friendly waitress was something of a hilarious wag, but.... WHAT WAS SHE THINKING? KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.  Egg and stuff all over her face (or not, as the case may be).  Shafted herself somewhat - no tip.

Poor MiB.

Look at you.

Sitting there like butter and other delicious dairy products wouldn't melt in yer pie hole.

Eh, proud of yerself are ya?

Yes it's you I'm talking to.

Sitting there all smug and happy with yer face and hair and arms and all that palaver.

Think yer the big fella/lassie [delete as appropriate] don't ya?

Just because you're the customer you think yer right all the live long day, don't ya?

Hmmm? You like that don't you, being the customer and being right?

I'm here to tell you that yer not right, yer most often wrong and if it wasn't for people like me you'd spend your life smashing yer fists into bowls of spaghetti and wondering why you can't get it in yer  horse hole.

Ya dicks.

I know what yer thinking, 'Oh he's off on one again, who put the red sauce on the lamb?'

Fuck you.

It's called ketchup you mouth breathing, arm gnawing, finger sniffing, crotch rubbing then sniffing troglodytes and it wasn't lamb it was sole, precious delicate sole.

Did you know that being a fisherchap is one of the most dangerous professions in the world? Actually it is the most dangerous profession in the world. More dangerous than being a logger or a pilot or a roofer or a farmer or the dude that reads lines with Adam Sandler. I mean there's a gig that's got to involve a high level of suicide brought on by mind numbing boredom and face spit.

Trawlermen scour or ahem trawl the world's oceans and seas and whatever to find you the loveliest fish. They brave angry waters and the sort of weather conditions that would have you weeping with utter fear. Not me, I'm hard like that. They die, regularly - 115 deaths per 100,000 fishermen to be precise for your fish suppers.

So you know, wee touch of respect wouldn't go a miss eh. If you take something beautiful and cover it in mass-produced red sludge then yer a dickhole, seriously. It happens all the bloody time and it irks me. The worst bit? People who ask for some condiment or sauce or other and then proceed to slather their fish or lamb or whatever in it like they had to or their children would be ground up for lulz by a Dickensian mill owner without even tasting it.

WITHOUT EVEN TASTING IT!

COME ON PEOPLE WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!

Look, I get it...I really do. You're the punter, you pay the wages yada yada yada and if you wanna cover your lovingly prepared dinner that you are paying a premium for with a combination of chefs ass sweat and corner mouth gloop then I as your waiter will obviously try to facilitate that for you. But seriously, beautiful pink duck breast drowning in odious "brown" sauce like a sea-bird trapped in BP oil in the Gulf of Mexico? That's NOT cool!

You exhaust me with your needs and stupidity and faces and bags that for reasons only clear to you must sit in the middle of the floor in the trippy/fally zone.

But freedom of choice is a thing now what with the UN and Shami Chakrabarti and Bono and such . One has to live with the democratic choices made with free will by you, the punter. Although I am starting to see why the lolalists reject democracy.

But what blunts my blade more than the inappropriateness of the brown sauce-duck inclusion is the flippancy of the average customer towards food waste.

"Nah, don't care mate...make me the chicken instead....just bin that one", said the frightfully brutish young man with the monobrow and heavy head of a more Jurassic aged humanoid.

"Just.Bin.That.One."

He didn't fancy the duck. It wasn't what he expected it to be. The duck. He didn't expect the duck to be, you know, so fucking duck like. He's fucking quackers. And so rather than try and broaden his culinary horizons and such he insisted I bin the duck and get him a chicken. I did just that and charged him for both. He assumed, laughably, that I would give him the chicken for free. Fuck that matey. The duck was good, you're just a douche.

Extreme example I know but it happens all the time from the people who order too much food despite being told they've done so to people ordering food just because it's part of  a deal not because they want it or need it.

What is it? Greed? Entitlement? What? Why order food you don't want? Why would you do that? It makes no sense. It's the work of someone with more than a dim mind.

Why don't you just have the chefs serve smaller portions I hear you mumble with yer top lip all pouty and that.

Why? Because you lot would have conniptions, and I don't even know what conniption are but it sounds like the sort of thing you lot would have or do in a hissy fit, if you weren't served a small mountain of food every time you go out to eat.

Like I say, you exhaust me.

Please stop it. Respect food. Order what you want but think about what you need. Taste the food before you season it and/or bukkake it in the red splooge of the Heinz family eh. Can't finish it? Get it wrapped to take home. We, as a society and by we I mean you, throw away enough food to fill Wembley stadium filled with 70,000 Stevie Nolans everyday or something. I dunno, I might have made that up but whatever, it's a lot. Food, like waiters and the chums of waiters, is precious and not to be wasted or taken lightly. One day this will be the norm, seriously... "Restaurant charges for uneaten food" **Daily Mail Klaxon**

Come on people, I can't be the last right thinking person left on earth...that's too much pressure for me when I'd rather be making paper aeroplanes and eating nougat.

Oh hey, didn't see you there.

*Lifts chair, sits on it back to front like a cowboy*

Actually that's nonsense, I really can't pull of the cowboy look...think of it more like a school councillor who is trying to get down with the kids.

*Lifts chair, sits on it back to front like a school councillor who is trying to get down with the kids*

You know, we've had a lot of fun on here. Well I have. I can't possibly testify as to your level of amusement or otherwise. But suffice to say I amuse the b'jesus out of myself...and that's important for my personal wellbeing.

Anyhoo, we've had a lot of laughs, well some laughs, on here. Again, what I find funny you may find excruciatingly dull or something. If that's the case you probably better toddle of now and boil yer head or something because it isn't going to get any better, quite the contrary I would suggest.

**Shuffles uncomfortably on seat and wishes I'd sat on it the way that Jesus (carpenter Jesus not son of god Jesus) had intended but has committed to it now**

Customer complaints are a rich vein of golden nuggety blog gold. I remember with fondness the lady that complained that her gravy was "too brown". And who can forget the man who had a tomato on his plate that he was sure was going to kill him or something. And, ha ha ha ho ho ho **slaps thigh** what about the time when ha ha ha hee hee hee the guy with ha ha ha ho ho ho.

Well you get the point.

The thing about complaints and the unmuzzled swag-bellied malt worms that make them is that they must be attached to someone in order for them to survive in the wild. Unattached complaints are the stuff of old men shouting in the street. More often than not I am the one that whinge must be clamped on to. I must receive the beef and take the blame for it too...the law of smelt it dealt it plays on the restaurant floor as much as it does in all-male classrooms.

In other words, everything is my fault.

This was again made evident this evening.

Gather round and let me share with you another tale of responsibility abdication most horrid.

**shuffles seat closer to readers**

**hurts clackers whilst shuffling, takes a personal moment to steady self**

"Hi, yeah I'd like, you know, yeah...I'm going to need..maybe...you know..."

I was tempted to jump in with 'some other words to complete the sentence' but decided to hold fire and see where crazy was going. She was an American lady. Her accent was quite indefinable, suffice to say it was American and drawlish.

She was still saying random words without ever getting to the point.

"...you know...I...maybe...window...sit...out...look"

Christ the Miller family had more coherent conversations with that tedious fucking bore of a dog, Lassie.

Anyhoo once we had worked out that there wasn't a child trapped down a well and that she wanted a table beside the window so she could look out at all that was going on things started to move along at a more waiter friendly pace.

Wine was ordered.

Food was ordered.

Wine was humped and more wine was ordered and more wine was humped and on this continued until I suggested she get a bottle and maybe save a few quid.

"Sir, do I look like the sort of woman who drinks a bottle of wine on her own?"

Yes, yes you fucking do...no question about that. You look exactly the sort of person who drinks a bottle of wine most evenings and breakfasts and mid afternoons on their own. But I didn't say that. One must refrain from personal insults...or something.

I made my apologies and backed away gracefully...well you know what I mean, muttering and swearing and such.

Five minutes later and she hailed me back to her table with a daggerous look and a face that suggested maybe there was a bottle wine trapped down a well.

"Sir, why did you seat me here?'

Excuse me?

"Why did you seat me here, beside this window?"

Madam, you were quite specific when you arrived, you said you wanted a window seat so could look out at all that was going on. (Imagine I read that bit from a policeman's notebook because that's what I was imagining at the time.)

She ignored that and ploughed on with her whinge, "I mean there's nothing to see, it's dark outside and even if I could see outside I very much doubt that there would be anything worth looking at. SO WHY DID YOU SEAT ME HERE?"

She had a proper nark on now and was practically frothing at the mouth...well there as gloop and gloop is a type of froth so ergo she was frothing at the mouth. From what I could surmise her complaint was threefold.

Issue one, it was dark outside and she couldn't see anything. The fuck was that my fault. If I could control the sun and the moon and other celestial bodies I would do so for my own amusement. I would not be benevolent god type either.

Issue two, even if it wasn't dark outside there was nothing going on worth looking at. Again, not ma problem hen. If I could have the good citizens of Belfast perform at the drop of a hat I would do so for my amusement not yours. I would not be a loveable and respected Michael Flatley type either. I'd be cruel for the lulz.

Issue three, I sat her there beside the void, the darkness the empty space. Okay, I did do that but at her request, nay at her insistence.

She stared at me. Her question was not to be taken rhetorically it seemed.

Madam, you requested a table by the window.

"NO, I REQUESTED A TABLE WITH A VIEW!'

No, you fucking didn't, E.M. Forster did, sort of...you requested a table beside a window so you could gaze at the performing oiks below.

I sighed, apologised and walked away muttering about moving the Taj fucking Mahal, the Giants truffling Causeway and the Harlem Globetrotters to Belfast for her amusement and such.

Sometimes I want to stab fish...just for the craic. It looks rewarding.

So now I must accept darkness and the inactivity of street folk as being my fault.

I am a bastard and no mistake.