An Absurd Assignment

“Your sister’s a health inspector?” Al asked. “And a man?”

“No, not the health inspector! The girl sitting across from him.”

“Oh, his date? Ugh…” She pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes tight. “What a can of worms. No, a whole barrel, actually. What sort of health inspector brings a date along?”

“More like what kind of health inspector is a teenage clown? I go to school with that guy. I’m actually the one who set this whole date up for them to start with. What the heck is Don doing working as a health inspector?”

Whatever the answer was, I already knew I wasn’t going to like it. The pieces were already starting to fall into place, form the squirreliest, most unlucky picture possible. So when Don said he knew just the place to take Replica this weekend, he meant…

“Never heard of him?” Lou asked as him and Fence sidled up on next to us. “That’s Donald McRonald, heir to the McRonald’s fortune and fast-food empire. Guy’s famous in the health inspection world.”

“Oh, I know him, alright.” I snapped. “And, gee, what did he do? Refuse to keep his balloon animals on a leash one too many times and get his license suspended or something?” I was getting a little lippy, I admit, and Lou hadn’t done anything to deserve it. But I could already tell that there was a whole metaphorical trainload of trouble chugging off the rails and careening straight towards us. Disaster? Imminent. All that was left to see was how everything was gonna blow up in all our faces.

And I was already thinking all of this before I even learned the “best” part:

“No,” Lou told me. “Even worse. He created a whole ‘nother set of standards to judge restaurant health safety by.”

“Huh?”

“And then he got his filthy rich family to pay off every relevant board and committee in the country, all to get his personal restaurant rating rubric approved for real use,” Al added, helping to fill in the blanks. The more blanks she filled in, the more I realized we’d be working tonight with a figurative loaded gun locked on and ready to fire. I gulped. Maybe, given the circumstances, it would just be a cork pop gun? Or, heck, at least a Nerf gun or something? Please?

POW!

Just then, a sharp and deafening ring filled the room.

Once my heart stopped hammering in my ears, I could hear Don talking to Replica: “Well? Funny, right? It’s trick gum! Super loud. All you have to do is blow a huge bubble, take something sharp” — he picked up a damn steak knife and pointed it towards his mouth, miming successive stabs — “and bam!”

“Woooow! That is so amazing, Don! You really know how to have fun!”

Tell that to the 30 other guests ducking for cover under their tables.

“S-so,” I said, licking my dry lips and remembering to breathe for the first time in a minute, “what are his criteria? How does he judge restaurants?” I knew I wasn’t gonna like the answer— if it was anything even half sane, we wouldn’t be having this conversation — but I had to know. Had to understand just how deep in it we were.

“By how funny they are,” Al said, then bit her lip.

“Oh, great. That's just fantastic. We should’ve kept the restaurant the way it was then.” Our raw steak soccer matches were enough to gutter up at least one or two good guffaws, right? “Now we’re just doomed. All this work getting our act together! And for nothing!”

“No.” Al shook her head. “Not yet. It’s not over yet.”

“Not over yet? How exactly is it not over yet? Cause it’s looking pretty damn over yet where I’m standing!”

“Yeah, bosslady…” Fence chimed in. “How are we gonna weasel outta this one? We’re not funny. Sad? Sure. Pathetic? Any day. Every day, actually. But funny?”

“No,” Al repeated. “I still have my trump card. An ace up my sleeve. One perfectly suited to getting us out of this exact particular happenstance, coincidentally enough.”

“And what’s that, Al?” Lou asked.

“You.” She pointed.

At me.

“Me?!”

“Yes, you.”

“Couldn’t be.”

“Then who? Listen." She leant down and cupped my shoulder in hands so sweaty they were practically leaking the eighth sea into existence. She looked straight into the depths of my heart with her twitching eyes. I caught a whiff of her breath, and whatever was lingering on it. I couldn’t exactly place the smell. Seventh maybe, or sixth, on my all-time worst smells list.

Looking back, I think that moment was when I really fell for her.

She whispered to me: “You’ve created some of the biggest messes this restaurant has ever seen, metaphorical and literal. So who better to clean up this one — the biggest we’ve ever faced, with all our collective jobs riding on it — than you?” Her grasp on my shoulders tightened, a plea in the form of touch. It told me all I needed to know. She was desperate. And she was counting on me. “You’ll do it, won’t you? Oh, I know you will.”

My mind was already made up. With one gulp, I swallowed all my hesitation. There was really only one thing I could say.

“Like hell I’m doing anything! I’m a terrible employee so I’m the one you turn to in our hour of need? What the hell kind of logic is that? Plus, that’s my sister out there, remember? She has dirt on me — partially your fault, by the way. If I mess up her date, she’s gonna get my mom to ground me for the rest of human history. So sorry, but that’s gonna have to be a no from me.”

“So that’s a yes then?” She smiled wide. And purposely ignored literally everything I was saying. “I knew you’d come through for us. Go get ‘em, tiger!” She slapped me on the back. Hard. “Get out there and make that clown laugh so hard he shoots milk out his nose!”

“But he’s not… drinking milk?”

“And whose fault is that? Get out there and serve. Serve like your life depended on it!” Without warning, she flung a tray with two tall glasses of milk sloshing around on it into my unready arms, so fast and so unexpected I nearly spilled the damn things right there. “Damn. I thought we might’ve had you spill those for a few cheap laughs. Just to get the ball rolling, you know?”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, trying to get the stupid wobbly tray balanced in my arms. “So what am I supposed to do? You know I’m not a waiter. I’m a dish washer, for crying out loud. And, hate to admit it, but not even a very good one.”

“First time for everything, right, dude?” Fence flashed me the least reassuring thumbs up I had ever seen in my life. “You got this!”

“We’re counting on you, man,” Lou added, visibly relieved he wasn’t being forced to play a part in all this.

“Ugh. Great. Just my luck.”

To be continued!