Armchair Anonymous: Service Industry

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Patrick Mahomes, quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs.

And I'm Taylor Swift, because now-.

We are heroes.

That's, football is connected to Taylor.

That team, too.

Oh, it is? It is. Oh, cool. Wait, what?

There's a guy on the Chiefs that's dating Taylor Swift.

Oh, really?

You're so out of the loop.

She was at the game against the Bears this last week.

And now women care about football, so it's exciting.

Oh, the NFL should write her a check.

The NFL posted on their official Instagram about it.

And they put, like, Taylor was here this day. How could they not? Yeah. Well, unfortunately, this episode is not about Taylor sightings. It is about the service industry.

Yeah.

So let me just say, this one's as serious of a warning, maybe more, to not listen to.

No, this is the worst.

Asterisk, hold on, asterisk, though. The first three, you can listen to.

Yeah.

The fourth one, you shan't listen to. And if you do, I don't wanna hear no bullshit, because I'm telling you right now, you're gonna fucking puke.

You can be brave if you want.

Let me also add, I loved that episode.

Loved the whole episode and that story, and that is a hero. That server is a hero.

Absolutely.

And I want you guys to listen, because I feel like that person deserves to be listened to, but I also don't want you to puke.

But you can't suggest people listen to it. Truly, you can't. Oh, well. No, it's not to be listened to. Don't do it.

Hard times, come and go.

I'ma keep on shining.

How are you? Is this Presley?

I'm so good, this is Presley. Monica, I'm in the closet. My light doesn't work. Oh, no. We have the computer light.

Yeah, you look great.

Monica, thank you. Daps. I also wanted to show you really quick, I have a crow tattoo.

Oh, wow.

Oh, my Lord, in flight, no less. I love it.

When you had that expert.

The owl expert.

And you were talking about your love of crows, I was like, honored. I'm in Austin, Texas.

There's a lot of overlap. Austin, Corvettes, this is something else. Okay, so, Presley, you have a crazy service industry story, and does it take place in Austin? And was it throwing us out of Barton Springs? Would that be a ding, ding, ding?

Oh, that would be great.

It is not. I didn't end up kicking anyone out. They let themselves out after this.

Oh, okay.

So it was my second weekend at this bar. I'm a bartender, I still work at this bar. And it was around 8 p.m. on a Friday, so it's gonna pick up. It's a weekend in a bar.

Okay, really quick. As a bartender, you must be able to stereotype certain orders. Because, to my knowledge, Long Island iced teas are for people on their 21st birthday. Like, they don't know what they're doing. They haven't figured out their drink yet.

But they just wanna get hammered quick.

Yeah, blacked out as quick as possible.

That was the exact goal of this trio, which I kind of picked up on. When they came in, though, I didn't think they had been drinking too much. Like, maybe a couple of drinks, but I was like, okay, they can handle a few. Long Island iced teas. I go do my rounds.

They shotgunned them.

Which is terrifying.

Yeah.

For people who haven't had one, just break one down for us.

It's all the clear liquors in the well. Oh!

There's no triple sec in. there, is there?

There sure is.

Oh, okay, okay, great. They should come with a barf bag, like an air sickness bag.

I really want to hear the rest of the story, but I also want you, as an expert in bartending, to-.

Tell us other stereotypes?

No, well, yeah, but also, if you had to say what our drinks would be, obviously, Dax can't drink, but personality-wise?

Yeah. Monica steps up, what do you think she's gonna order? Yeah. Mind you, you know us a little bit, so it's-.

Yeah, try to erase that.

Because, I listen, I was like, wine. She's a wine gal, but if you came up and I didn't know that, be like a whiskey sour.

Oh, wow.

Okay. What a compliment. That is a huge compliment. I appreciate that. I'm not a whiskey person, but I want to be a whiskey person.

Once you shave the side of your head, you'll like it.

And Dax, Ted Figures, man. Yeah.

God bless you, God bless you. No, but you don't know me, you think I'm there to drink, what do you think my order's gonna be? Because I feel like my drink was very on brand for me.

I would've honestly said whiskey and a beer in one order.

Nice, really nice.

Maybe Jameson and Miller Lite.

Very well done. Really, really well done. It would've been Jameson, although there were nights where I got into some Jameson, but my standard was Jack and Diet. I drink 12 Jack and Diets. It's so great.

Oh, for sure. A little caffeine. I like that.

And it's kind of a mixed messages too, because one's really masculine, one's feminine. At least. in the 90s, when I was drinking, men weren't stepping up to the bar and proudly wanting a Diet Coke. That used to be in a masculating order.

I have a group of four guys that are regulars, and they're pilots, workout, 20s. They go up to the bar every weekend forging in tonics. Oh, I love that.

I love that.

I love counter-programming.

Mixed messes.

Yeah, mixed messes get messy. What happened? Mixed messes. Oh, right, good, good, good. We're trying to remember all of our catchphrases for some other thing, but mixed messes is one.

Yes, so then, when I come back around, I grab the empty glasses, and I'm like, y'all want to get any dinner, any waters?

Oh, my God, is it their last night of living?

Yeah, are they going to prison at midnight to be able to turn themselves in?

I go to the kitchen. I'm just planning on staggering it, waiting a few minutes, just not revisiting the table. For a sec, I come back out, and he has gone to another bartender and gotten three tequila shots. He was hellbent on these shots. So when I come by, it's just three empty shot glasses.

So the guy is a guest.

Okay, I gotta break in and say, tactically for this guy.

I know, bad idea.

So he's juggling two things, is my guess. He has to be drunk enough that he has a chance at lasting while servicing both women. So that's priority number one.

But isn't that the opposite?

I thought whiskey dick means like it doesn't work.

What you're trying to get to is the sip before whiskey dick, so that you can last. the longest. Like the drunker you are, the easier it is to last for a guy. Then you can tip into whiskey dick, and now, what's the point? It sounds like he's charging towards whiskey dick.

I think he's nervous, and that's why.

I think all three are nervous. At this point, I'm like, okay, how about that burger?

Wonderful.

And really quick, she wants you to see this. So they're now wanting this to be an orgy, not a threesome.

Or they're just exhibitionists also.

It's so shocking. And she's also trying to talk to me, and I'm like holding stuff. I like eight orders on my mind, and I'm listening, and she's like, my girlfriend thinks, you know, slurring. She's like, he's really cute. But I think you're really, and she vomits.

Oh, no. The whole burger she just ate. Oh my God.

The burger, the island, the water.

I was bending over, so it's like-.

On you?

It's on.

No.

It is everywhere. I can feel it. And because it's a bar, way too much skin is exposed. Yeah.

Right.

And I like stand up. They are still completely unfazed.

A wall of fire couldn't stand in the way of their passion, it sounds like.

No, it could not. I'm just in shock.

And she was just on the verge of telling you she thinks you're really cute, right?

Now, hold on a second.

Is there any shot, I'm probably gonna tip into too perverse, but could she have also been climaxing at the moment? she threw up? Because she was getting stimulated. Do you think everything just happened at once, perhaps?

Oh, my God.

You should make a prompt.

I'm sure it's happened.

It happened on the grate, which I loved. Remember, he was poisoned, and he was just climaxing, and he lost it out of both sides. Yeah, I mean.

So yeah, I went to the bathroom, cleaned up, again, it was 8.30.. I had hours left. When I come back through, they're gone. Whole table's cleared out. I had his card for the tab, so they didn't walk it.

Oh, my God.

I go to the back, and one of the other bartenders is back there, and he's like, hey, you're table four. There's a mess over there. And I was like, thank you for telling me.

Thank you.

Oh, my God.

Listen, I wanna put this out into the universe. The odds that any one of the three that were involved in this are listening, very low, right? We'd have to say it's one in 300, given how many people listen to the show. But if, by some miracle, one of the three is listening, we definitely need a follow-up of what happened. That was 8.30..

You're right.

They did not go to bed at 9.30..

Also, she puked, so she's back to normal.

Rally. She's, yeah.

Puking rally, yeah.

Puking rally.

There's a military base around Austin, Texas. I do think he was one of those gentlemen who had come down for a fun time, maybe from an app or something.

Wow.

That's just the vibe of cut, tattoo, the build. Also, I'm sure y'all are about to have to go, so I have to show y'all something.

What are we looking at?

Is it on it?

The dog?

Yeah, it's a dog with shades on. Yes.

I'm ordering like a bunch of just dog paintings. Oh, cause we have a dog painting.

I couldn't find the connective tissue.

Yes, so anytime I'm like FaceTiming anyone, there's just a dog behind me, and I feel like y'all.

Can I tell you, and maybe this is egomaniacal, well, let me ask you, someone less egomaniacal, what did you think we were about to see?

I thought maybe it was gonna be a picture of you at our show.

Yes, I thought maybe that we had all taken a picture together at maybe the Austin show, and that we were gonna see that, and then we go to a dog. The dog's black and white, but the reflection in his sunglasses is colored.

Right, did you think? maybe we were painted in there?

In the reflection.

Yeah, in the sunglasses.

I'll get a painting commissioned to where y'all are in the reflection of the sunglasses.

Oh, that was really funny.

Oh my God, Presley, this has been phenomenal.

Thank y'all so, so much.

Nice to meet you.

Yeah, it's really nice to meet you. I hope we bump into you in Austin. Take care. Bye. What a cutie.

It's a good prompt.

Wonder how that night turned out. Yeah, I really hope someone in the audience knows that couple, because I wanna know if anyone performed.

Yeah, what are the chances?

It's like they were off to a good start.

I know, I feel like the chances are low. it actually ended up.

They should have hooked up before they went out for drinks. They should have hooked up, gone out for drinks, had some fun, then hooked up again. Hello. Hi. Can you hear us?

I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Absolutely. Jeremy, where are you?

I am in Asheville, North Carolina.

Oh, my God.

We just had an Austin,

and now we have an Asheville. Two of our faves.

Top fives, yeah. Are you from there, or did you locate there?

I am from here. This is also where the story takes place.

Oh, fantastic.

I was in the service industry for about 10 years, and this story is actually partially why I am no longer in the service industry.

Okay, can't wait.

I actually had kind of a Sim moment yesterday with all this. I was listening to y'all's episode with David Chang, and the chef that I was working for at the time of this also worked at Kraft.

Oh, no way.

Oh, really? And then I got home from work, and I saw the email. I was like, oh shit.

Wow.

Very ding, ding, ding.

That's very Simmy.

So anyways, this was about seven years ago. I was a sous chef at a fairly high-end restaurant in downtown Asheville. Big touristy area. It's a Saturday night, super busy.

Will you tell people what a sous chef does?

Sous chef means like under chef. So I was one step under the chef de cuisine, and then we had the executive chef, which was the owner. So I was kind of helping out people on the line, making sure all their prep was ready, making sure food was going out on time if anybody was kind of dragging behind on tickets.

You're like a fixer.

Yes, exactly. So I was on the line that night, which is already a bad sign. if I'm having to be on there helping people out. We're just slammed. I'm kind of in between the saute and the grill station, and then further down, there's a fry station, and then the kitchen actually opens up to where the bar and where all the guests are sitting out in the dining room.

A thingy?

Yeah, she's like, I dropped a thingy in the fryer. In my mind, I'm like, oh, it's probably a thermometer.

I would have thought it was something like feminine that she didn't want to tell me.

But also, thingy is so cute and weird.

Well, she definitely didn't want to tell me what it was, I learned. So nothing. that's not supposed to be in a fryer. being in a fryer is ever good. Like if it's plastic, it's gonna melt.

Wait, oh, no.

A whippet. No.

And they're combustible, right?

They're pressurized metal containers, probably a couple ounces of nitrous oxide. So I'm immediately like, oh shit. Oh my God.

Yeah.

Explode.

And spray hot oil all over everything.

Yeah, so I'm like, this is gonna shoot out, it's gonna hit somebody, like going at high velocity, and it's like 400 degrees. This is not good. I immediately grab a pair of tongs, cause I can see it, and I'm like, okay, it hasn't gone off yet, I got this. Grab a pair of tongs, reach in, and the tongs had probably just broken the surface. when the thing just explodes.

My God.

Fuck me.

And I don't know if you've ever thrown firecrackers, like M-80s into a barrel of water, and it just kind of, or like when people go fishing with dynamite. Yeah, yeah. Real redneck shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like that, and it just coated me with hot oil.

Oh, fuck, did it get you on your face?

It got on my face, it got everywhere. Oh my. So you hear this explosion, and then you just hear me go, fuck, the top of my lungs, and the dining room just goes silent. Everybody just kind of looks up. Oh my God.

You just exploded in a vat of fucking, oh my God.

Oh, my God, did anyone call 911?.

No, so I run downstairs and the owner's down there. At this point, I'm still pretty calm. I'm like, I don't feel anything. I'm like, I should probably go to the hospital. Like, the skin's off my arm.

Have they given you any pain meds or anything?

No, they couldn't do it until the doctor could get there. And the doctor was at home because it's Saturday night.

What if he was at the restaurant? He's like, I just got to finish this meal. Something just blew up. So it slowed down a bit.

They should have asked if there was any doctors like they do on the plane. On the airplane.

Yeah.

Is there any doctors having dinner right now?

Should have just asked if anybody there had any painkillers. I mean, it's a party town. I'm sure somebody had something.

Someone's carrying.

But also you have to like fix that fast.

They were basically like, well, there's nothing we can do for you except give you painkillers. No. It was insane. The blisters. I don't know if you've ever seen the alien movies, but it kind of looked like the alien's head, like all swollen.

Yeah.

And so after that time, I went back and shortly after put in my notice and I was like, I am literally burnt out.

Yeah, what did you switch to?

I packed what I could in my car, drove off to Montana and worked on a cattle ranch for a little while.

Get the fuck out. All right, no, I don't want to make you insecure, but I am curious how you lost your fingers. Cause I was like, did the fucking grease cause that? I couldn't help but think that.

You might not like this story. I'll give you a guess. If you had to guess what this was. I listened to the Chris Palmer episode and I heard you guess that one.

I would definitely go woodworking of some sort.

No, it was a motorcycle accident.

Oh, no.

Yeah, I still ride though.

Dirt bike or street bike?

Street bike. I was on a Ducati on the highway.

Well, if you got to go down, it's nice to be on an Italian.

I was actually really upset cause I was like, oh, my God, I just fucked up my bike. And then I saw my hand and I was like, oh, I also fucked up my hand.

Did it get pinched between the bars and the ground or something?

I think so. It all happened pretty quickly. So I don't know exactly. I mean, it was on the highway. So I slid for a while and the bike came to rest on top of me.

Man, you've been through some shit.

Shock is a crazy thing. It is, right? I go down and I'm like, okay, this is it. I'm like gonna die. I'm gonna get hit by a semi truck or something.

My hand is not doing well. And it's your clutch hand. So you're still able to operate the clutch, though?

Yeah, your pinky has a lot of the grip. Stop and go, traffic sucks. I live really close to the Blue Ridge Parkway. So I just kind of hop on the parkway. And then once I'm going, I can just power shift and I just kind of cruise.

A lot of bikes now have blip shifts, so you don't even need the clutch anymore.

I haven't gotten anything like that. This was pretty recently and I kind of just had to get a bike because I was like, I can't let this stop me. I can't let this thing win.

Well, I can even see already that your pinky's probably gotten five X's strong. Like, look at this muscle.

Yeah, for sure.

Right? This pinky is my dude. He does everything.

Yeah, and then the muscle below in your hand, which in you and I is like, ours, is one third the size of the one you have. You look like a free solo, like a mountain climber now, on that hand.

I know, I want to get into mountain climbing just because I think it would be more difficult. Actually, your pinky has like 40% of your grip strength. It does? Yeah, because of that muscle right there. If you lose your pinky or your thumb, those are like the worst fingers to lose.

You're the king of the silver lining.

Yes.

Like you got bathed in hot grease, and you thank that for getting you out of a job you didn't necessarily want to stick with. And then now you're like just delighted that your pinky didn't go down. You have a great attitude on life. I know, I aspire to it.

I was pretty stoked to be alive.

Yeah.

Anyone who's been in motorcycle wrecks, first is like, oh, fuck this. You're in denial. as it's happening. You land and your first thought is like, please won't my legs work, right? Yeah.

I could stand and I was just like, cool.

Soon, as you can stand and move your arms, you're like, okay, great. Well, I can handle whatever's next, because I'm not paralyzed. It's almost immediate gratitude.

Oh yeah. The thing I was actually upset about, the most, well, one, I was like, I just wrecked my Ducati. I love this bike. Yes. And then I was really mad because I was super embarrassed, because it was on the highway and there were people around and I was like, oh my God, I'm causing a scene.

Oh my God, the craziness that goes through our brains.

I was not concerned about myself or anything.

I don't know if you heard the episode where I talked about smashing my Hellcat last year, but as the airbags were coming out and I could watch them deploy, I was like, oh, this is embarrassing. Like, I wanna die, I'm so embarrassed.

I did hear that one. I also heard one of you wrecking a bike and you were like, I gotta get up and go, so nobody sees this.

Yeah, there was a paparazzi dude pulled over right. as I was picking the bike up. I was like, oh fuck.

I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that. I started listening to this podcast as I was kind of recovering from all that and the conversations you guys have and talking about vulnerabilities and everything, it was really nice and very cathartic.

Thank you, man. Thank you. We're happy, you're alive.

You've had a couple-.

A couple scrapes. A couple near misses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it was really good to talk to you.

Well, next time you ride up to Sliding Rock or Looking Glass Falls, I want you to think of me.

I will. If you're ever in the area, hit me up. Go for a ride.

Absolutely. By the way, side note, let's not keep the fucking CO2 containers above.

Yep, change that in every restaurant they own. They're like, that is a bad idea.

Bad locale, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. All right, well, be well, brother. Very nice meeting you. I appreciate the story.

Have a good one, guys. Take care.

Hi. Hi.

How do I say your name?

Farrah.

Farrah, like a Michigan-era.

Or Boston. My mom's from, we're assholes.

Sure, where are you at currently?

I'm in New Jersey, about 45 minutes out of Manhattan. We moved to the Burbs right before COVID.

Okay, so you were in the service industry.

Yeah, so I can set the scene a bit. So this was in, I want to say, 2007 or 2008,, a sort of different lifetime ago. for me. I was probably like 23..

Well, that's what's interesting. 2007 and eight. sounds kind of recent, but that's 15 or 16 years away.

My life is very, very different now. So I was like new to the city. So I was working at the steakhouse called Del Frisco's.

I know it.

You know it?

Yeah, we have one in Atlanta.

Yeah, it's where people take their clients, people go there with their corporate cards, the whole nine, like the crab cakes and the shrimp and the bone-in steaks and the lobster tails. It's a fancy steak night out.

Yeah, I want to go.

It's good.

It is good.

They season those puppies well. So I'm waiting tables at this restaurant and it's huge. It's like a three-story restaurant. They probably do about a thousand covers a night, like 40 to 45 servers on at any time. It was during their busy season in winter time.

Yeah, yeah.

And then there's the parts that are in the back room with its own door. And they put the couples that are on dates there or the smaller tables or the families who aren't coming to spend a lot of money.

Yeah, impress their clients.

Yeah, basically. So it's been a fine night, nothing to write home about. And I'm getting ready to wrap up. I kind of want to go home. And I get seated with a five top of dudes.

What time of evening is this?

Probably around 9.30..

Okay.

We're past the dinner rush. So these guys sit down, they're rowdy. I can tell they're celebrating something. So they're having a big night. They end up being okay, kind of jerky, but par for the course.

Okay, big boy.

Big T-bone, this is like the size of like a math textbook.

What a great analogy.

The guys see this and they are stoked. And then they start yelling and talking about who could eat that. Oh, I bet you could eat it. No, I'd pay you to eat it. So they decide that they're gonna have an eating contest.

After they've already concluded dinner.

They've concluded, they have signed their check. Now they wanna have an eating contest.

Oh, us boys, what are we doing?

So they say to me, we wanna get one of those. And this guy, pointing to one of them, is gonna eat it. So I run down, ask the manager, these guys wanna have an eating contest. What do you think? All right, it's fine.

Really quick, do you remember the price tag on this porterhouse?

It was probably 140, 150..

Yeah, okay, that's what I was thinking.

So they put this steak in front of this guy. Oh, and they're gonna pay him $1,000 if he can do it.

Oh, wow, okay.

So they're like throwing money around. They set the timer. And this guy finishes the steak in eight minutes.

Oh, no.

So he did it. He took that thing down like a champ. Wow. So now I think the evening is ending. I go to take the plate away.

I'm very scared.

Me too.

I'm very scared. No, it's okay, it's okay.

Oh, okay, okay.

I come back and they said, were you serious? And I sort of looked at them and I got nervous. And they said, well, we'll give you double the time and double the money if you can do the same thing. Wow. Wow.

$2,000, 16 minutes.

I'm 23 years old. I'm poor. This is rent for a month. Wow. More likely, like I'll blow it on something stupid.

Yeah, windfall.

Huge.

16 minutes, not that long.

Pretty long.

For that much, okay, daunting task. But this is the lotto. I gotta do this.

Yeah. You gotta go back to your manager, though?

So I run down the stairs to the manager. This guy's name is Barney. He's from Texas. And I say to him, Barney, Barney, they're gonna pay me $2,000 if I can eat this steak. And he looked at me and he says, well, Farrah, are you hungry?

Yes. Everyone's just starting their night after this.

For sure. The boys in the kitchen are like looking for the leanest 48 ounce cut that they can find. Like the one with the heavier bone. And they cook this up and now the wait staff is starting to gather in this area.

Like Kobayashi eating hot dogs. Yeah, exactly.

If there was anyone in the restaurant who was looking for service at that moment, no one was getting their tea. So I sit down, everyone's gathering around. The guys start to lay out the rules, which are that they have to cut the steak off the bone so that they control everything that I have to eat.

Okay.

Eating like the grizzle, the fat. Like they are gonna carve that baby. They're carving it off the bone. The rules are that I have to eat the whole thing by the stopper at 16 minutes. And that if I win, they will give me $2,000 plus the tip that they'd already given me on the meal, which was a $300 tip already.

Right.

Or if I lose, I lose everything. No!

That is absolutely not. That is so fucked up. This is like squid games all of a sudden. Yeah, I like it. I'm glad they did this.

But you have to fucking paint.

You gotta raise the steaks a little bit.

Yes, yes, yes.

I'm jazzed and everybody's cheering. And I was probably like 125 pounds at the time. I'm a small-ish person. So I'm nervous. I'm excited.

Can I pause you for half a second to ask, did you have a strategy? Because I would imagine for me, I would go like, I should eat all the fat and shit. I'm not gonna want to eat up front, so that by the time I'm feeling sick, I don't have to go in on that.

I know. I don't remember thinking about that, but I remember the servers around me were talking about, so Porterhouse is the filet and the ribeye. Yeah. And so the ribeye is tougher and the filet is easier. So we were thinking like, maybe you start with the ribeye and get that down and then the filet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not a terrible strategy.

Oh, my God.

I don't know. It was like, just cut and chew as fast as possible. So I'm cutting and chewing and suddenly, like somebody's rubbing my shoulders, like a boxing match, is happening. This is going on. And it's going well for a while.

Oh, no. Oh, no.

I've dropped the fork and knife. at this point. I'm like ripping steak and shoving it in my mouth. Of course. And then they're counting down.

Yeah.

And they count down zero. Everyone's screaming. It's in my mouth. Everyone's like, she did it. The guy's like, no, no, no.

She didn't swallow it. It doesn't count.

It's over. It's over. So I take a piece of the steak out of my mouth. And I'm like, you're fucking paying me, man.

They did. Good.

And it was a big celebration. And after that, I got the nickname 48-ounce Farrah from the staff. Oh, I like that nickname. Which was lovely. They laughed.

Sure. Can I ask really quickly, did they have cash or did they have to write you a check or did they have to run to the ATM?

So they had paid for their meal with a card and they paid the bed money in cash. Wow. But what was interesting is that, so the restaurant, like many, have a tip-out policy.

Right.

Where you give 25% of your tip for the rest of the staff at the restaurant, for the hostesses and the bartenders and the kitchen staff. And so, at the end of the night, a manager, not the one who had told me that I could participate in this event, wanted me to tip out on the winnings.

No!

Well, I guess that would have been 500.. 2,000 would be 500..

On the whole thing. No!

Fuck that.

And what was awesome, because restaurant people are awesome, is that everyone rallied around and said, no way, like that. $2,000 is hers. Good. No one else earned that.

I might've slid the dudes who cooked the steak for you a hundred or two.

They were like, no, no, no, like. let her have that. Everybody sort of got behind it. That was like my biggest night ever.

That's a very momentous event. I'm impressed. I'm jealous. So I'm jealous. I wasn't there.

Yeah, I mean, except for the getting sick afterwards, it was pretty decent.

But I used to throw up for free two nights a week as a drunk. Fuck it, you know, no one was paying me two grand to throw up my jack and diets.

That would have been a better business model.

I'm so glad you had that experience while you were young.

I have a seven-year-old and a two-year-old now. And my seven-year-old has heard this story a few times. And when I told him I was gonna be sharing it today, I said, do you remember that story? And he said, yeah, you had a lot of beef.

Mom's big beef story. Yeah. Farrah, that was awesome. Yes. Yeah, I loved that.

Awesome, I'm so glad I got to share it with you.

You have a tattoo of an audio print. What's that?

It's my kids laughing.

Oh, that's a clever thing. I'm a little jealous. I never thought of this.

Yeah, you're jealous a lot in this episode.

I am.

Yeah.

I wanna be here.

You can do it too.

No, I'd be biting your style. I did. emblems of cars that bear their names. So Delta and Lincoln, I have two of the emblems from cars.

You're cool, you got it, you got it.

Well, Farrah, wonderful meeting you. Thanks so much for telling us that story. And I'm just so proud of you. You lived your best life.

Thank you. Bye.

Take care. Well, she was so cute.

She looks so much like Jackie. Yes. Her profile was very Jackie.

Yeah, I was getting major Jackie vibes too. Shout out to Jackie Tone. Jackie Tone, friend of the pod. Friend of the pod, friend of the family, friend of, friend doll.

Friend of a friend.

Friend doll. Hello? Can you hear us? Nope. It's so stressful for people.

Oh yeah. When I had Zoom auditions, it was so stressful.

What was the last Zoom audition you had?

In COVID.

You had some?

Yeah, I had some.

Can you remember any of the products?

No.

Okay. We'll circle back to that.

One time I had to do one from my parents' house.

Okay, double stressful?

Yeah, because they needed to not be there. Yeah, shut up. Quiet, yeah.

Don't ask me how it went.

There was a squirrel in the ceiling, so he was making noise. Oh!

Could be another children's book, Squirrel in the Ceiling.

Yeah, what's he doing up there?

Yeah. There we go. Hello? Can you hear us? Yay!

Yay! Yay!

What was your stress level during that? I'm predicting 11..

A billion. I'm trying to like manage my children out there.

I'm so sorry. It's so stressful for everyone signing on. I feel so bad. Where are you at?

I'm in Thunder Bay, Ontario in Canada.

Thunder Bay. That sounds fancy. What a great name. Where's Thunder Bay?

It's aptly named. We're right on Superior.

Ooh, the largest of the Great Lakes. Home to the Edmonds Fitzgerald, right? Didn't it go down there? Yep.

So you get lots of storms?

We do. But gorgeous, right?

Absolutely beautiful.

Alana, you have a good service industry story?

I do. So. my crazy service industry story takes place roughly two years ago at a restaurant in which I was serving at the time. So it was a Sunday brunch shift, which in and of itself is kind of a little bit hectic. You have the after church crowd mixing together with patrons nursing a hangover.

Right.

There's a lot of needs. There's a lot of requests. And it just kind of makes for a bit of a chaotic day for everybody.

And are the church folks ever complaining about the hangover, folks? Like, are you also mitigating disputes and stuff?

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

God.

Yeah, because if you're fresh from church and then there's like some rowdy clowns next to you, you do tell the server as if the server somehow can control those people.

But also it's like, you gotta know where you're going.

That's true.

You know, personal responsibility.

You would think. So. anyway, it's going as usual. I'm filling coffee, I'm taking orders, and in walks this couple. And as soon as they walk in, you can tell they're either very hungover, maybe a little still drunk.

Maybe still up from last night.

Totally. I kind of point in the direction of an empty table, seat yourselves. I'm gonna bring over some menus. when I get a minute. I come over with some menus and right off the hop, I just notice a smell.

What mix of those things it might be? Any hints of sex?

Sex is a good question.

No, the only thing I could equate it to would be like ground beef.

Like rot?

Sour.

Okay,

And so I'm bringing over the menus. Nope, we don't need menus. We're gonna order drinks.

Oh, my. Okay.

We're gonna drink their breakfast. Yeah. Oh my God, you're tagline. Just like me.

We're used to that around here. Lots of liquid breakfast. We order a round of mimosas and a round of beers. Yeah.

All at once.

Go about serving other customers. About five minute passes and I get a little wave over. I approach their table. And he wants to order another round. And I just kind of think to myself, he's visibly intoxicated.

Whoa.

It's really hard to not smell it. You'd have to be like nose blind, for sure. No one can kind of pinpoint where it's coming from. I know it's coming from this man, but I don't think anybody else has quite realized that yet.

And you've decided, it's the man and not the woman.

Yeah. It's like radiating opposite.

Ah!

They finished their second round of drinks and they aren't leaving. He's waving me over to order a third round. And I've come to the realization that I'm gonna have to tell this man that I can't serve him anymore. So I'm turning over to walk over to his table and I notice a puddle underneath his chair. Nope.

Oh boy, here we go.

As soon as these words come out of my mouth, they start going in on me about how I'm discriminating against them and I don't have the right to do this. And I need to add that they are a middle-aged white couple.

Oh, thank you.