John the bartender

When we lived in Maryland, I had this great idea to apply for a catering job. I had always toyed with the idea of starting my own catering business, and I wanted to be this great wedding planner, but I had never worked in the food industry, never been a server, had never witnessed a food production like that, and I wanted to educate myself, and make a little money doing it.

I roped John into doing it with me. It took quite a bit of convincing.

I think for our first job, my parents came to stay and watch Trevan for us. I had to go buy black pants, and black shoes. Aldo was having a sale, and I thought I got a pretty fun pair of black shoes to cater in.

Oh my goodness. We had no idea. Or, I had no idea.

I don't think I have ever been that sweaty, ever tasted such a delicious salad dressing, and been that dirty; my brand new shoes covered with whatever we served and spilled alcohol. Oh, the characters we worked with... That's all I can say about that. But, I think John and I were two of three people that didn't have to take a smoking break, not counting the caterer.

He was an upscale caterer, and pretty crazy. Like, tell you to do something one minute, and be mad that you did it the way he just told you to do it. Cuckoo. I thought I might lose my mind on more than one occassion. Our first job, we didn't really recieve any training, and he kept expecting us to know what we were supposed to do. I tried to pretend, and thought I did a pretty good job. At least I knew how to set the tables. He also told us, "If anyone asks you, tell them you've been working with us for quite some time." Weird. One thing I remember him telling me that I'll always remember, after he told me he had three children, "Now, my wife and I wish we'd had more. Our kids are just the best things ever, oh, we just love them." I just thought that was neat to hear him say that.

Anyway. It was fun to work with John, to pass him while doing our seperate assignments, and smile at each other like this was all one big, inside joke. That first night, John's job was to serve the cocktails after the ceremony before the guests came into the reception. When he told me what he would be doing, I asked him, "Didn't you tell him you've never done that before, and don't know how to mix cocktails?" So, the funniness began, the guy who had never had a drink of alcohol in his life would be mixing drinks for people. At another wedding John actually helped bartend for a little while, but just hand out drinks. I think the actual bartender wasn't there for a while, and a guy wanted John to make a drink for him. John didn't know what he was doing and probably filled the cup over halfway with Vodka, and then added whatever else to it, and the guy took a drink and was like, "wooo wheee, this needs a little more..." Too funny.

I loved it. It was hard work, and I decided I would never do big time catering after that, but I loved it. I absolutely adore weddings, and I would just stand there and soak it all in, learning from what I saw worked and didn't work to apply in my future business.

One wedding we were setting up for, the table was packed! We were setting the table with the table decorations, the favors, the program, the napkins, the butter plate, the silver, the cream and sugar, the three different glasses, the candles, etc. etc., and everything was not fitting. So, everyone stopped because we didn't know how they wanted us to fit it all on the table. I was like, we should do it like this, and everyone was like, "no, we've never seen it done like that before, we need to wait and ask the wedding planner." I was like, "we can't wait, we will never get it all done!" The wedding planner happened to come in, someone asked, and she said to do it exactly how I had said to do it, and I wanted to scream, "I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!"

That first night of doing catering we got home at like one in the morning, sweaty and gross, and exhausted. We showered, and then had to unwind on the couch in front of the TV. John rubbed my feet, which were blistered from my new shoes.

Such fun times.