A Walk Down Nightmare Lane

                          Nothing noteworthy happened at work today.  No news is good news, I guess, so I'm going to share with you a story from the vault.  It was about 5 years ago, and I was working at this shitty (even more so than Pizza Place) corporate restaurant with a "roadhouse" theme.  One of the biggest companies in our area was holding a HUGE outdoor concert about 3 miles up the road, as part of a big PR scheme, and they actually had a lot of big names in music scheduled to be there.  They were expecting about 100,000 people to attend.  The brilliant owners of Roadhouse decided since there would be quite a few vendors at the concert, no one would want to come eat at the closest restaurant with booze.  Geniuses right?   The only people the had scheduled for that day,since we'd be soooo dead, was 1 manager, 3 cooks, 1 bartender, 1 host, 1 supervisor(me), and 3 servers. We only had enough servers to open half the restaurant.  We were all working open-close, because we were the only ones who hadn't asked off to go to the concert, and the intelligent owners decided to give the day off to everyone who had asked for it.  As soon as the doors were unlocked, people rushed in.  Not only was the half of the restaurant we had opened full, but every table in the entire store was full.  We couldn't even get the tables cleaned when people left before another one would sit down.  It wasn't just a lunch then dinner rush. The lunch rush started as soon as the doors opened, and it NEVER stopped.  Seriously, every table in the restaurant stayed full until we locked the doors that night.  One of the servers was new, and he just couldn't hack it.  He did it for about 3 hours, then walked out on us.  I can't say I blame him.  He was probably the only smart one that day, because the rest of us stayed.  When he left, the rest of us had to split up his table.  The table I got stuck with was a 6-top.  They had already ordered and received their drinks and app, but he hadn't put in their order, nor could he tell me where he had written their order down at.  At this point, they were almost finished with their app and it was taking at least an hour for anything to come out of the kitchen.  I knew I was in for it.  I took a deep breath and headed over to them.  I said, "Hello, my name is BoW, and I will be taking care of you now.  I am very sorry, but your previous server left without putting your order in.  If you want to go ahead and give me your order, I promise I will get it to you as quickly as possible.  I really am very sorry for this, but I promise I'll take good care of you."  They said they didn't want to wait any longer, which was perfectly understandable, seeing as that jackass left them sitting there for so long without putting their food in, and knowing how long ticket time was.  So I said, "Okay, I completely understand, and once again, I'm VERY sorry about all of this.  I'll just go print your ticket for your drinks and the appetizer you got, and I'll be right back."  I went straight to the computer, pulled up their check, and pressed print.  As the ticket was printing, the manager came up to me and told me they were making their way to the door, and that he thought they were going to leave without paying the ticket.  I really couldn't blame them for wanting to leave without paying, considering how bad their prior server had fucked up.  The problem was that their ticket was now in my name, so I was responsible for it, and Roadhouse had a policy that if a table walked on the bill, the server had to pay their tab.  That's right, the whole ticket, with no discount, was to be paid by the server.  So, I grabbed the check and made a bee line to the front door to try and catch up with them.  I did catch them, right outside the door.  I said, "Excuse me, I've got your ticket for your drinks and appetizer.  The total is $21.77."  The man turned around to face me, he had a toddler on his hip, and it wasn't until just then that I realized how big this man was.  He towered over top of me, and was at least 3 times as wide as I was.  He said, "I'm not paying for that shit!"  I looked up at him, determined not to back down, and said, "I understand that your meal was messed up sir, and I'm very sorry about that, but you did get a perfectly good appetizer and 6 drinks.  The other server is gone, and now I'm the one responsible for your bill.  If you don't pay for it, they're going to make me pay for the food and drinks that you all had."  I was hoping he'd realize he was punishing some one who was innocent and didn't deserve it, but of course not.  He says, "I don't give a damn if you have to pay for it or not!!!"  That did it for me, I was trying to be understanding and extremely polite, but if he didn't give a fuck about me, then I didn't give a fuck about him, his cunting wife, or his ugly as sin kids.  By this time, my manager was standing behind me, and the bartender had saw me running and heard the commotion and he was standing beside me.  The bartender took a step towards them and I said, "That's alright, I'll just call the police on you for stealing!!  We'll get them here and let them sort it out!!"  The huge beast of a man looked at me, his face turning red as a beet.  He literally dropped the toddler onto the ground and said, "Ugly wife, get the kids, I'm beating this bitch's ass!!!"  I turned and ran back into the restaurant faster than I think I've ever ran before, I ran all the way to the back into the kitchen.  I was crying as I told the cooks what had happened.  They all ran out the side door to the front and had him surrounded before he could realize what was going on.  I was terrified.  I stayed in the kitchen.  After looking around and seeing that there was men all around him, he wasn't so tough anymore.  He quietly handed over $22.00 to one of the cooks and took his morbidly obese family home.  He was all eager for a fight when there was only 3 women standing in front of him.  What a coward.  I'll bet he beats on those hideous wife and kids of his.  I know the tab wasn't that much, and had I known I was at risk for physical violence, I would have just sucked it up and paid for it myself.  While every little bit counts for me, no amount of money is worth risking my health and well being.  I was young and never could have imagined that someone would have become so irate over paying a $21.77 bill.  I'm so thankful to now work for a place that understands that, every once in a while, someone is going to dine and ditch.  Hopefully I'll have something more current tomorrow.  I hate reliving the nightmare of working at Roadhouse.