So give me novacaine . . .

I could try to blog everyday like Thinh but I have neither the tenacity, the will, nor a girlfriend in Vietnam awaiting daily updates. That's not to say I wouldn't like those things, but life is life and a fiance in Australia will do just fine.

I arrived home from England on Tuesday night, found out my bunny was dead and on Wednesday morning, was told that I would be working at my parent's restaurant for the whole of June. I don't really mind as my ambitious June goals were to find something to do besides rot at home. Now, I get to rot at the restaurant. At least I get free icecream.

The restaurant is sadly shorthanded and we have posted an ad in the paper for the last two months in hopes of getting a new prep chef. This is harder than it seems as the only people who have applied are either a) running from the law, b) not running from the law yet, but will soon be if they keep demanding my mom pay them cash under the table as they refuse to pay taxes, c) escapees of mental asylums or d) belong in mental asylums - permanently.

We had one former drug dealer wanting to lay low for a while. We had a handful of illegal immigrants apply too. Then we hired some guy from Winnepeg who kept talking about his "gun collection" and then would kind of zone out with this weird look in his eyes.

We also hired a nice lady from Toronto who has a heart of gold but is rather slow. I mean really slow. She stayed in the upstairs room of the house we have in town for any staff we hire. The weird gun collection guy stayed in a room in the basement of the house. One day, the weird gun collection guy turns to the nice lady from Toronto and was like "you know, I can hear everything you do in your room upstairs. EVERYTHING. Whatever you do, I can hear it all."

And then he just sat there and started maniacally laughing.

My mother fired him the next day. The poor lady from Toronto refused to sleep in the house until my dad changed the locks.

So now, while there should be at least 6 people working in the kitchen, we only have my parents, the nice slow lady from Toronto and Ming (a sort of human/monkey/gollum hybrid who smells worse than anything I have ever encountered in the anatomy lab and has a penchant for grabbing our waitresses asses. He tried to brush up against my ass once and I freaked and he hasn't come near me since. That was two years ago.).

Our waitresses are also leaving on holiday this time of year so our dining room is also shorthanded. I'd rather shove my hand in the deep fryer than waitress though, so my mom is making another kitchen help waitress tonight. Thank goodness.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to tough it out best I can. I feel less guilty for spending my parents money in my travels now. I've always known how hard it is for them to earn their money but at least now, I can say I helped earn it. My hands are covered in burn marks from the deep fryer and my fingers are so swollen and purple from peeling two vats of shrimp I can barely bend them.

My mom has seriously injured her elbow and so I have been trying to do as much for her as I can. She refuses to rest it though as she is a workaholic. Her and my dad are falling apart as they have been working 16 hour days for almost two months now.

Then the stupid customers have the audacity to complain when their food is just a few minutes late. We had some stupid woman come in two days ago and she had ordered some soup for take out. So she came to pick it up and she stood there while I was helping other people and she was like "WHERE IS MY SOUP? I JUST WANT MY SOUP! WHERE IS MY SOUP?"

I told her we were just packing it up and then she stood there for the full 2 minutes we were packing it up and just kept shouting like a 5 year-old "I WANT MY SOUP."

Sigh. By the time we got her soup to her, I was ready to take the vat of boiling hot soup and dump it into her face. Unfortunately, I burnt myself on the ladle and instead, had to run my hand under cold water while my mom shoved the lady's soup to her.

The customer is always right? That's a load of shite in my book. Sure, they're paying, but they're paying for food - not to abuse other human beings. I wish everyone would think harder about that when they are out to eat at a restaurant somewhere. Especially family-owned restaurants. Everytime they demand free food, every time they are rude to a waitress, everytime they act like a f*cking two-year old.

OK. Enough ranting for me for the day. I can't believe my parents have been doing this 24-7 for 12 years now. I can barely imagine doing it for a month. Perhaps the only 2-year old in all this is me.