What a day! What a day! What a day!

I arrived at work yesterday just after 10:00 a.m. The kitchen was an absolute beehive of activity! I have no idea how early the kitchen crew got there. There was food everywhere you looked….Racks of desserts being readied, giant bowls of salads, cheese trays, turkeys, hams, roast beef, a gazillion other things…..it’s 30 minutes to show time.


Then I spotted the 3 huge boxes of donuts! I quickly downed one of those, and deciding it was gonna be a long day, went and got another. (I justified that as energy food.)

I found out that, since the bar was being used as the dessert buffet, it was my job to keep it stocked. Holy guacamole! I barely had time to make drinks!

It’s now 11:00 a.m. Let the festivities begin….I CANNOT believe how much food people were packing away that early in the day! And then they came to the dessert bar…..this huge long expanse of cakes, pies, cheesecakes….probably at least 25 items to choose from, and they’re asking if we have any cannoli. Really ?!? Can we not be grateful for everything that is here?

The bar was covered with white tablecloths…and for the first hour, I tried in vain to keep it nice and neat and clean. After the first hour I gave up any pretense of that. Then I just covered up the messier spots with new platters.

I had 4 stacks of dessert plates at intervals along the bar….when I saw a woman approach with a dinner platter, I thought perhaps she was just perusing the dessert bar before getting into the buffet line. I thought wrong, she was filling it with desserts. Again, REALLY!?!

There was a beautiful carrot cake, sitting on a cake stand, and then someone, in their over zealous attempt to get a piece, knocked it on the floor, upside down, behind the bar.

Another guy decided he only wanted a half of a piece of chocolate cake, so as he was hacking away it, I told him, “No, really, take the whole piece”….. he replied with, “Oh, look at the mess I’m making”… as he laughed, alone. When he was done hacking up the cake, I went around to the other side to clear away the half piece of cake remnants that were crumbles all over the platter.

When the second cake got knocked onto the floor, (again behind the bar) I took away all the cake stands. I didn’t have time to clean it up right away….and then it got all over my shoes when I stepped on it .

When people would leave used dessert plates on the bar, I was thankful that my mother had taught me better manners than that.

On the part of all of us who were working, it was a well choreographed frenzy of non-stop activity. No bowl or pan ever went empty on the buffet line (which by the way, was one of the best and most varied I’ve ever seen) or the dessert bar, with it’s 25 plus choices.

Hey guy! Was it really necessary to bring your beer with you as bought your kids to the dessert line?

Thanks to everyone for giving us all these stories and yet another glimpse into the human condition.