2 Terrifying Obstacles You Must Face In A Restaurant

There are a lot of dangerous professions out there, just waiting to snatch your existence from you. Miners, bomb squad, loggers, firefighters and so on. These are all dangerous jobs. Working on a farm is a dangerous job. You could get sucked under a combine or kicked in the testicles by a horse. Supposedly the most dangerous job in the world is a crab fisherman. Talk about a disproportionate reward there. But I'm afraid whatever you think you know about dangerous jobs... is so very wrong. I work in a restaurant, and I have it on high authority that it is the single most dangerous profession on earth, next to those cavemen way back in the day who had to defend their territory against those giant bears.

"This sucks..."

It is a job fraught with peril, where around every corner there lingers a disquieting evil, intent on depriving you of your earthly vessel. There is something people don't quite understand about working in a restaurant. There are plenty of hazards to most any job. If you work in a grocery store, you may have to talk to someone stupid eventually. But for most hazards, it's usually very clear that you should stay away from them. For example, if you work with poisonous snakes, don't put your dick in one of the cages or jam a snake in your eye. It's just common sense. It's not like that in a restaurant. In a restaurant, you don't have the luxury of safety.

If it was my intention to release this article on my 50th birthday, I would go to the trouble of walking you through maybe a quarter of the hazards to working in a restaurant. But instead I will focus on the two most terrifying prospects you have to face while working in a restaurant. If you have an aversion to descriptions of carnage, you may want to avert your eyes now.　

2. You may have to turn off a light
Have you ever stared good and hard at a lightswitch and thought, "my god, that thing could kill me..."? Well you should, because it can kill you, or inflict the necessary psychological damage to make you wish you were dead. In fact there's not a lot stopping it from doing so. It is possibly the most twisted, nefarious, oddly convenient (and simple!) invention ever concocted by man. Everyone desires illumination at some point in their lives, whether it be literally or metaphorically. The only question is, are you brave enough to set your life on the line?

<_<

This is a question I had to face two days ago. I had finished mopping the floor, so after I'd dumped the water outside, I locked the back door and put the mop away. After returning the mop to its proper domicile, I have to turn off the light in the back hallway. Don't be fooled, it only sounds simple. Luckily I managed to turn off the light without causing myself serious harm. It almost felt as simple as just... pushing the switch down. Tragically, my co-worker Eddie was not quite as fortunate. This was a test which he would fail completely and miserably.

My co-workers and I were all sitting in the restaurant, relaxing, when suddenly our eyes widened in terror as a bloodcurdling shriek emanated from the back hallway. I went back into the kitchen to investigate and there stood Eddie, white as a ghost. "Scott, I'm not finished the bottles yet. You turn off the light too fucking quick, I gotta do the bottles!! Fuck!!!!" He wasn't making any sense. It's like he could have just turned the lightswitch back on instead of taking a shit and yelling at me nonsensically. I tried to calm him down before he made another grave mistake, but I was too late. He walked right into what people in the food industry dare not speak of. It has a codename...

Prospect 1.

　
1. You may have to open a door
Oh not just open a door. This door could also be locked, so you could very well have to unlock it, then open it. My heart quakes in fear at the very thought of it. What sick, desperate straits would drive a man to invent something sinister like that...?

>_>

As I said earlier, when I'm finished mopping the floor, I have to open the back door so I can dump out the mop water. It takes a special kind of courage to open a door. Courage that I never knew I had. What could be hiding behind that door? What could happen if I open it...? What if there's like... a fucking ogre behind it waiting to club me to death? Thankfully these are questions I never have to face, because the door I get to open is a screen door. All I have to do at the end of the night is close the actual back door and lock it. Closing a door is remarkably simple, so logic would dictate that opening the door would be just as simple. But as Eddie proved with the lightswitch, simple concepts are often unreasonably demanding.

There was a bit of miscommunication between myself and the waitresses. I was told that the bottles were done, and I didn't hear Eddie vacuuming, so it seemed everything was done for the night, so I closed and locked the back door as always. Then Eddie lost his shit when he went into the back to discover that it was a bit darker than normal, then he was on the verge of internal hemorrhaging when he realized I had closed the door. I had already loosely apologized and given an explanation where it really wasn't necessary as to why I turned off a light. I was about to explain the whole door thing, but my efforts went unnoticed.

"Oh fucking fuck shit fuck bitch fuckin' stupid fuck cocksucker!" is what Eddie mumbled as he wrestled with the back door. I think he was trying to convey his anger to me in a way that his words could not by opening that door as menacingly as possible. It was possibly the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life. This old man, red in the face with baseless rage, locked in a fight to the death with this door, and the door appeared to be winning. Eventually he did manage to turn the knob and boot the door open, but by that time I had already turned around and walked away.

I wasn't upset. In fact I have great sympathy for the man. The tactical nature surrounding a door is preposterous. I'm amazed he made it out of that one without a scratch. I feel like he could have just, y'know, opened the door instead of screaming like 10 year old child, but that's irrational thinking. I could have killed a man two days ago by closing that door, so I must applaud his gallantry.
　
If you're wondering why my banter feels so warm and sarcastic in this article, it's because it is! This isn't the serengeti, wild man. These are very paltry, non-trivial irritations. Settle your ass down. If you don't have the ability to, at least write down some of the absurd shit you say, because it's always classic comedy gold. Seriously. Eddie is this 75 year old man who grew up in the bronx, so he has a wicked accent and is completely serious about everything he says. He once caught some kid peeing on the side of the restaurant and threatened to cut his dick off and jam it up his ass. I didn't see the end of that exchange, so it's entirely possible that kid is still out there somewhere with his own penis in his butt.