Fresh meat

Today we had a new waiter starting work at the bistro. His name was Klaus. Being so close to christmas and all, we all had a jolly time calling him Santa Klaus. He had to wear a floppy red hat and a red nose all day.

 At about 7pm, I seated a blind man at a table in the corner. He glanced briefly at the menu and ordered the specialty of the house, gumboot sirloin.

‘Very good sir, our finest dish. Would sir like to see the wine list?’

Sir declined my offer, so I went out the back to take the order to Karlos, our gay chef.

‘Karlos,’ I began. ‘We have an order for the gumboot sirloin, medium rare’.

Karlos looked at me sadly.

‘I’m sorry, but we just ran out of gumboot sirloin!’

In the 45 years I have worked at the bistro, we have never ever run out of gumboot sirloin. In fact, we’ve never had to order it in. 45 years ago the boss accidentally ordered too much beef, and we’ve been selling the half-century old meat ever since.

‘Blast!’ I cried, not wanting to ruin the blind customer’s night. I thought about this predicament for a while, and then came up with a rather innovative solution.

 I went over to the microphone connected to the Bistro’s P.A. system and said “Santa Klaus, please call to the meat freezer. Thank you, Santa Klaus to the meat freezer.’

Before heading over to the meat freezer, I made a quick stop at the local hardware store and picked up a couple of useful items. I then returned to the Bistro and entered the freezer.

Klaus was in the freezer already, and looked as though he had been there for some time. Icicles had begun to form on his beard, and his face looked blue. He seemed glad that I had arrived, but looked somewhat puzzled when he saw the chainsaw I was carrying in my hand.

A few minutes later I served the blind customer with our specialty dish, the gumboot sirloin, cooked medium rare. A little later I asked him how his meal was.

‘Tender’, he replied.