Health Inspection

There is one thing ever waiter dreads more than anything else…

And that’s waking up and finding an enormous green and yellow turd smooshed all over his face with chunks of corn in it.

Running a close second would be having a visit from the council health inspectors. That’s exactly what happened yesterday. Allow me to share my sorry tale of woe:

 Just after the busy lunch period at the Bistro, I noticed a short, tubby man wearing dark glasses stroll up to the reservation counter. I immediately thought he looked blind, so I ignored him for a couple of hours, choosing to re-varnish a few pieces of scrap metal in the kitchen instead. When I returned to the counter, I was surprised to see him still there.

‘Hello sir, sorry about the wait, I thought you were blind and had accidentally wandered into our Bistro thinking it was a guide dog clinic’

He looked at me in a furious manner.

‘No, you fool, I’m Henry McPenry, the health inspector. I’ve been given a tip-off by a member of your staff that the kitchen in your so-called bistro is filthy, swarming with fleas, cockroaches and vermin. I’ve been granted a permit to search the premises and prepare a report to Mayor Im A. Poofta’

I took great offence to being called a fool. Nobody calls me a fool, least of all some short pudgy fellow with a gay name like Henry McPenry.

‘I don’t know why you’re worried about the roaches’ I said ‘They are the special of the day’

McPenry sneered at me and dashed into the kitchen. I followed behind him, carrying a nutcracker which I had obtained from under the bar counter.

The sight that welcomed us in the kitchen did not please McPenry. True to his word, there were roaches, and large black rats gnawing on food scraps on the ground. Pedro, our sous chef, is fond of rats and often throws them scraps. In return, they generally don’t shit in any of the diner’s meals. As I walked through the restaurant with McPenry, he began making big black crosses on a sheet of paper he was carrying.

We approached the ovens, where our new apprentice was working. His name was Pooba, and he was quite a clumsy chap. He was trying to fry a gumboot sirloin, but the damned thing kept slipping out of the pan and falling onto the floor. Each time he scooped it up and tossed it back in the pan McPenry added another black cross to his list.

‘Well, I have come to the conclusion that this restaurant breaches numerous health guidelines and I shall certainly be advocating the immediate…AHHHHHHH!’

McPenry didn’t finish his sentence. With a swift movement, I applied the nutcracker to a sensitive region and extracted a small pouch of McPenry’s anatomy. I tossed the sack of flesh into Pooba’s frypan and dragged the hysterical McPenry into our meat freezer, slamming the door on him. Pedro and Pooba looked at me blankly.

‘Pooba, the gumboot sirloin will be served with mushrooms today’ I said, gesturing at the vital part of McPenry which was sizzling in the pan. ‘And Pedro, you’ll have to be the waiter this evening, I’ve got something important to do’

*** To Be Continued ***