Chapter 3- The Melting Pot

This is a story of pain, suffering, and coming above it all.
I took a job at The Melting Pot after the summer excited about this newest restaurant in town. Fondue? We had fondue night at my house with a classic cheese fondue pot on a coffee table in front of the tv to watch Alabama football or The Sound of Music, the only important television events in my parents house. The ritual of fondue was cool and I could relate to it. This fondue was not my moms Velveeta. It was romantic, sensual, and GOOD. I worked day one and knew that I had found something special.

Once again Swift was my sidekick. " I can work whenever, but I have to work with my friend Swift."
"You HAVE to work with him?"
"I'm his ride."
"Done"
And that was how our education in divorce, anal stimulation, and public displays of sexual stress continued to nurture. All that in one restaurant? You're damn right.

Leaving the Outback a teenage romantic I was excited to work in a destination restaurant. This place had it all: private booths, dark maroons and browns, fondue vapors that wreaked of romance, hand jobs.

How great is it at 17 to discover a couple giving each other manual stimulation under the table as your bussing the table across the way? To a 20-30 something thats not a big deal but when your 16 and struggling for a HJ whenever you can get it to see one going on in a sexy restaurant blows your mind. Never saw that at the Outback. There must be something to this fondue. Although the only date I took there ending up giving my buddy a HJ so...

With pleasure sometimes comes pain.

Hans, the chef, takes a phone call in the kitchen, comes unglued after being the rock we all depended on, and begin randomly punching the walk-in wall. A kitchen is emotion at its rawist. I have been there when co-workers get calls about: parents dead, car accidents, terminal illness, baby on the way, all of it. And they always finish the pick up and sometimes the shift. But Hans ws being torn apart in front of us. His children were being taken away from him, and they were his life. He was the man at the restaurant, but to see him hurt, hurt me. As he got off the phone and screamed,
"That FUCKING BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!"
and preceeded to punch the living shit out of the steel wall of the walk in the pain, true suffering, and reality of adult life became real. How could someone take the most important thing from someone after sharing such special times together? How could one inflict such pain upon another knowingly? How could another person be so cruel? Life. The facts of. They suck. The roots of my bitterness and melancholy. Life is your own. Own it. Be careful who you trust. Be VERY careful who you decide to reproduce with. Your stuck with them. Those knuckle marks on the walk in wall reminded me of that daily and I think of them often.

On another subject equally as disturbing to a 17 year old good boy and compounded by experiences at Outback on Tuesdays ;
Winston- "If your going around the corner, only lick it once."
As he described the finer details of stimulating the "other" regions of sexual focus to Swift and me as we prepared the raw meats for a simmering court bouillon the idea of toying with "there" continued to perplex my comrade and me. I was scarred and perplexed for life. Again, adult education at warp speed with cigarettes, cheese, and lots of grease...... I'm talking about fondue, what are you talking about? Don't make it weird.

This post is dedicated to Zack Randall. I don't understand the torture you're suffering right now. It is a day I know will come and dread. But like Hans, you will come out stronger, better, and focused because of the pain. 
"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger" Freidrich  Nietzcshe
We are all with you. Somos un equipo.

Next : Chapter 4- The CIA. 40,000 dollars and I still can't cook