Floor Cheese...

It was like that
but with less cheese

I was elegantly winging my way round to table eight with a malodorous selection of Irish cheeses in one hand a finely crafted Irish coffee in the t'other. Okay to be honest very little of that sentence is accurate. In no way shape or form was I moving with grace or elegance, I was laboured and my movements had all the subtlety and preciseness of a case of the hiccups. The Irish coffee was less well crafted than you might have hoped for and I really did need to get it to the table before it sunk like the Titanic. My rule of thumb being once it's on the table it's your responsibility. But the cheeses did smell, in fact they were so smelly that I was sure my black pudding sandwich from breakfast was about to make a reappearance.

Crikey no one wanted that, least of all me. Not saying it wasn't just superb, because it was, but I didn't want to revisit it, and not all over table 18 either.

But as I say I was trying to get the cheese and coffee to the table in some sort of presentable fashion when one of the expensive wedges of cheese decided to make a break for it and dropped to the floor. Egads! Waiters are paid to bring stuff not drop stuff. It's this bringing of stuff that is the very essence of what we do. If you fail to bring the stuff then you are just a civilian in an apron and not really a waiter at all.

Helpfully the little boy sitting on table 18 pointed the cheese dropping incident out to me and everybody else in the vicinity. Aren't kids just smashing? Obviously I resisted the urge to tell him Santa was dead and that ice cream gives you the thruppenny bits. But I was sorely tempted.

Now, I'm not as young as I used to be and bending down and consequently getting back up is considered more of a workout than rudimentary action these days. And what with little Tommy Tell Tales watching my every move whilst giving a running commentary I wasn't able to take my usual action in such circumstances and just kick it under the nearest table and let someone else deal with it. Which was annoying.

"Silly me eh...", I said through gritted teeth as I notice the little "blessing" staring at me.

"Youa wubbish....mummy, mummy mummy mummy.....he dwopped the cheese hahahaha."

"That's as maybe but at least I can pronounce my R's you wee prick. I should kick you under the table", I thought as I considered my next move whilst sort of half crouching/half looking like I was going toilet in my trousers. That's a pretty picture for ya right there.

I had the cheeseboard in one hand and the half sunk Irish bloody coffee in the other. Clearly something had to be set down before I could retrieve the escaped wedge of Cashel Blue. I really could have done without all of this cheese dropping, coffee sinking, small boy staring palaver. Sunday's are less than delightful at the best of times but this really was extracting the Michael.

I don't work well with an audience and Little Tommy Tell Tale was annoying me with his pointing and laughing and snitching. He very much reminded me of my PE teacher at school. Dick. I decided the best course of action to take would be to slide the cheese under the empty table to my left and drop what remained of the cheeseboard off along with the Irish coffee at table eight. I would then make up a fantastic story that the tight wads in the kitchen had stiffed them out of a wedge of cheese that I would secure for them thus making me look like a hero and the kitchen look like villains. Everybody wins. Yippee! Oh and obviously I would go back and get the dropped cheese after get somebody else to pick it up.

Wonderful idea in my head. Less wonderful in practice. As I said the cheese was particularly smelly as it had been left out for a bit at room temperature. Cheese is best consumed this way. So when I pushed at the blob of Cashel Blue with my in no way small size sevens the cheese refused to roll as I had hoped. No it spread, like a cheese is supposed to. Actually it spread like white dog mess on the pavement.

"Ewwwwwe he's wubbing it into the gwound.....mummy mummy mummy mummy...that fat man is wubbing the cheese into the gwound.....look mummy..."

Fat man? Fat man? I swear to god if it's the last thing I do you are gonna fall down some stairs wee man.

But not only was the cheese not rolling under the empty table like I had planned but it was sticking to my foot. How could such a genius plan go horribly wrong? How? It was full proof.

"Playing football? You'll never score the winner with that!" came a pestiferous voice behind me. Just what I didn't need, Todd the bloody Toucher. He happened upon this scene of cheeseball on the way back from one of his many trips to the bathroom. Mook.

"Yeah, very good Todd", and I ushered him out of the way. Knobs to the lot of it, I thought and just left it as it was and went and dropped of the remains of the cheeseboard and half sunk and cooling coffee at table eight. They didn't appear to notice anything amiss so I said nothing and half sprinted away as quick as my little legs would carry me. Back to the cheese.

"You missed a bit....it's unda the table...", pointed Little Tommy Tell Tales as I scraped up the floor cheese with a knife and a napkin. I just glared in reply. This is what my life has become, scraping cheese of the floor with a five year pointing out the bits that I have missed. Awesome.

There is no moral to this story. But if you do happen into a restaurant for some Sunday lunch and you do decide to finish off with an Irish coffee and a cheeseboard please have the fucking decency to bloody finish it. Table eight did not, they left some cheese. You just don't know what we have to go through. You just don't know.

I need to lie down....