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Invoking the 5 Second Rule
At 10:30 on Friday night Jimmy is harvesting the dregs of his energy. He's been drinking Coke all night, but in the last hour Al--his favorite busser and confidant--switched him to his secret stash of Jolt. See, Al knows Jimmy stayed up all night last night and the night before with his new girl, and while watching Sal the expeditor shred Jimmy to bloody spaghetti is good sport some nights, tonight he's counting on him for an intro to the new girlfriend's sister, so Al's taking good care of his ride. Unfortunately, a few shots of Jolt on top of 3 straight hours of slam combined with zero hours of sleep tends to give one the jitters, and Jimmy is skittering around his station like an unbalanced pinball. The last twelve-top is coming up, and Sal is screaming like a banshee. The table is all grill and Jimmy swings from grill to plate immersed in the plating dance he knows so well. Slip the spat, spin, plate, veg, starch, sauce, garnish, slide the plate down the line for Sal to wipe the edges, spin back to the grill. Eleven down. One last sword filet to go and he's made it! In slow motion the fish slips slowly from the spat as he turns, bounces gently off the prep board, slides down his outstretched leg and hits the floor. Sal and Jimmy freeze for two seconds. A new trail of sweat breaks out on Jimmy's glistening forehead. His desperate eyes plead with Sal and she silently nods once and looks away. The "5 second rule" has been invoked. Jimmy swoops to the floor, deftly scoops the fish off the mat, strokes it with his side-towel and places it on the cutting board. It still looks good, no breakage, and the waitron is none the wiser. Much less the customer. Sal grabs the plate, finishes it and deftly slides it into line, muttering "you owe me you little shit." Jimmy groans and slides down the reach-in, squatting on the floor and breathing hard. Chef didn't see a thing, but did the camera catch it? He peeks out of the corner of his eye at the camera and swears. It's on today, the red light blinking above the lens. Shit. He closes his eyes and sees it all again. This time in black and white, the images fuzzy like they are on the monitor in chef's office. Slow mo' re-play just like in a football game. The penalty here is high. Chef caught him just last week and told him he'd be back prepping cases of fava beans if he got caught again. Jimmy holds his breath all through clean up. Wiping down the stainless he sees the reflection of Chef's checks in the glass reefer and he stands and turns, ready to take his whipping. "Good job tonight Jimmy, the food critic on that last twelve said he loved the sword. You're getting it down man." Chef claps him heartily on the back and passes down the line, oblivious to Jimmy's little dance and sigh of relief. Twenty minutes later, after everyone is gone, chef hits re-wind on the tape so it'll be ready to record another day. He rarely looks at it. But the crew doesn't know that and that's all that matters. --Janet Fouts |
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