It was a Monday evening. I was a server in a restaurant. It was also dead. Being dead meant no customers. No customers meant I was soaking up half the state's minimum wage. Idle hands being what they are I went to work. I polished tables. I made laps of the restaurant. Inside I died a little. So really, it was a typical Monday evening. Pacing up and down the line of the open kitchen I saw "Leftie," a new face in the restaurant. He was a line cook working the pizza station. He was quiet and dour and I was determined to see him laugh. I've never been a proponent physical comedy. I was not and am not on any medications. I merely saw the straws and epiphany hit.
Leftie was diligently not working because the restaurant had not seen a paying customer in over an hour. I grabbed two straws. I walked down the line to where he was prepping dough, tucked one in each nostril, jumped around the corner and shouted, "I am a Walrus."
Then it happened.
I slipped. As I fell the left straw caught on the centimeter or so thick lip of a trash can. For a moment, with the straw receding into my sinus cavity, I assumed I was going to die. What a shitty way to go.
If only I had died.
I was all inchoate shouts and imaginary language like some pentecostal revival. Only I had a straw sticking out of my face. I held hands out as blood gushed, splattering fingers and shoes. It didn't really help. Hands sticky and slick, I struggled to pry the straw free. Again, it really didn't help. Finally, hands smeared clean on jeans, I got decent grip and gave a good tug. My girlish scream filled the restaurant. If only there had been any customers to hear it. Instead my boss stormed around the corner, ready to crack down on any shenanigans and ass-grabbery. Instead he found me. He blinked. I could only smile, as my nose continued to squirt blood in time to my pulse.
We sat together in the office, a tampon soaking up the heavy flow in my nose.
"What were you thinking?"
"Obviously I wasn't."
My boss shook his head and began filling out the forms.
'Freak Accident,' check.
I was host to a revolving door of co-workers with hands on mouths to stifle giggles or uncomprehending stares of mute horror.
"He stuck a straw where?"
"Oh my god!"
This was followed by the short lived immortality of becoming a background on someone's smartphone.
If I'd had any sense I'd have grabbed a kitchen knife and split my feelings, and intestines, all over the floor. Though if we're talking sense, I prolly would have thought twice about shoving pair of straws up my nose in order to impersonate a walrus. Tired, humiliated and covered in blood, I got to go home early.
If only it ended there.
The next day my General Manager found me, his grin of the shit eating variety, and the first thing he asked was, "Was that the most humiliating thing that has ever happened to you?" I wish I could have said yes. For months I would print out a guest's tab and in the top right corner my name had been replaced with, Walrus. Eventually, as the memory of these events faded, a close friend would open his check presenter, look up with a smile and gently unfold a wrinkled piece of paper with the picture below. I would invariably stalk off as he regaled a small crowd with the sordid tale. Maybe seppuku was still an option.
As for Leftie? That sonnuva bitch was laughing so hard he cried.
But then again maybe that was the point.
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