NO MORE HOTDOGS!!!

 My morning cup of phony joe has become even more all consuming.  I discovered a bigger cup in the back of my cupboard just for morning-after-bingo relaxation.  And boy do I need it today!!

Some nights are just worse than others by a long shot.  Is it a full moon?  I mean truly, that's when the peasants come out in full armor loaded to the gills with pitchforks and torches, while honing their rock throwing skills.  This night was one of them.  

It didn't help that I got home at a late-for-me 11:00 with a horrible hot-dog stomach ache.  I know better, really I do, and this time I think I learned my lesson.

It started without my libation of coke since none of the Knights showed up for our usual meeting of the minds.  Instead, I started right to work organizing the huge stash of cards kept in the safe and making up a list of shortages.  

Immediately upon starting up sales, we were accosted by two ladies who wanted RED dobbers.  Not just ANY red mind you, but THE red.  After close inspection, it appears they have run out of MAGENTA caps and so used the RED ones.  That meant while I thought we had plenty of RED, we had NONE!  The torches burned bright and we were appropriately reprimanded for our mistake.  There is another red, but it's not THE one that wins the big prize at Bingo.  

Since I'm training a new girl to take over in emergencies when no one shows up, the infernal machine rebelled about every other transaction.  Some things are so simple, yet others set it off with bells clanging. Nothing will appease it unless you hit the right buttons in the right order.  After five minutes of angrily tapping, I finally hit the right combination.  It needed a CLERK # .... which we don't use.  

I finally took over the register to run them through since we had 138 people.  Not a record, but that's a lot of paper picking, dropping stuff on the floor, taking things they aren't supposed to and explaining all of the rules.  

There was of course a "you-didn't-give-me-my-red-ticket" peasant or two.  Yes I did, I gave TWO tickets to your husband.  That didn't fly and she was very upset.  What the heck, is it a full moon or something?  Cranky was the word of the night.  Even my ever-so-helpful card counter who never gets upset at anything, was rolling her eyes and giving me the LOOK.  

At last the party began as numbers were called and players ran to their seats like playing musical chairs.  When one lady slammed into the table, all the dobbers went flying.  Ooooohhhh the pitchforks!!!  There was no hesitation with the bad words!!!

Finally it was dinner time, although I had a fleeting thought about skipping it this time.  I should have listened to the angel on my shoulder instead of the devil who said .... YUM ... HOTDOG!!  If you don't want it right out of the boiling water pot like any good castle would have, you ask that it be "burned".  That means rolled on the grill for a little color.  They even have BURNED in the order-taking machine.

Unfortunately sometimes that actually does come out with quite a bit of black on it.  No matter, they taste delicious.  On the other hand, they KILL my stomach!  Most of which I'm still experiencing this morning.  So lets just dump a bunch of fake coffee on top!!!  I swear ... NO MORE HOTDOGS!

At least this time no one threw anything at me, but some just take things and leave money on the table.  I can hear the knives clicking as I insist they stay until the money is counted.  Many times I've come up short.  

On this night, one of our loudest troublemakers was short $1.00.  He SWORE he would just run to the table and bring it right back.  I usually keep the cards to be sure they return, but in this case he grabbed them and ran off.  I called the King.

In no time he had the culprit by the nape of his neck back at my table.  He scrounged through his pockets and came up with ten dimes.  I hate change.  It's a big pain to deal with, but nonetheless, he paid, so he was released and not thrown into the dungeon.  Is there a full moon??

One of our Castle Personnel happens to be the head of the Lodge.  She runs around like crazy, trying to do everything, so I give her credit for that.  I heard she wanted to learn the infernal machine.  YAY ... another VICTIM .... er I mean HELPER!  

All I showed her was how to make payouts, which she thought had to be done at blazing speed.  Slow down I said, the infernal machine doesn't like speed!!  Sure enough, it had another fit which took me fifteen minutes to straighten out when she wasn't looking.   Lucky for me, I programmed this monster, so I know the inner workings of it's gut and can fool it into coming up with the correct total.

At long last, WAY past the normal departure time, I was out the door, but got caught by my boot straps by the King who wanted to discuss our Senior Dinner coming up in November.  The King and I cook up a Thanksgiving dinner for 100 seniors, take it to their housing facility and serve each and every one.  But that's a story for another day.

Aren't you glad?  No foxy videos today!!  Since I'm working on barely four hours of sleep, I'll be on the couch with my big bottle of tums, hoping to fall asleep.  Thanks so much for stopping by!