For waiter, free dessert has its price

A funny thing happened to Nic Casey on the eve of his 30th birthday. Seems he and his wife, Bekah, decided to test-drive a relatively new eatery in town – only to encounter The Waiter From Hell. The encounter started badly, with TWFH (a “college-age kid with a frat-boy attitude who makes up for his lack of charm and good looks with swagger”) making small talk about drinks while he tried to look down Bekah’s shirt. It smoothed out from there. For a while. The meal arrived faster than expected. And it was scrumptious. However, things went south again when TWFH offered a dessert menu and learned that Nic was about to celebrate a birthday. Which meant free dessert. Later, when the check arrived, Bekah was stunned to see the following chicken-scratched at the top: “Happy (Expletive Deleted) Birthday.” The Caseys asked for the manager. Who turned red when he saw the birthday greeting. And promised to fix problem. All of this is reported on Nic’s blog, Rants, Raves, & Random Thoughts, in a post appropriately titled: “Happy (expletive deleted) job-hunting.”

Hosed

So, here’s Staci Lehman (Jeff Selle’s sidekick at Kootenai MPO) stopped at a quick-stop gas station on her way home from work. She sticks the nozzle into the gas tank, and – voila – the entire hose pops off the gas pump, dousing her with gas. One end of the hose is stuck in her gas tank. The other end is on the ground. You’d think that the manager at the convenience store would be sympathetic. But you’d be wrong. She simply told Staci to move to another gas pump – and expect the 37 cents’ worth of gas sprayed all over Staci to show up on her debit card. After an exchange of words, the manager agreed to pay to clean Staci’s clothes, if she brought them back to the store. After enduring a long, smelly drive home, Staci had one regret: “I should have taken their %$#@ hose with me.”

Standing tall

A Berry Picker risked her life recently to find out why those guys are standing at the intersections in the construction zones along Highway 95, north of Appleway. Some suggest that the “standers” are hired to prevent people from messing with the fresh concrete near the stoplight standards. My Berry Picker got a different answer from the “stander” @ Prairie & Highway 95 Tuesday. Seems Americans With Disabilities Act rules for stimulus money require someone to be available to help handicapped individuals cross the highway. The “standers” aren’t allowed to sit down. Nor can they have radios or cell phones to pass the time. In the six weeks since he’s been working, the “stander” told the Berry Picker he’s helped four people cross Highway 95. Meanwhile, he guesstimates that 500 motorists have put themselves at risk to ask what he’s doing. Your tax dollars at work.

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: “Quite upside down they lounge in trees/in laid back places like Belize,/and seldom do they fret or worry/because they’re never in a hurry:/a sloth who chews a leaf today/could still be chewing it next May”/The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Sloths”) … “Every day I look in Forbes to see if my name is there; if not, I go to work” – Davis Donuts readerboard … For those keeping score at home, 57 percent of my Berry Pickers said in a recent Huckleberries Online poll that they still had their tonsils … Kootenai Medical Center was the medical eatery of choice in another Huckleberries Online poll. Comments Joe Butler: “I’ve eaten there as a patient, as a family member of a patient, and just for fun (it’s good, it’s healthy, and it’s cheap). They cook warm stuff to order, always have a wide selection, different daily specials, and you can get a complete meal or a snack almost any time of the day, plus decent free coffee ’round the clock.”

Parting shot

City Clerk Susan Weathers was more than an interested bystander in that flap re: yard signs in the recent CdA school trustee elections – you know, supporters of Zone 1 challenger James Purtee accused incumbent Edie Brooks of illegally posting her signs (in rights of way and without the proper permit). And unilaterally removed dozens of them. Seems a week before the controversy, Weathers tells Huckleberries, the city received a complaint about Purtee/Terri Seymour signs being in the right-of-way. Which led to a phone call from City Hall to the Seymour camp. Which fixed the problem, pronto. Take it away, Susan: “When we receive (an election) complaint, we call the candidate first to give them an opportunity to rectify the situation. It just struck me as interesting that the Purtee/Seymour camp is calling foul on something they had done themselves.” Bingo.