Tales From The Catering Tent

It is the busy season for catering.

September is not only a popular time for people to get married (I work a lot of weddings) but it is also the time for the local universities to stroke their employees and for people to party in the name of Devils and Heels.

This weekend I worked a rehearsal dinner in the Pope Box at Kenan Stadium on the campus of UNC.

"This is a nice place for a party," said one guest as he approached the bar.
"Yeah, especially if you're a Tar Heel fan," I said.
He grimaced and said, "that's the thing, most of us here are Wake Forest fans."

Oh the irony.

Because you know how Wake fans can be.

I also worked two school functions recently. One was a party for new students at UNC's graduate program for pathology.

A lively bunch indeed.

Another was at the Hart House - the home for Duke's president - which was a reacharound, er, cocktail hour for tenured professors.

Then there was a series of wedding receptions, one where a drunken guy danced to the music with his toddler backpack'ed to himself. This same fellow, after his son fell asleep, took him off and laid him on a blanket under the magnolia tree behind my bar.

"Looks like yer also gonna be doing some babysitting," he said to me as he laid his kid down on the ground.

They almost left without him.

Some people shouldn't be allowed to have kids.

At another wedding, some guy showed up in a kilt and asked where he could park. My Egyptian co-worker confessed he had never seen anything like it. I told him he was probably going to play the bagpipes during the ceremony. Then the wedding party showed up and all the groomsmen wore kilts.

I told him I had never seen anything like it.

Just the other night, while moving some rental equipment (china, flatware), a few of us spotted this gigantic spider.

"Be careful," said one of my co-workers. "It could be a brown recluse". I told her I thought it was far too big to be a brown recluse. See came over to look at it as another girl took a picture of it with her phone.

"Yeah, brown recluses don't have all that fuzzy stuff on their backs," she said agreeing with me.

I moved the container that the spider had set up shop in over to some bushes and attempted to tip it so that the spider could go back to nature but the spider fell to the ground and when it hit the cement an explosion of tiny dots radiated out from the arachnoid.

"Oh my," said the girl with the phone.

"Guess she was a mama."

I immediately thought of Charlotte's Web.

Things People Say (And Do!)

I've had a busier than usual month or so of catering recently.

Here, er hear (?), are some choice things heard:

- "It was costing me $3,200 for a round of golf"

- "When I was living in Indonesia, I would have paid $100 for a glass of water like this"

- "I'm holding out on my husband even though we are away from the kids this weekend. I'm pissed he doesn't help around the house more"

- Girl #1: "You should see how nice the men's bathrooms are!"
Girl #2: "It doesn't matter how nice a bathroom is, you can still do cocaine in it."


And some things seen:

- A group from Ohio at a wedding brought their own Ohio State beer coozies. No need for bev naps for these folks!

- The same group had a few people wearing necklaces made out of buckeyes. Or made from the nut from the buckeye tree. I plead total ignorance of such knowledge.

- And again, at the same wedding, during the break in "Hang On Sloopy" the crowd did this whole Y-M-C-A-esque shout out: O-H-I-O!

- A couple cupping each other's asses at the same time (and you guess it... it was at the same wedding!)

- Legendary soul/r&b beach music artists The Spinners performed

- George Dickel and pickle shots


If I remember anymore I'll be sure and add them...