I am an unapologetic omnivore.
I always snicker when I hear someone refer to themselves as a carnivore, because they're always wrong. Carnivores only eat meat. Omnivores like me, and grizzly bears, and crows, and sloths, and rats, eat meat, berries, honey, the New York City subway system, old fish, greens, used bubble gum, expired gift cards, Visa statements...like that. Omnivores eat everything.
So I was in Deadwood, SD, earlier this month having a terrific time (I was asked to speak at the Women Behaving Badly event and, as expected, Behaved Badly) at a conference among other things. And the cool thing about Deadwood is, in addition to the casinos, jewelry shops, gun stores, bible stores, and bars, there's always a meat buffet.
Hurrah, meat buffet! Also salad bars, I guess. And chocolate cake! ALL YOU CAN EAT CHOCOLATE CAKE. Anyway, I had about 25 minutes before my next event, so I sat down, ordered, stood, ambled over to the buffet, coldly ignored the salad bar, and went straight to the carvery bar where a lusciously medium rare steaming slab of prime rib shone under warming lights. I zeroed in on it like the Three Wise Men looking for baby Jesus.
Except there was no one there to carve. You know how they do: you stand there, slobbering onto your empty plate, and they grab that big fork and that big knife and slice according to your drooling specifications.
But there was no one there!
Okay, granted, it was four o'clock in the afternoon. There were maybe seven tables being used in a sixty table restaurant. Only one waitress on the floor, and her with her back to me as she bustled about, filling napkin holders.
I was starving, all right? Also, I'm not helpless. Also, I know how to wield a knife and a fork, and have for at least three years. So I set down my plate, circled around to the other side of the carvery table, seized the shiny sharp implements, and sliced myself a wiggly, rare, gleaming slab o' meat.
(I had completely forgotten about the bus full of seniors who had come in about five minutes behind me.)
There now! That wasn't so hard. In fact, my slice was a little on the small side, so I sliced myself another one. Cool; if the writing thing doesn't work out, I will find continual employment as someone who slices prime rib for a living, a noble and delicious profession. My, my, I was certainly quite clever and efficient in the way I--
"Oh, now, there, Martha! See, someone's here, and can you trim all the fat off mine, young lady?"
I look up. I see what at first glance appears to be four thousand senior citizens, fresh from a tour bus. All ravenous. All shuffling toward me holding empty plates. It was like something out of Night of the Living Dead, except with polite and well-behaved senior citizens instead of ravenouse denizens of the...no, wait, they *were* ravenous.
I obliginly carved Martha's husband's meat. Martha was a tougher customer; she didn't care about the fat, but she was sure a big believer in size does matter, because the slice I carved for her actually flopped over her plate.
I figured now would be a fine time to grab my plate and get the hell out of Dodge, or Deadwood, but Martha had brought dozens of friends and they were all hungry for my prime rib.
Okay. I could have left them. I could have scooped up my plate and vamoosed. But they were so polite. And frail. And nice. And hungry. And my elders, whom I had been taught to respect. So I carved. And carved. And...
"WHAT the...?" Uh-oh. The jig, she is up. I freeze in the act of trimming prime rib to Mrs. Saperstein's exacting specifications. There's the manager, looking completely astonished. He darts away, practically smashing through the swinging doors to the kitchen, and we all (probably...Mr. Kennet's hearing aid was low on batteries, which I deduced when he screamed, PLEASE MAKE MINE AT LEAST HALF AN INCH THICK, YOUNG LADY!, which I suspect is what tipped off the manager) heard the manager shout, "Does somebody want to tell me why a hotel guest is serving customers? I warned you we'd be busy with that sissy writer thing in town!"
Whump! The carving fella, who looked all of 19, flew through the double doors in such a way that I suspect the manager helped him with a foot in the ass. I mean, he burst through those things. "I've got it, ma'am," he panted, trying to right his too-big chef's cap.
"Okay, but jeez, take a breath. It's no big deal. Although I expect an enormous tip from my waitress."
"No, no." He practically wrestled me for control of the knife. "Sorry. It's okay. Sorry about that. I got it now. What can I get you?"
"Oh, I'm all set."
He flushed. Definitely in his late teens; the kid was mortified. "Sorry."
"Well, all right, but Mrs. Florshein wants to be able to read her paper through her meat, that's how thin she likes it, and trust me, hon, you do not want to cross her on this."
So I grab my plate and head back to my table, only to cross paths with the manager on my way back. "I'm really sorry about that," he said earnestly, and we both pretended I couldn't see the vein throbbing in his temple. "Our guests should never have to ask for anything, never mind serve themselves." (He had clearly forgotten the purpose of the buffet supper.)
"It's worse than that," I told him. "I'm one of the sissy writers here at the convention." Then I winked, to show him there were no hard feelings. And there weren't. If nothing else, I had something to blog about when I got home.
And my prime rib was delicious.
