Tweet
I call her the Bearded Lady because she was a lady with a beard. This was not the first time I had encountered a lady with a beard - in fact, my own maternal grandmother had a wispy blond beard that started to grow after she reached 60, and I've seen many older women grow subtle white whiskers. However, this was quite a striking beard. This was practically a goatee. No...wait. No "practically" about it. This was a full, thick, black goatee with a thin dark mustache. She could grow a better goatee than I could. Plus, she was not of "whisker growing" age; she was probably about 40.
Needless to say, the goatee did not make her a sucky customer. Fact is, I probably wouldn't even remember her - the Grease Factory got its share of customers of interesting appearance, including a monk who was more or less the spitting image of Rasputin (from Russia, not Psychonauts), two Klingons in full battle armor, and a succession of charming, chatty, and fun drag queens. No, the Bearded Lady is remembered because of her method.
She was the absolute master of getting more food out of the place than she paid for. She knew all the tricks and gamed the system mercilessly. She'd eat half the fries, wait for the other half to get cold, and then return to the counter complaining that they were unsatisfactory and the portion was too small. She'd remove a patty from a double cheeseburger and complain that she'd gotten a single instead of a double. She'd take a piece of bacon off a breakfast sandwich, hide it on her tray, and complain that she'd only gotten one piece instead of two.
When we got wise to this rubbish at the counter, she started going through the drive through. We'd see her sitting in her car, quietly eating her burger, then come in with the half-empty bag and complain that she hadn't received the burger she just ate. I used to jam her fry cones so full of fries that they were practically falling on the floor, and watched her face fall when I made eye contact and she realized that she wasn't going to get seconds.
The management wasn't so much spineless about this behavior as apathetic; it meant nothing to them that this woman was nickel-and-diming the kitchen to death or verbally abusing the rank-and-file to do it. They didn't have to buy the food or serve it.
When my sister worked at a Grease Factory in another town, she had to deal with a woman who would buy the (then very expensive) salads, pick all the ham, cheese, and tomatoes out of them, put each in separate baggies, then complain that the salads were "just lettuce and what kind of operation are you running here, you should be ashamed of yourself for defrauding a little old lady on a fixed income who depends on every dime blah blah blah." She would do this two or three times a day - she was actually doing her grocery shopping this way. However, since that manager made something of a game out of telling small-time scammers off, this one blew up in her face quite beautifully when she tried it twice on the same night with the same staff and the manager told her that she knew EXACTLY what the SC had been doing and that she was now free to leave and never return. My sister said that you could see that the woman was going to try for huffy indignation before settling on silent shame and scurrying out the door.
Anyone else got someone with a System that comes in regularly? What did you do?
Love, Who?
Needless to say, the goatee did not make her a sucky customer. Fact is, I probably wouldn't even remember her - the Grease Factory got its share of customers of interesting appearance, including a monk who was more or less the spitting image of Rasputin (from Russia, not Psychonauts), two Klingons in full battle armor, and a succession of charming, chatty, and fun drag queens. No, the Bearded Lady is remembered because of her method.
She was the absolute master of getting more food out of the place than she paid for. She knew all the tricks and gamed the system mercilessly. She'd eat half the fries, wait for the other half to get cold, and then return to the counter complaining that they were unsatisfactory and the portion was too small. She'd remove a patty from a double cheeseburger and complain that she'd gotten a single instead of a double. She'd take a piece of bacon off a breakfast sandwich, hide it on her tray, and complain that she'd only gotten one piece instead of two.
When we got wise to this rubbish at the counter, she started going through the drive through. We'd see her sitting in her car, quietly eating her burger, then come in with the half-empty bag and complain that she hadn't received the burger she just ate. I used to jam her fry cones so full of fries that they were practically falling on the floor, and watched her face fall when I made eye contact and she realized that she wasn't going to get seconds.
The management wasn't so much spineless about this behavior as apathetic; it meant nothing to them that this woman was nickel-and-diming the kitchen to death or verbally abusing the rank-and-file to do it. They didn't have to buy the food or serve it.
When my sister worked at a Grease Factory in another town, she had to deal with a woman who would buy the (then very expensive) salads, pick all the ham, cheese, and tomatoes out of them, put each in separate baggies, then complain that the salads were "just lettuce and what kind of operation are you running here, you should be ashamed of yourself for defrauding a little old lady on a fixed income who depends on every dime blah blah blah." She would do this two or three times a day - she was actually doing her grocery shopping this way. However, since that manager made something of a game out of telling small-time scammers off, this one blew up in her face quite beautifully when she tried it twice on the same night with the same staff and the manager told her that she knew EXACTLY what the SC had been doing and that she was now free to leave and never return. My sister said that you could see that the woman was going to try for huffy indignation before settling on silent shame and scurrying out the door.
Anyone else got someone with a System that comes in regularly? What did you do?
Love, Who?
It was just the way you talked about him. I know some people who talk about their own parent (usually dad) as "oh yea him" type deal. I guess it usually goes that way anyways where it's one of the significant others' parent.
Comment