Star Wars Episode X: Return of the Hoodie

One of our kitchen guys ended his shift, parked himself at the bar and got hammered. Dirt kissing, TPB, bad decision making drunk. But he wasn’t hurting anyone, ('cept his liver and some aquaphobic brain cells).  He's a really good guy and great cook, and I like food, so we kind of let him be.

He staggered out for a smoke at one point and teetered to and fro. I asked if he was ok and he half mumbled, half yelled an incoherent response (imagine crazy cat lady from the Simpsons). I asked the bartenders to cut him off and they told me they had already. A while ago.

At around 2 we were dealing with the usual end of night stuff when some girl pointed at our staff member and said “He stole my friend’s sweater”

“Who? Him? Nah, he works here, he wouldn’t do that” I said, but I went over to Wolfgang Lush and asked him if it was his anyway. He swore up and down it was his sweater. He knew it. It was a white Star Wars sweater, it was his.

I said “Is there any chance that it’s not yours? I mean, I’m sure there’s more than one white Star Wars sweater in the galaxy”. 

No, no way, uh-uh, it was his fucking sweater, he fucking  knew it.

Ok then. The investigation continues. I went outside to talk to the girl who started this whole thing. I asked if she was sure he wore it in there that night, because by now, the bartenders were telling us they’d seen our guy wearing it all night long.

“Look” she said sticking a finger in my face “I know that guy, I work with him, and that’s his sweater. He wears it every day. That fucking loser stole it” she flung her finger at the Hammered Gourmet.

“So there’s no chance that there could possibly be two white Star Wars sweaters out there somewhere?”  she took a long drag off her smoke and turned away from me.

By now, Chef Boyardrunk was arguing with the other guy, who was being a total dick about the whole thing. Finally, in a not so well thought out move, our cook pulled off the sweater and said, “Fine, he can fuckin’ have it, but it ain’t his!” then flung it at the dick head, who simply put it on. The cook went outside and paced about, asking me several times if he could go back in and punch the guy. Given his extreme lack of coordination and balance, that seemed like a bad idea.

After about 10 more minutes of arguing, the cook got MAD. The injustice of the situation was blowing his mind. Then he and the dick left, both angry and in opposite directions.

The next day I ran into our cook he looked a litte rough, I felt bad. I asked if he found the sweater.
“No, that fucking guy stole it” he spat, clearly still angry. He explained that he went home and tore his apartment apart and didn’t find it, so that guy must have stolen it.

I shook my head. “No bud, you never had a sweater on the whole night, we checked the security footage”
“Really?” he marveled.
“Yeah, the other guy walked in wearing that sweater” I said.
“Oh fuck,” the cook sighed, “I’m so fucking fired!”
“Nah, it takes a lot more than that to get fired from around here. Just apologize and maybe don’t get sorority girl wasted at work for a while.” 

He didn’t look convinced but went back to cooking.  It turns out his sweater was at his mom’s place, he found it a day or two later. And he didn’t get fired. And he makes the BEST spicy avacado chicken sliders, so really it all worked out in the end.

May the force be with you.  Especially on chilly days.