A Statement Was In Order

C:

And so i meditate on the latest incarnation of human folly. Mubarak, clinging on to power with estimated 40 to 80 thousand million dollars waiting in Swiss banks and I remember Markos and all the other zucche vuote and I am brought back to 1954 - the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Montreal was taken over almost completely by the Molson family for half of their daughter’s wedding ceremony to Sterling Moss I believe. The other half to be held later that afternoon and evening on the lawn of their residence under a big top . I was a waiter, in a small staff bathroom with two other Extras - Two Checks I believe - following instructions from an unknown source , which had us carry boxes of Heidzeck extra dry champagne to the bathroom, open each bottle and quickly settle them upside down in the toilet bowl and the small sink, to drain them and thus add empties to those actually consumed in that occasion and others that had been shrewdly collected

by the main bar in anticipation of this coming event. All of these would be added to the total of the bill of which we- the staff- would be entitled a small percentage as tip. We had a vested interest in the flow of the merry fluid and so we work furiously for a couple of hours. Alas, the bobbles did not drain at all but billowed up and then overflowed down to the floor where it slowly converted into flowing liquid which flowed down the stairs for two or three floors which caused one of the cooks carrying a silver tray of some Lucullian presentation heading for the head table, to slip and fall and the colorful verbal sequence that follow. A swiss guy the name Canova, who had apparently just arrived to this country and was hired for the first time as a bus boy, in a moment of relative calm told me rather timidly that he was hungry. In the middle of such a cornucopia cycle which gathered in the caldera of the kitchen where Chef Demerse barking orders into the microphone to the various sections of the vast kitchen and caravans of flummoxed waiters arriving to load up and then heading off in different directions with petit fours, antipastos, main courses etc here was a shy creature going hungry! I was infuriated! So incensed in fact that I decided not to just procure him a plate of food and let him satisfy only his hunger. I felt that a statement was in order. So I ordered him to follow me. I marched up to the Oval Room where the main party was being served and then with him in tow marched on right to the head table where not only the married couple their families and best this and that where presiding but where a long line of large silver trays with the most sumptuous presentation of culinary art were stationed and choosing what in my judgment seemed the must succulent delicacies that he and I had ever seen I grabbed it, and him with eyes popping out of his head and somewhat stunned followed me to a back storage room where I ordered him to sit on one of the few chairs remaining there, placed the tray on his lap and raucously ordered him to EAT! And left him there.