Back on the Chain Gang

Today is my first day back at the restaurant. They’re promoting me to the dinner shift in the hot kitchen where I’ll be cooking pasta. I’m terrified. Pasta is the toughest spot on the line; there’s no time for mistakes and you must be tough as nails. And strong. Hella strong. Considering my arm hurts from yesterday’s tennis lesson I think I have some work to do.

Embarassingly, my other fear is that I’ll cry. Because that is what I do now, apparently, when something gets to be too much, or too stressful, or too hard. I cry like a kindergartener. And that’s NOT OKAY because there is NO CRYING in the kitchen. Not when you’re trying to prove yourself in front of a bunch of big strong men. (Didn’t you read Kitchen Confidential – imagine how much worse it would have been if he were a girl, and if he cried? Ouch.)

The title of this post refers to this song, which they used to play before the beginning of the night shift when I was first starting at Garde Manger because it was at the beginning of somebody’s iPod mix. You know how each baseball player has a song that they play when he approaches to bat? Maybe this is my song.

And hey, I just watched the youtube thing and you know who cries? Chrissie Hynde. Chrissie freaking Hynde cries in this video, while she’s singing. Probably because the song was written about the death of her lead guitarist (and boyfriend?) after his overdose. If Chrissie Hynde can cry at work maybe I can too.