Pour the wine and cut the cheese!

There have been many impressive accomplishments in the world thus far. The pyramids, the fall of the Berlin wall, and cheese in a can to name a few. Things that people never thought would be possible, but through hard work and perseverance, they triumphed. But to hell with all of those.  I, Kylee Reynolds, have successfully passed my Fast Food Assessment. It should be recorded that this year I also kicked ass in a Shakespeare class; however, I think it’s clear which accomplishment is more impressive.

                Yes, folks. I can now pour beer and properly portion ice cream without supervision. The road to this triumph was anything but easy though. It included a lot of patience and marveling that Indiana still successfully functions as a state, a few key phrases in Portuguese and realization that sometimes bliss can be found in something as simple as watching a guest’s eyes light up when you hand them ice cream.

                My team consisted of a beautiful Brazilian whose hand on my shoulder was all that kept me from tearing the head off the third member of our team, an Indiana boy who sincerely needed a 72 hour hold. The three of us endured 2 weeks of seemingly obvious training. Our trainers were under no illusions that we were training for anything that required a lot of brain activity, and in that, we had a lot of time to get to know each other really well.

                This was great for most of the people. I talked about the beauty of chaos with a cast member with 7 kids, told a GT that he had dreamy eyes at least 10 times during one shift, lusted over Johnny Depp with several girls and learned key Portuguese and Spanish phrases from the International students. However, I listen to my mama. And something she always told me was that I was going to meet people that just needed to shut the fuck up. And I’d know who they were within 5 minutes of meeting them. The Indiana boy was one of those people. 

                I’ve never met a person that actually made me want to be a bad person. But after 10 minutes with him, all I wanted was for him to experience something unfortunate. He actually made me wish bad things for him because he just pushed my buttons every second of the day. There are certain people who think they are God’s gift to the world, and that no one had ever had any intelligence that could match theirs. These are generally the type of people that I trounce in Jeopardy and then enjoy watching them cry.

This was the Indiana boy, who spent the better part of a break one day trying to convince me that Christianity was a branch of Catholicism. My argument that he was backwards in his thinking fell on deaf ears. Needless to say, my immature move of locking him outside for 20 minutes was gladly received by everyone in the restaurant. Even my token burn from the fryers wasn’t as painful as a shift with him. My Brazilian’s constant presence, patience and appropriately timed eye rolls were all that kept me from being fired on account of my impending jail time from killing the Indiana boy.               

But today, when I was told that I had successfully earned my ears and was now capable of making magic with no trainer breathing down my neck was worth 2 weeks of enduring annoying co-workers and the ever present smell of grease. Well, almost. I am now optimistic that it someday will. This is more than I was last night.

So, to wrap up, 2 weeks have gone by and I am now a little worse for the wear but possess the ability to, you know, fry and stuff, which I’m sure will be the thing that my life has been missing. I’m convinced that these new skills are going to change everything. Having conquered this, I feel that anything else in my life that I try will be cake. Perhaps I will pursue a career as a neurosurgeon and moonlight as a corporate lawyer. Really, anything that I do, I can now do with the ease of the young boy on the flying trapeze.

Basically, watch out. I have a license to fry, and I’m not afraid to use it. Watch out Contessa, Kylee is flying solo.