The Meat Incident

Ah shit, I think as I lift my head from my pillow and look at the watch standing on the wooden nightstand beside me. 9:40am, I've got 5 minutes to get ready and rush to work, tight timing. I jump into my clothes, briefly wash my face and run down the stairs. As I open the front door I feel a light rain falling onto my face, but there's no time to think about how shit the weather has been the past few days, I have to be there on time. I jump onto my bike, even though the Bakehouse is a 5 minute walk away, just to be there a little bit quicker and as the way goes downhill my effort to get there will be zero. Fantastic, I think, as I open the backdoor to the little café, looks like I made it just in time. The clock was showing 9:47 - 2 minutes late but noone actually noticed or cared. I go to prepare some napkins and some cups for the regulars that always order the same and wait in front of the door until we open at 10:00. It turns out to be quite busy for a rainy sunday and my legs ache towards the end of the day. The last task of the day: sweeping up the front of the house. Luckily I had just found a mix cd of South American Reggae lying around, something energetic for a change. Personally I don't mind smooth Jazz and Lounge music but over time it gets overplayed and especially for fast sweeping it just doesn't work. And in addition to the heat that had accumulated it usually just made me extremely sleepy. Never the less this wasn't the case today so I get the cleaning done in no time. As I am just about to walk out of the Bakehouse the woman that always delivers the meat walks in the door. "I'll just put it right here." She says as she places the big and heavy bags of vacuum sealed meat on the metal shelf in the kitchen. She is off again a few seconds later. I start playing a little with the meat and now Stefan, the cook turns around from the stove and walks towards the meat bags. He takes out two big pieces and walks a little bit away from me. "Noah, watch out!" He says as he throws one of the lumps of meat into my arms. "Be careful man." I say cautiously, he throws the other piece and it nearly slips out of my hand as I try to catch it while carrying one bag of meat in the other. "Haha well done man." Stefan says laughing and turns back around and grabs a knife. In that moment I shout: "Stefan, watch out!" and he quickly turns around to try and catch the meat flying through the air. However it flew just a little bit too high and with a knife in one hand he simply raises his hands and I see the meat soaring in between his arms. I hear a loud 'pfluppp' as it lands in a pot filled with green pea soup. Well, it had been filled, now it was more empty than full as the light green soup had splattered all over the walls, floor and tables. Maybe I am slightly exaggerating, but having to clean all of that up definitely made it feel like I was scrubbing the entire kitchen. I definitely didn't get an early finish that day. So kids: don't play with food. (unless you're juggling with oranges - that's fine)