It takes a crafty person to come up with different ways to pull pranks yet it takes no effort for me to be a jerk while doing it; they both seemed intertwined and I walk that line quite often.
To me I was always enthused about the anticipation of the prank; the scheming, the waiting and then the pulling off of the prank. Not much is better than the long delay of the actual prank, to the point you actually forget you did the prank, like an overnight prank.
To set the scene up: I was working night shift and apart of any great line cook is leaving your station set up and ready for success for the next shift and expecting the follow day shift to do the same for you. I always pride myself on leaving my station "Locked, Stocked and Ready to Rock" and when done I would put the items used to fill the line back in the walk in in their oppropriate spots, this is when my next devious prank came to me.
I knew that the day shift during the Monday to Friday shifts made lots of Tuna melts that were on the menu to the point that you just couldnt make too much "Tuna mix" to be prepared enough. The "Broil" guy Dave and the "Pantry" guy Christian both used Tuna mix on different items on the menu and both were short in stature, this is where things began. Now back in these days we portioned up everything and then for ease of space and lack of inserts we put these portions in empty 4 litre sour cream pails. The genius I am, I labelled one of these buckets as Tuna Mix in my best writing I could as i have terrible writing on a good day, then filled the pail 3/4 full of water and placed it on the top shelf of the the shelving in the cooler, label out of course. Then I took a large gallon measuring cup filled it with water and poured that water into the remainder of the pail on the shelf until it was just below the top, carefully I put on the lid on all but on side of the pail knowing that when a "vertically challenged" person grabs it the will tip it towards them as the pull it off the shelf releasing all the gloriously cold water on them.
The scene was set and the anticipation was high but time was now to sit back and wait. My shift ended and I went off to enjoy a beer and relax before starting agin the next day.
I was the first of the night crew to arrive that following evening; I waited for someone to say "Hey, do you know anything about ...?" or "Did you put the Tuna Mix on the shelf?" or "Did you hear what happened to...?", but none of these things happened. Dave and Christian just gave me a run down of what prep they had left and took off for the night and no one said a word.
I did my line set and temp checks for everything making sure I was set up the way I like for my shift and in doing so checking to see if the Tuna mix container was gone and that the prank happened; no tuna mix container was present. FYI: It always seems that the shift before yours, no matter day or night, never sets up "properly". I got the line set, the team was ready to rock. The night crew rolled on line and we geared up for the night ahead; then the chef wandered on to Expo and arranged his garnishes the way he likes when I asked him " Hey Darcy, did anyone have any issues with the close last night?", I tried to get a reaction to what I anticipated to be a great story. "No man, everything was fine." he answered back.
I was confused, I was thinking that someone caught on to my prank and it was a lame duck. "oh, I responded, I thought maybe someone had a shower in the walk in cooler." I bluntly said.
"THAT WAS YOU?????" Chef Darcy exclaimed with a chuckle, "Dave saw it there and got a little wet and left it on the shelf then during the rush he asked Christian to get it!" (Christian is a little Phillapino guy who was maybe 5 feet tall ). I laughed as Darcy continued ".. all of a sudden we hear Christian yelling from the cooler and Dave losing his shit with laughter. Christian came out of the walki in cooler drenched swearing up a storm! He thought it was Dave that did it and set him up even when Dave denied it!"
And the legend of Scotty Mac pranks contiued...
No comments:
Post a Comment