Ah old people, bless. I should say, before I go any further, that I like old people. I really really do. I aspire to be old people one day. It’s my only true ambition to be honest. And when I am old I fully intend to conduct myself with the same dignity, poise, wisdom and sense of awareness that the old folks that frequent my place of gameful employment do. That is to say I fully intend to make a complete bumhole of myself at all times. Whoop whoop I cannot wait.

Thankfully old people don’t visit the restaurant too often but there are certain occasions when you know you are going to have to deal with copious numbers of jumper wearing, chin dribbling, shouting, faint smelling of death, Werthers Orignal chewing, “I remember when…blah blah blah” spouting old people. Retirement do’s being the most notable. Retirement do’s are the most disappointing and least pleasant of all the functions and parties we do. It’s not just because they take a fucking eternity, your two hour standard for eat it and beat it is well and truly dribbled on and ignored by old people, but because every retirement do is stuffed to the bloody rafters with old people. Obviously.

I had to work a retirement do a couple of weeks ago, it wasn’t nice and didn’t end well. In they marched like a scene from The Dawn of The (Soon To Be) Dead with their angry faces and comedy jumpers. The complaining starts before they have even sat down – the lights too bright, the lights not bright enough, why isn’t there carpet, where’s my dog, I want my slippers. Ah it goes on and on. And then on some more. One hatchet faced old duffer even whinged about the cutlery, “too much of it…no need for so much of it….” and insisted I take all but his main knife and fork away and bring him a soup spoon. Which I did. You should have seen the look of devastation on his misery laden chops when I told him the soup was curried parsnips. Arf!

Anyhoo we got through the whole order process painlessly enough although I had to pressgang waiter chum number 1 into helping me it. I mean I did have other tables and didn’t have a half hour free to take an order for twelve people. The order was taken and all flavour, anything closely related to flavour, anything that could be even considered as having flavour was removed forthwith. But I or rather we got through the whole ordering, delivering and eating process with only a few huffs and tantrums from both them and me. Honestly the next one that called me,”boy” “son” or “here lad” was gonna get a chilli in their mash potato. Sake. Obviously some items were returned for either being too hot or too cold or for still having flavour in them but i have to say it was a little easier than normal.

Things got a little more difficult as the restaurant got busier. When service is full on and busy I tend to go into over drive and perform every task at breakneck speed this includes speaking. And whilst this isn’t ideal I know, most punters can put up with and understand me when I approach their table and with the look of a sweaty psychotic killer who has to get home to remove the bodies from the cupboard under the stairs and ask them at full speed, “HIWASEVERYTHINGOKFORYOUYEAHGREATDOYOUWANTSWEETGREATSI’LLGETTHEMENUNOW” old people don’t. Poor loves, so I have to repeat myself and talk really slowly and really loudly. It’s like talking to foreigners really.

But like I say I got through it and thankfully so did they or at least I though they had. Ironically it was the youngest member of the group who ended up fighting for her life. I was lounging at the bar, such is my want, when one of the guests from the retirement “party” approached me to inform me that one of their group had taken ill suddenly. I was a bit flustered and concerned obviously and not just for the lady in question. There is nothing like a death during service to ruin the atmosphere. Tips tend to nosedive too when a guest has to be taken away with a sheet over their head.

I went back to the table and found the woman sitting on a chair just to the side of the main group. She was indeed struggling to breathe. I asked her if she wanted some water. I have seen them do this on ER and what have you so it seemed the appropriate course of action. I fetched her some water and ignored the old chap with the charming smell of cabbage insistence that I get her a large brandy. I was pretty sure that brandy would have got nowhere near her. I sat with her for a bit whilst she regained her strength and perked up. Under instruction from the very nervous management I asked her if she had any allergies, she had eaten prawns and they were pooping themselves that she was about to go into anaphylactic shock. This was not the case though. I stood back to let her get up just as a veritable queue of old people had formed to offer their two pennies worth.

Old people love to see younger people suffer. One after another they poked and prodded at the poor woman as she sat there trying to regain her composure all offering differing medical diagnosis from the big book of made up illnesses for old people. “It’s widows willy” said one. Another ventured it was probably,”gatekeepers elbow” whilst another said it was obviously a terrible case of , “crunchy vein” brought on by the pepper sauce on the steak two tables over. The only person not to offer advice was the retiree, he was catatonic with rage that focus had been pulled from him on this his special night. Mook.

I tried to get them all to sit down and leave the woman be but just as you cant lead a horse to water you cant make an old person not stick their withered noses in where it doesn’t belong. I withdrew, it was either her or me and I was dying under the weight of bollocks diagnosis and the shuffling of Scholl shoes on wooden floor. One chap followed me out from the melee and got me in a corner. He then proceeded to tell me not to worry explaining in intricate detail the woman’s medical history. I mean this was the sort of stuff that I’m sure her even children don’t know.

A frightful carry on I can tell you.

In the end the woman was okay and managed to leave on her own two feet with old people shouting advice at her as she left. “Rub a cats foot on it”, “Get ’til yer bed”, “Get some tea and kippers” and so on. Old people, eh, what’s that all about? I know some of you will think I am being hard and these people fought in a war and all that jazz. Well these folks weren’t old enough to have fought it any war unless you count the big bread war of ‘88 to ‘89 fought between Dunnes stores and Crazy Prices. I do not. Winter’s coming so thankfully the restaurant will see less and less old people over the next few months. Like squirrels and what have you old people don’t venture out in winter. Which is a relief.