Guess what?! It’s Halloween! Happy Halloween averages everywhere. And if you think that you aren’t average, well, happy Halloween to you too!

I have been watching the 13 Nights of Halloween marathon on ABC Family and the Criminal Minds marathon on A&E. I just LOVE this time of the year. I feel bad, though, because I’ve been meaning to post for the last couple of days and then last night I thought: “oh, I have a great idea for a post”. And then I forgot it.

I do have a story for you, it’s just not very Halloweeny. And I was so going to have a theme! Oh well.

So, my grandma’s best friend, Mona, was telling me about the time that her husband was the manager and lead chef at a Holiday Inn hotel. (This is probably sometime in the mid to late 50’s). Their chef in charge of all things ‘grill’ was a drunk. A fall-down, can’t-live-without-some-whiskey drunk. But, and I quote, “his cooking was always better when he was drunk”. Which makes me believe he wasn’t that good to begin with, but my Aunt Mona disagrees.

She used to have to hold him up as he grilled steaks with one hand and downed a bottle of rum in the other. He was constantly teetering  from side to side and he wasn’t a light-weight man either. He was heavy, and for an eighteen year old girl (because people married early back then), it was not an easy task to keep him on his feet.

My Uncle Ronald would always know when he was drunk because he would sit forlornly outside of the back entrance to the hotel, standing–unsteadily–as he drank his way into oblivion.

But he was not the only chef/ worker bee in the restaurant, there were more characters equally full of character. There was a “pots and pans man”, “a pie lady”, “a dish washer” (who apparently is not the same as the pots and pans man), “vegetable guy”, and I think there are a few more but I’m having a lapse in memory. I just thought these titles were funny.

“I got a job today, honey.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, I am the new Pie Lady at the Hotel Inn.”

That is such an awesome job title. The Pie Lady. Awesome.

Anyway, she never did say what ended up happening to the drunk grill-man, but I have to think that he died the  way he lived. Drunk and cooking steaks. Or maybe he’s still alive, drunk and cooking steaks. Either way, I think he’s pretty much the same as he was.

So, the moral of this story: be safe on Halloween and being drunk while cooking steaks is a danger hazard.

That’s always good advice.

Mel