The regulars are a calculable bunch. If they were spontaneous, they wouldn't come to eat at the same restaurant every other day. I've been working at Sprout for over half a month now, which is just long enough to awaken my mastery of predicting the regulars. Brian, my brother and owner of Sprout, is already a master.
Everyday regulars will rush in (they comprise about 80% of the daily sales) and Brian will correctly tell me what they'll do.
"This guy is going to get curry and grab a lot of napkins."
The guy will walk up to the counter, look at the menu (ie, lie to himself that he has any free will) and order curry and then grab a lot of napkins.
"She'll order Wonton to go."
"He's coming to buy only a green Tea, grab the newspaper and spread the sections out all over the table."
They will all do what he says.
For the regulars already seated, Brian will save me a lot of time.
"You may as well bring them out water now, unless you want to wait and get to the table then have to return after they ask for it."
Back when I was a neophyte waiter, I didn't believe. I ignored him. I wanted to scientifically test him by not listening to him. I ended up making several trips to bring water, hot sauces, plum sauces and hoison sauces.
Brian even knows the "Po" people. The Po people are the ones that pronounce pho incorrectly. I'm not anally focusing on perfecting an accent either. I mean they call it Po --- as in Edgar Allen Poe. I don't understand why they say it this way. It's not like English speakers can't make the P-H sound or they've never encountered the P-H phoneme before. I guess some jokester Vietnamese guy told them the H is silent and then said "Trust me," reassuringly.
Sometimes when someone says, "Can I have some Po(e) please?" I want to stop what I'm doing, look diagnally above into an imaginary spot light and recite:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore....
NEVERMORE! NEVERMORE!
Then they would say, "Dude, what the fuck was that?"
Then I would say, "I just gave you your Poe. You owe me 6.95 plus tax."
