“Soup is being served,”
announced the headwaiter as five white-jacketed waiters walked in carrying
serving trays. Potus was served first,
as was appropriate and the First Lady next.
Everyone slurped
his or her soup in appreciation. The
sourdough bread the chowder was served in was crispy hard on the outside. The tops of the bread had been sliced to form
a soup bowl cover. Potus began to rip
and tear at the bowl top.
The First Lady
leaned over and admonished him, “Potus, dear, don’t tear into your food like
that.”
“Yes, dear, sorry
for that.” He scraped at the bread sides
futilely with his oversized spoon. He
waved a white jacketed waiter over.
“Waiter, I’d like a knife please.
Not a butter knife like this one; a steak knife with sharp edges.”
“It will be my
pleasure Sir,” said the waiter who whispered some urgent orders to another.
“What’s wrong
dear,” asked the First Lady.
“It’s just this
damn crust is so hard I can’t eat the bread.
That’s the best part.”
SoD spoke up. “Sir, you can try what I’ve done; eat more of
the soup first to expose the soft white underbelly and then you can scrape it
thus,” and he showed how.
Potus said, “Yes,
I see, I just like to have a little bit of bread to dip into my soup as well,
so that I can eat it... Never mind.
Waiter!”
The waiter came
over quickly.
“Scratch the knife
request; I would like a side of the sourdough bread. No soup inside, just the bread.”
“Certainly, of
course, Sir,” the waiter acquiesced and whispered urgent commands to another
waiter waiting by the wall.
“What is the deal
with all the words these waiter use,” complained Potus.
AoUN answered in
between mouthfuls of chowder. “At the
highest levels of wait staff training, the server is taught to use no less than
4 words per sentence. So for example,
they would be taught not to say, ‘You’re welcome’ but instead would say, ‘You
are very welcome.’”
The First Lady
spoke up. “I did not know that,” she
said and nodded graciously.
Potus muttered
something unintelligible.
“What was that,
dear?” she asked.
Potus waved her
off and fought with his bread using the spoon.
“Well, I’d like to
hear from the Secretary of Treasury and Labour how things are going so far in
the White House,” the First Lady asked to the two across the table from her.
The Secretary of
Transportation spoke up first since he had just finished slurping a spoonful of
chowder. “Things are progressing
nicely. We’ve made progress on some key
infrastructure projects with the new funding that...”
Potus looked up
angrily. “I said no politics at the
table,” he growled and started ripping at his sourdough bowl again.
SoT blushed
slightly and murmured an apology.
The First Lady
tried to smooth thing over. “That’s
fine, SoT, I was just asking in general how you were getting on, getting
settled in and so on.”
SoT nodded and
said, “Nicely, thank you, very nicely.”
Secretary of
Labour was now done with her soup and said lightly, “I just love the way you’ve
decorated all the drapes and curtains around the House. All the furniture and fixtures are just
lovely.”
The First Lady
beamed. “Why thank you! I chose all the schemes myself. It took quite a while to go over all the
patterns and tell them where to put each fabric type and paint colour. We spent nearly a whole day on it.”
SoL looked
impressed. “One whole day! Why that does sound like a lot of work to
redecorate a whole House of this size.”
The First Lady
nodded meaningfully.
Potus ripped at
his sourdough bowl in such frustration that he splashed his chowder across the
table violently. He covered the Chief of
Staff in white broth and dangling clams.
Everyone, including the waiters came over to assist.
“It’s OK, I’m OK,”
the Chief of Staff kept repeating, waving off help from the others. Two waiters helped him out of his chair and
two more came over to clean up the mess, including the long white trail from
the President’s chair toward the unfortunate staff member’s seat.
The First Lady
turned to Potus and chided him harshly in stage whispers. Potus looked sheepishly and kept making
whining noises, pointing at the remnants of his soup and bread bowl on his
plate.
A waiter hurriedly
entered from a recessed, hidden door and brought a steak knife to place gently
in the correct position next to Potus’ plate.
Potus waved him off.
Another waiter
appeared from another end of the dining room from a similarly hidden door,
carrying a loaf of sourdough bread on a tray.
He placed it on the bread plate to the President’s left. The President waved him off as well and
started ripping chunks of sourdough, crumbs scattering over the white cloth.
“Bread?” he
offered the First Lady guiltily.
She declined with
a headshake.
He turned to the
Vice President to his right. “Bread?”
He declined with a
headshake.
He huffed and tore
more pieces, mopping up chowder from the remnants and puddles on his plate.
The waiters had
efficiently cleaned up the table by this point and they retreated to the
kitchen. The headwaiter announced, “Sandwiches
are being made available now,” clearly following the more-than-four-words-per-sentence
quota.