Hello again, all.
Happy early Halloween. Friday and Saturday nights must have been an interesting one for countless people, quite possibly an extremely fun time for some. My weekend was worthy of note, but not anything quite “Halloween” – like.
This past weekend, I went out east, back home out to the east end of Long Island. I actually didn’t really have a choice in the matter, being that I had to get home to work at my family’s restaurant since both of my parents are overseas enjoying themselves for their anniversary. Since my uncle was alone, I was asked to help out Saturday night, but went out Friday to tend to small errands I had to accomplish before the weekend came.
With that, I made my way over to the restaurant/pizza parlor that has become such an important part of who I am. To give a brief history, in 1971, my grandfather opened the business after bringing his family over the year before from Palermo, Sicily. In 1989, I was born. Being part of a family business has ultimately shaped much of my personality to date, considering I’ve worked there since before I can remember. So, when asked to help out, I do. Even when I am not asked to help, I do anyway. It’s part of a life I’ve tried to avoid, yet still continue to accept because of the pride I take in knowing the business has such a long, rich history of family tradition.
Though the schedule tries to remain as consistently correct as possible, it never quite happens that way. I was actually only scheduled to work Saturday night, not Friday. Considering my friend Mike works there, I went in around 5:00 on Friday night to give a quick hello before the dinner rush came in. Little did I know that, by 5:15, I was tied my apron on and was opening clams for Linguini White Clam sauce and preparing countless orders of Eggplant Parmigiana. The dining room was filling up, and I happened to be the only person in the kitchen other than the dishwasher. Because my eldest brother, a Social Studies teacher in Brooklyn, had parent/teacher conferences and was stuck in traffic with no way of getting to the store before the rush hit.
Eventually, my brother came to save me. By 9:15, the last table left, and I was just starting to mix the pizza dough. For the next hour, we were cutting the dough balls to the perfect weight and rolling each one up to the perfect ball. After cutting and rolling approximately 120 balls of dough, I cleaned up a bit, went home, showered, and put on my mask: Michelangelo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (it was actually a cheap imitation of a mask that I basically threw together at the last minute. Give me a break, I unexpectedly worked all night). Then, I went out with some friends and enjoyed the Friday before Halloween.
Not a bad weekend, if I say so myself. Was it unexpected? Of course. But life seems to be that way, so I’ve learned to stay prepared to put on my apron whenever my name gets called.
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