Disturbing the Air
I worked in a restaurant many years ago that added on a pretentious wine tasting room, a huge cavern with lots of leaking skylights and cheap ceiling fans. The walls were lined with bottles of very expensive wines that never sold. Our customers were beer drinkers who clutched two-for-one coupons in their meaty fists. The restaurant served pre-breaded frozen chicken fried steaks, stuffed cod, and cheese sticks that were thrown in boiling oil by high school punks who called themselves chefs.
I hated working at this restaurant. I hated the food, especially the oozing fried cheese, the Miller Lite on tap, the Saturday night football rush, the self-righteous Bible-thumping owner who was hosing the hostess, the drunks that were always squeezing my elbow, and I hated the gaudy ceiling fans in the wine room. But I kept my anger buried, smiling and smiling, but boiling inside.
Then one day a table of joyous drinkers rejected a basket of fried cheese sticks because they were too hot. They threw them on the carpeted floor of the wine room and stepped on them. My bottled anger shot out of the top of my head like agitated soda pop. I looked up at the cheap ceiling fans whirling around noisily above the bar patrons and the next thing I knew the one right over the frats’ table crashed down on top of it, smashing beer mugs and mood candles and a few fingers. The frat boys paid me a lot of money and ran out the door. Everyone else in the room looked from me to the ceiling fans over their tables, probably thought briefly about the movie Carrie, threw some bills on the table and slowly moved out from under the fans and out of the restaurant. I quit the next day when the owner asked me to take a lie detector test to see if I had tampered with the ceiling fan.
This tale is not meant to discourage you from buying ceiling fans, installing ceiling fans, or even eating fried cheese. A ceiling fan can extend the time you can live air-conditioner-free in our area by weeks or even months. But be forewarned: Don’t buy cheap ceiling fans, install them carefully… and don’t make me mad.
This article appears in April 18 • 1997 and April 18 • 1997 (Cover).