It’s All Play and No Work

When Idiots Play Garbage

Senior year 1973. Shrewsbury High School, Massachusetts. We were all looking for part time work. Ray Bernard had a connection to a restaurant called The Driftwood on Route 9, Shrewsbury. Nine of us were hired with scattered shifts of four or five idiots at a time. Completely out of control! If you were in The Pit — the dish washing area — doing the dishes during a Garbage Fight, you had some advantages dodging behind the dishwasher with dishes that were loaded with garbage to throw. If you were on the outside bringing stuff in to wash, you had more movement and you had a dispenser with chocolate fudge that stuck and ruined clothing! Dukey personally liked The Pit because he could drench people with the water spray, throw an assortment of garbage and had shelter to duck down. These after hour fights would go on and off for hours when no management was around. Another game they played was Ballroom Capture, a competition that could only be designed by idiots. Two or three guys would stand by the door with the lights on and their backs turned so they could not see the other two or three. The other two or three would be in the middle of the Ballroom. When the lights went out, the team by the door had to tag the opposing team members in total darkness. Madness prevailed as opponents ran around bumping into tables in the dark. Every once in a while someone would turn the light on to see where people were. They sometimes would be three feet away and the captor did not know it!!   Laundry Shoot. There was a big container on wooden skids that held all the table cloths, napkins and other soiled items. The laundry room was in the basement about twenty steps down. After dragging the sled-like container down a bunch of times, they figured out they could actually sit in it and ride it down the steps. How insane is that? If the thing ever tipped forward it would have been instant death. But what a ride! Finally what ended it all was a New Year’s Eve Garbage Fight. It was about 3 a.m. and had nothing to show for the time they had worked. Eight of the gang were fired by some little manager who Wildman Donelly grabbed and scared to death before their departure!