Fish sticks
It probably won’t be the lobster’s best night, either. (Image credit)
When I was in high school and college, I worked at a family-owned seafood restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire called Yoken's. I began as a hostess and later became a server.
The restaurant was torn down a few years ago, but the giant neon sign, which features a whale spouting while its tail flips back and forth, is still a local landmark.
In its heyday, the restaurant was so busy in the summer that there would be two separate kitchens running, the Whaler and the Moby Dick (also known as "Downtown"), each preparing food for a couple of different dining rooms.
On Saturday nights, a hostess named Jill always ran the cash register. She seemed ancient to twenty-year-old me, but she was maybe thirty.
Unlike everyone else, Jill was allowed to sit down. Apparently, she had had some health issues that merited this special treatment. She had a no-nonsense attitude, a dry sense of humor, and a grounded, practical wisdom. I always liked working with Jill.
Over the course of those endless summer evenings, at least one of the servers would inevitably come up to the cash register in tears. A UNH student, maybe, with hair pulled back in a ponytail and an apron smeared with flour from the dinner rolls.
"The kitchen's backed up, and my customer is angry because his lobster isn't ready..."
Jill would listen sympathetically as she counted out the change. Then she would give the server her full attention.
"Honey," she said, "It's fish sticks."
The server would nod and wipe away her tears as Jill offered a little perspective in the midst of a stressful shift.
We weren't curing cancer, splitting atoms, or working on matters of national security — we were serving haddock au gratin.
And no matter how important they seemed at the time, the customers would eventually vacate their places and a new group would arrive.
It was never fun to be yelled at by a hangry tourist, but the suffering wouldn't last forever. We were, Jill reminded us, getting ourselves all worked up over fish sticks.
This too shall pass — this cranky customer, that messy table strewn with crayons and crustacean shells. The smoke breaks, the cameraderie, everything.
Those summer nights are long over, and even Yoken's itself is no more. The meals we worked so hard to put on the table have been forgotten.
But Jill's fish sticks have proven to be a durable, memorable metaphor. Whatever we're doing, short of actual brain surgery, is probably not worth the drama we're allowing it. Honey, it's fish sticks. It's not worth getting upset about.
