Lime Bug-Juice

It’s our 10:30 lunch break. We DA’s eat our meals 30 minutes before the Galley is opened up to the general public, and I’m sitting at a circular table with a handful of the colorful characters I work with.

Vince Vaughn DA sits to my right… a tall, lanky fella who eats like a 15-year-old going through a growth spurt. He’s our class clown - a charmer who is unable to stop with the wisecracks and stories.

Across from me sits Eor-DA… so called for his lethargic pace, as well as his sparing, dry and often cheerless conversation. Eor-DA, however, is probably the funniest guy on our crew. When he does say something, it's often the driest, wittiest thing I hear all day. He was a librarian of all things back in Denver.

To my left sits Kastanza-DA, who, physically, has really no resemblance to my favorite Seinfeld character. Yes, he is small, but he’s a skinny 22-year-old… not quite the short, quirky, bald man. He’s also from Louisiana, so the nasally Kastanza voice is laced with a Southern accent. All that said, Kastanza-DA personifies Jerry’s angry friend George to a ‘T’. How someone can be so funny and amusing while at the same time so irritable, neurotic, and self-involved… I’ll never know.

These guys all got here in August for something called Winfly. During Winfly, a small crew from each department comes in and takes over for the group that wintered over. Today they are sharing stories about times during the Winfly months when they were written up for some sort of deviant behavior.

Kastanza-DA chimes in with his story…

“’ey, TIM…” He has a way of over emphasizing the person’s name who he is addressing. “…so I never got written up for this, but I thought I would be.” Eor-DA and Vince Vaughn-DA already start chuckling because they know which story is coming.

“…well, you know them bug-juices, right?” By bug-juice he is referring to Galley jargon for the various Kool-Aid type beverages we serve. We have fruit punch, orange, lemonade, cherry, and lime…

“Yup,” I reply.

“A’ight, well, I’m sittin’ there one day and I’m supposed to mix up all the bug juices, you know? I do it and all… it’s my favorite thing… don’t have to talk to anyone for two-hours… just stand in the back and mix my bug juice.” He’s slumped in his chair, looking at me through squinty eyes.

“So I come in the next mornin’ and the cooks and Mary (a supervisor) come grab me right away. They take me back to the bug-juice cooler and they ask me, ‘Did you mix the lime bug-juice yesterday?’ and I’m like ‘Yeah I did… what the hell?’ Well, maybe I didn’t say ‘hell,’ but…”

“So they’re like, ‘Can you show us how you made the lime bug juice?’ and I’m like, ‘Sure, whatever.’ So I grabs the packet of lime bug-juice powder off the shelf and I’m tell ‘em ‘I took two of these packets like I’m supposed to, then I added 5 gallons of water, and mixed.’”

“Mary’s like, ‘Is that the packet that you used yesterday?’ and I tell her, ‘Yeah it is.’ She’s like, ‘But that’s the wrong packet… it says Lime Gelatin.” I’m like, ‘Yeah, so?’ Mary’s like ‘You made 5-gallons of Lime Jello.’ And I just start laughing right there… they weren’t laughing though… they were looking at me all serious and I stood up straight tried to stop laughing.”

“Shit man, I didn’t know Gelatin meant Jello. How the hell am I supposed to know what Gelatin is… Why do they put the bug juice packets right next to the Jello packets anyway? What are you laughin’ at TIM. Did you know that gelatin meant Jello?”

“Yeah,” I chuckle, imagining someone going to fill up the juice dispenser with a 5-gallon stainless steel canister of Jello.

“So you think you’re all smart and stuff… well, to hell with you...”