Perspective

The people working to put food out in the Washington, DC area right now? (I'm including servers and chefs, dishwashers, linehogs, bakers, baristas, bartenders, purveyors, hell even the delivery truck drivers. Especially delivery truck drivers.) Those are the people who seriously deserve respect and admiration. I mean, imagine you run a bakery, a good one, and on the average Tuesday you go through, say, 88 pounds of butter. Now imagine that your city's population is expected to quintuple almost overnight, stay that way for a few days and then return to normal. How much butter should you buy? How much product do you make? How do you make sure that your retail staff doesn't collapse with exhaustion before 9 am and still can manage a smile at 10? How do you deal with a dairy company that has every single one of its clients dealing with the same problems you have? How do you make sure your staff can even get to work?

I have images of prep cooks all over that city catching catnaps on sacks of flour. Servers who turn the corner and break out in sobs. Chefs standing at the pass reciting the Saint Crispen's Day speech from Henry V.

Ok maybe not, but it would be appropriate, "Then he will strip his sleeves and show his scars and say These wounds I had on Inauguration Day".

Take care out there, ok?

And if you're in the DC area as one of the many witnesses to tomorrow's inauguration? Tip well.
OK, Tip well anyway, but you know what I mean.