Day 9: Hot Dogs in the Dark

           Today would have been a busy day at Chicago Dogs. By 11 am, the lunch rush hour had already begun. I raced to and fro, building Chicago Dog masterpieces, filling sodas, and refilling condiments from the back-up fridge. As scheduled, karaoke began at noon. Halfway through a painfully bad rendition of some unrequited country love song, the power went out. 

           The crowd applauded as the music stopped. We groaned as our heat source, cold source, registers and soda machines all went out of commission.

          "Cold beer!" my boss yelled at the crowd, "We still have cold beer here!"

          The occasional ship-wrecked soul wandered over, but between the dim light in the garden that obscured our menu and the slow payment time it took to generate change manually, we lost a lot of customers. Fortunately, the fluorescent lights flashed back on ten minutes later when the power returned. Unfortunately, the power failed three more times throughout the afternoon. Finally, at 2:40 pm, we received word that the power would be out for an entire hour from 3-4pm as they attempted to fix the electrical problem.

           "Fill up your topping trays to the brim, avoid opening the fridge doors and let's hope for the best," my boss told us.

          I guess hoping for the best did work. The repairs took no more than twenty minutes. At that point, the power returned, and business resumed as usual. Do you think this is a legitimate experience to bring up when asked at my next job interview, "Can you describe a time when you faced a challenge in the workplace and overcame it?" 

Elf and a baby pig

           From darkness I strove for the enlightenment of The Miracle of Birth building where two friends and I wove through small children to look at recently born farm animals. Overhead, previously recorded video of people wrestling mucus filled sacs out of mama cows played cheerfully. Ah, the glory of life! The babies themselves, clean and cute looking, now lay in the center ring, soaking up a shower of admiration, "Ooooh, honey look at the baby cow! So adorable!"