Cocaine, Denny’s at 3AM, Broken Sink

Before we go any further, you should know I was a chef for over 30 years — which is basically like saying I willingly lived inside a tornado made of drugs, adrenaline, and people who think sleep is a myth. Given my childhood, it’s honestly shocking I didn’t become a lighthouse keeper or a monk, but no — I chose the one profession where chaos is considered a leadership skill.

Anyway, it was a Saturday night after service. We’d just survived a 400‑cover dinner rush in three hours, which is the culinary equivalent of fighting a dragon with a spatula. The screaming, the heat, the panic, the thrill — it’s like being in a war movie, and Tracy Chapman’s song Fast Car is playing on a loop, You want her to crash that car and have her head on fire and she has to run around hitting herself in the head trying to get it out, sorry but I really hate that fucking song!!!

Naturally, after surviving this, we celebrated the only way kitchen people know how: drugs, questionable decisions, and pretending we’re invincible.

Servers joined us, because misery loves company and also because they wanted free drinks. We all gossiped about the shift, who hooked up with who, and which customer deserved jail time for ordering well‑done Filet

At some point, I found myself in the bathroom taking bumps, then outside taking bong hits with my sous chef, line cooks, and whatever servers wandered into the smoke cloud like confused woodland creatures. Sharing drugs was considered polite — like offering someone gum, but more illegal.

By 3:30 a.m., we decided it was time for the sacred chef tradition: Denny’s. The land of fluorescent lighting and people who look like they’ve been awake since 1981 listening to the Human League’s greatest song “Don’t you Want me” You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar…best 80’s lyric

It was me, my sous chef, and two servers. We smoked on the way, did some quick bumps. We sat down, got waters, and immediately started vibrating with paranoia and confidence — a dangerous combination.

Then I felt a kick under the table. My sous chef. Eyes wide. Sweating like he’d been interrogated.

He whispered, “Chef… I don’t have money.”

I checked my pockets. Coke. More coke. A shocking amount of coke. Absolutely zero money.

Now I was panicking. Two grown men, high as satellites, terrified of skipping out on a $9 breakfast because we were carrying enough powder to ruin our week.

Our solution?

Politely tell them we need to go to the bathroom.

Do all the coke. Immediately. Because obviously that would help.

Spoiler: it did not help.

We became hyper‑alert, paranoid, and convinced the salt shakers were judging us. So we came up with a plan that only two coked‑out kitchen workers could invent:

Escape through the bathroom window.

It sounded brilliant. It was not brilliant.

My sous chef — built like Smokey from Friday — launched himself through that window with Olympic grace. I lost it. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. When I laugh, I become useless. A chubby, wheezing mess.

I tried to climb onto the sink to follow him. The sink did not approve. The sink detached from the wall like it had been waiting for this moment. Water exploded everywhere. I was instantly soaked, looking like a pug that fell into a fountain.

But I was committed. I flopped through that window like a wet seal escaping captivity.

We hit the ground running — or trying to run — laughing so hard we sounded like two hyenas being tased. It felt like the slow‑motion scene from National Lampoon’s Vacation when they run toward Wally World. Pure cinematic stupidity. Chariots of Fire!!!

We made it to the car. We were free. We were soaked. We were idiots.

After a few minutes of silence, we both had the same thought at the same time. I turned to him and asked:

“…Did we even order?”

He stared straight ahead, completely serious, and said, “No, Chef. We didn’t.”

We sat there in silence, contemplating our life choices, our dignity, and the fact that we had just escaped from a restaurant we never actually ordered food from.

We briefly considered going back for the servers we came with. But it was late. And honestly, we’d used up all our bravery escaping through that window.