That Old Adage...

I always say to people, if the ice machine breaks down, it's going to happen at 5:00 on the hottest Saturday in July. Or, if you are going to run out of Propane, it's not going to happen at 8 AM on Tuesday morning, it's going to run out at 5:30 on a Friday night in June, when you have reservations for three parties, starting at 6PM. Like last night. It could've been worse of course, it could've run out at 7:30, with a dining room filled with diners who had only eaten half their meals. Or the power could have been the missing link, which is really a difficult situation. But still, the gas drying up just as the night is beginning is a pretty tough act. We called the gas company - and of course it's their answering service - starting at 5:40 or so and after many, many, many calls (I knew the names of all their operators by the end) we got a gas truck here at 8:15. By then of course the night was shot. We finally got through to the driver at 7:00 and when he said he was coming out of Dover, not Centreville as we had supposed, we realized there was no way we were going to be able to serve the 20 or so people waiting at the bar tables, nor would we be able to serve hot food to the one six-top that was already in place or the 7:00 six that was in the Lobby waiting to hear what was going to happen. Jack called the 8:30 eight to give them the bad news and I went around to inform everyone that our night was over, comping checks as I went. A few (very few) later arrivals opted for the limited soup-and-salad menu, but most everyone else who was here left for more attractive offerings elsewhere. It was probably not going to be a really busy night anyway. Jack tallied about 30 people who cleverly chose not to gamble that we would get gas in a timely fashion, and adding in the more optimistic bar crowd, it did not amount to a gangbuster night in UpHi, but still it's a serious loss of business. We were pretty depressed about the whole thing. My first phone call to the gas company was my line for the rest of the evening - she told me that her records showed we had half a tank of gas. I was sort of taken aback by this, wondering how the hell did she know that. She said that this information was based on our previous history... Okay... Anyway, the gauge was reading "0", no matter what our prior history was and we hadn't had a delivery since April 10, when the tanks were first filled. Our fault for not calling after about a week to make sure we were set up for automatic delivery, this is true. And you can be sure we will be now, every two weeks, whether we need it or not.

The up side to the story? Home early with Ruby (who immediately and surprisingly ran over to the neighbor's house, chasing after something all the way to their back porch. Thank goodness Gus was in bed already!! She's back to the tether til the soybeans get tall) A glass of wine on our porch and then bed by 11, that was sweet.