| Ramora
Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: GMT -5
Posts: 5,628
|  Pet, Nuzzle, Bite. Mherrfph. | Paris, Roma, Home Again | Possible Lovegood
Ondie was twirling back out from behind the bar, highly distracted by the way her skirt flared as she did. Swish, swish. Well, people always told her small minds were amused by small things. She also heard that small minds were attracted to shiny objects. Fortunately, Ondie did not have a small-
Hey, look! Shiny coins!
As Ondie approached the table, she noticed an assortment of paper money along with more shiny coins on the table right with the bill she had left for Kwan. She looked around as if the answer to her question was somewhere in the room. Where was Sam?
She shrugged. It seemed as if she had blown for her office again or somewhere discreet. Ondie picked up the bill and pocketed it in her apron before taking the money. Muggle money was fascinating. Merlin, they even labelled it with its worth and had little faces on them. Paper money was one thing she had yet to fully grasp the idea of. All she could think of was, Well, doesn't it get terribly wet easily?
Counting up the amount Kwan had left, which proved to be easy with the nifty amount labels, Ondie realized he had paid for Sam's coffee, plus left an extra tip for her, which she slipped into her skirt's pocket. What a nice gesture! Although, she would have to get it exchanged for Wizarding money later.
Once her hands were free, Ondie piled up all the plates and swept the used napkins and other trash onto them. Lastly, she grabbed the two coffee mugs by the handles in one hand, picked up the the plates in the other, and set off for the kitchen.
Wow, this would have been a horrible time for her chronic klutziness to kick in.
Thankfully, Ondie made it through the saloon-style doors and into the kitchen without a scratch on her or the dishes. She looked around. Hmm... sink... sink... ahh! Spotting the sink, she brought her load over and set them down inside it. If she had time later and Mel wasn't back yet, she would wash them. Presently, though, she grabbed a clean rag and a couple paper placemats before heading out of the kitchen again.
The buzz of the restaurant had all but died down. Apparently, the late rush was over and now, Ondie really only noticed Mel with the kid and Alyssa over at the one table. She turned back to the work at hand and hurried over to the table she had previously cleared. The rag worked well. For a plain rag. Ondie paused and looked at it front and back. Yeah, it worked well for a plain rag.
Shrugging, Ondie continued until the table sparkled, which didn't take long because its former occupants hadn't been piggies, thank Merlin. Ondie could remember being a child going to a restaurant with her family and, well, her brother had had a blast reintroducing his dinner onto the table. It had been a blast for all of them. Ondie shuddered. Ew. Kids. Vomit. Yuck.
Stuffing the rag into the empty pocket of her apron, Ondie proceeded to put the placemats in their places and readjust the napkin dispenser. Hmm... out of sugar packets? She made a mental note to restock after doing the dishes before she once again danced over to the kitchen.
"Y'ello?" she called. Nope, Mel wasn't present. Oh, wells. She would have done the dishes anyway.
The dishes. They weren't too difficult. Not only was Ondie used to using magic as a helper in cleaning up around the house, she was also unaccustomed to washing the dishes. She often instead visited Diagon Alley come mealtime. But really, how hard could it possibly be? Squeezing a bit of dishwasher soap onto a small sponge, Ondie stopped for a moment of thought, sponge hovering over the first dish. Since Muggles didn't have magic to help them with this kind of work, they invented machines to do it for them.
Of course! The dishwasher!
And conveniently, it was right nearby. Ondie wiped her wet hands on a clean towel and pulled open the door of the dishwasher. Frowny face. How exactly do you work the dishwasher?
Ondie looked around to no avail. Well, the instructions wouldn't be written all over the cupboards and the walls! They would be in the manual! Ondie tapped her foot on the floor. She was often misplacing things and when she did, she never bothered to look for them. They always turned up on their own. However she knew, a manual for the dishwasher wasn't just going to walk up to her, although that'd be cool. And she couldn't use Accio. Dang. It.
Guess she had to skip the whole manual part. Reverting to pure intuition, which is difficult when you've no experience with such things as Muggle contraptions, Ondie took the dishes out of the sink and one by one placed them inside the dishwasher. Then she closed up the door. Done.
Okay... soap. The dishwasher needed soap, right? She grabbed the bottle of dishwasher soap and turned back to the machine. There was a small covered opening that looked promising. She unplugged it and poured in the soap. After twisting the cap back on, she took a step back and watched the dishwasher. As it did. Nothing.
Ugh. Ondie cocked her head at the assortment of buttons on the machine next. Now, there was a Start button. That looked about right. She pressed it and jumped back when the dishwasher started making noises. Eep!
After a few moments, she decided that it was supposed to make that sound and breathed a sigh of relief. Woot! She had worked a dishwasher!
Mel probably knew how to handle things from there. And she would be back to help too. For now, Ondie looked through all the cupboards. One of them had to be a storage place for the packets of sugar and napkins and such that were supplied on each table...
Jackpot! Ondie smiled as she grabbed a handful of pink sugar packets, hopped off the footstool she was using to reach them, and walked back out of the kitchen. Sugar, restocked! Mission accomplished. Feeling like a woman who worked in Magical Transportation who had just been told that she didn't have to finish the mountainload of paperwork piled up on her desk, Ondie skipped back behind the bar.
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