The return of Chicken Little.

For quite a while now, our general manager has been acting rational and human. Of course, I heard that the other day while the place was totally falling apart she was in the office crying and having a text fight with her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But generally, she's been calm, rational, and helpful.

Well, not so last night. She was fine through the entire dinner rush, during which we had a wait. A few things even went wrong, and she was still fine. Then, when we cut to closers, we got a small pop. It really was not a big deal. We had a five, a handful of twos and threes, and one big table of about eight. Anna and I were perfectly capable of handling it.

But CL started freaking panicking and rushing around. She ordered another server, who'd been cut, to seat and serve a two top that walked in at the end of this "rush". I didn't hear that, so when the girl came back to the kitchen, I asked where she'd put them so I could greet them. She quietly explained, and I rolled my eyes and went to take the table. Meanwhile, CL was stomping back and forth in the kitchen, hollering about "we don't have anything I need! I can't handle this!" because the ranch and a few other things had been put away for the night. In the cooler, at the end of the counter. And the order she was starting to expo wasn't even ready yet.

She started yelling at the cooks, yelling for food runners with her eyes bugging out and her arms flapping. Then she yelled for food runners, then went out to do a lap of the dining room to do manager table visits. A few minutes later, while I was ringing in an order, CL came back in to the kitchen waving her arms and yelling. One of my other tables had asked for salt and pepper--we empty the shakers for washing every Tuesday--and she was just going off about "I can't believe we don't give guests salt and pepper! It's just (heaves huge sign) why? Why do we not give it to them? I know we have to clean them, but how do we not give guests salt and pepper?" She was holding her face in her hands by that point.

"CL, calm down! It's only salt and pepper," I said as soothingly as possible before taking the requested shakers to my table. When I came back, she was smiling and a lot more relaxed. "You're right," she said, "it's just salt and pepper, and we have to clean them."

Crisis averted.