Linguistic Doodles

"You idiot! They weren't done eating! You nearly cost me a tip!"
"They both got up, took their coats, and left! How was I to know they hadn't finished?"
Rob the busboy was furiously arguing with Jenny the waitress. The rest of the staff didn't want to intercede; it was a professional spat and a lover's quarrel beside and neither took kindly to someone taking sides.

"You always do this! You never listen!"
"You didn't tell me anything, you dumb--" the next word suggested that it was no longer, strictly speaking, a lover's quarrel. They stood, separated by the fuming wall of hate that blossoms quickly between virulently former lovers. They were then briefly separated by a carving knife, which twanged suggestively from the exertion of burying itself an inch into the grimy paneling on the wall above the Soup station.

Nearby, the sous chef was pointedly whistling as he flipped sizzling chicken-chunks with a theatrically large chef's knife. He whistled in a way meant to suggest innocence and nonchalance but which underscored the whistler's complete lack of either. He nodded without looking up as both quarrelers found something better to do with his time.

The head chef stormed furiously into the kitchen, drawn by the sound of employees not working and (more to the point) putting his customers off their meal. "What in the--" he began, then noticed that nobody appeared to be fighting. A better head chef wouldn't let that stop him, and would have simply kept on shouting until he found something worth shouting about, which was never hard and good for the circulation. Cartleback Switchby was not a better chef, lacking the sort of reputation that shouting necessary, and as such was terribly out of practice at it. He whirled around desperately and eyeballed the sous chef. The sous chef took no notice and instead levered his knife sideways, flipping over a row of onions and possibly a bit of the pan with them. The head chef drew himself up, inflated his lungs, and the onions obediently turned under the flashing steel again. He deflated slightly. "Must you always use knives? We have plenty of spatulas."

This sort of thinking was lost on the sous chef, who considered any cooking implement that wouldn't double as a hanging offense to be a tad prissy. "Sir? I've always gotten on fine with knives. I've got m' chef's knife, my parer, my cleaver, my carver" (he paused here to hold up the carving knife, which he hadn't retrieved but was nevertheless resting comfortably in his colossal palm) "my bread knife, soup knife, steak knife, and of course, chopknives." He jerked a thumb at a pair of thin metal implements which appeared to be knives finely sharpened to needles.

The sous chef smiled pleasantly, and his boss nodded cautiously. Then he desperately left to yell at someone, anyone, who was unarmed. The sous chef watched him go, his hands going about the day's work, doling out portions of chicken with a serving knife.