the legend of andy jong ill

ok.  i've worked with probably close to a hundred different dishwashers in my time in kitchens, and very few of them stand out.  those who do, usually stand out because they rock the fuck out of the dish pit, or because they're hot high school chicks.  but you've never met andrew.

tragically, andrew has already quit.  i only got four shifts with the guy.  but he's legendary.  i will NEVER forget andy jong ill...

ok, first off...the attire...andrew's outfit of choice consisted of a LONG SLEEVE THERMAL TURTLENECK, (seriously...in a kitchen...), cargo pants with full cargo pockets (of what?  who knows?), male nurse white velcro lowtops, and a hat with a montana pin that was taped on.  yes.  a PIN that was TAPED on.  yep.  also the hat was just slightly too big.

and then there was the gloves...he wore, and i shit you not, like, grandma style dish gloves.  the blue rubber ones with the yellow insides.  always.  he never took them off.  he washed his hands with the gloves on.  the only time i saw him with his gloves off, he was standing in the dining room looking at posters on the wall, flapping his hands like wings.  see...i knew that he had gloves on all day and was drying his damp hands, but...none of the customers did.  or the bartender.  all they saw was this wierdo standing with his face literally six inches from the wall flapping his hands like he was trying to fly away...it's already become a kitchen joke.

then there was his voice.  at first, his nationality was suspect.  he's some sort of asian (i heard he's actually vietnamiese), but the first week i didn't think he even spoke english.  then, when he did finally talk to me, his voice is very high pitched, and he barely whispers.  which is totally creepy.  he asked me for a "hero sandwich", which i made him repeat like five times before i realized he meant a gyro.  and he had a wierd habit of standing directly across the window from me, with a drink and a fork in his hands (gloves), just...staring at me.  seriously.  not like casually holding the fork either...holding it up at shoulder level, like the pitchfork guy from that painting....just wierd.

and he was a shitty dishwasher.  he was slow, and he put stuff away wherever he felt like.  but he was such a wierdo that his mannerisms are now an inside joke in the kitchen, as is his voice.  plus we all thought he was a serial killer.  he was creepy.  those gloves, that really quiet squeaky voice, the full cargo pockets...nobody knew what to make of him.  we decided he was probably a rapist and murderer.  today i spent most of the day walking up to the other cooks and whispering really creepy things in their ears in andy's voice.

"this pill makes you forget"
"i'm going to bite your tounge off so you can never tell anybody what i'm about to do"
"it only hurts until you pass out"
"i'm going to wear your face like a mask"
"i'm going to eat your fingers first, while you're still alive"

my boss says he quit but we all think he got extradited back to cambodia for war crimes and/or multiple rape and homicide charges.  we'll never know for sure.  and we can only speculate on what was in his cargo pockets...was it trail mix?  extra gloves?  the hearts and eyeballs of his most recent victims?  the other half of his hero sandwich? 

ahh, andy jong ill, we're gonna miss you.  but your voice will never leave us.  i'll hear it in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

"you can only scream rape until i eat your windpipe"