Day 585: 5 Minute Freewrite: Tuesday - Prompt: tart

Sometimes things have to get worse -- taste worse, anyway -- before they can get better.

I was the longest-serving server in the whole Amaretto family of restaurants. I watched the chef that founded the chain go from being a driven master of the kitchen to his first restaurant, a restaurant that drew the great people of the city and region for its fine Italian food and desserts.

I was on the scene for the first tragedy. The mayor choked on some cannoli. It was the saddest thing ever. I thought we were done. But no: our great leader went into his bank accounts, pulled out what was there, did an advertising blitz, and even managed to get the city to let us cater the repast for the funeral. We came out smelling like amaretto, and the next year, expanded.

Then, tragedy struck again, three years later. The owner of the biggest corporation in town died of a heart attack while eating spumoni. The stock collapsed, the company went bankrupt, and everybody went through changes, including the two Amarettos. But instead of going down with the local economy, we did another advertising blitz, brought our prices down, and ended up with four restaurants.

Would you believe? Tragedy struck yet again five years later. The state attorney general had a stroke after his tiramisu. Again, the whole state had to go through changes. The Amaretto family of restaurants? We ended up expanding across the state.

I came from the wrong side of the tracks. I know when enough is enough. Everyone else was swooning with our success, but I have lived too long not to know better. Still, I needed my job, so I got prepared for the next tragedy, and kept working, and watching.

The President of the United States came through in 2012, on a campaign stop. Our status was that high. Our founder was in the house cooking like he always was when we had guests like this.

President Obama is taller than he looks on camera, and his voice is huge. Secret Service men were everywhere, so I knew what I had to do was going to cost me, big time. But, he was at the table I served. I brought him his gelato, and waited for the inevitable takedown. I remember he spat and clawed at his throat, and those Secret Service men were all on top of me in a flash.

Still, even though I don't agree with the president on everything, I wasn't trying to kill him. I knew he would taste the tart flavor of pure citric acid even on gelato. There would be no missing that, and he would spit it all out before what he couldn't taste -- cyanide, which is like bitter almonds but gets lost in sweet almond flavors and cold, sweet desserts -- could kill him.

The Amaretto restaurants are no more, they and their founder rightly buckling under the full legal wrath of the United States of America.

Me? I bring the president his food at the White House, a couple of times a week. He likes tarts, so I make sure he gets an extra one to make up for the tart way I had to save him from the assassins at Amaretto.

Photo Credit: Bruna Branco on Unsplash