As you may know, when we play music on the mall, we play for charity. I was never warm to the idea, mainly ’cause I like money. However, now, the fun of playing on the mall is watching the people go by and giving stink eyes to the folks who just put in a dime (for charity to boot) or dump their penny purses into our charity bag. So, yeah, not by watching the money go in.

Anyway, recently, Mama’s been having a month+ long migraine and thus, playing bass with a booming banjo, high pitched mandolin and a foghorn for vocals wasn’t exactly the cup of tea the doctor ordered. So, being out of commission, Luke and I tried doing some stuff down there: Irish fiddle, old time fiddle tunes, shamisen. However, after a few times, we had a problem. Simply put, Luke didn’t like playing shamisen and I didn’t like playing old time fiddle tunes (’cause they get boring after 5 minutes). Irish fiddle was “ok” but without the rest of the ensemble, the Irish tunes just sound like a *umph*-less series of notes. (which may be the same as shamisen, but since you can get a lot of arm power with the bachi, there is plenty of umph)

The average amount we made for each genre was around $15/hour. Then we tried something new. Papa came down with us to join in on guitar. Immediately, results improved as we started pulling in $45 per hour (which still wasn’t even close to our charity haul. . . none of which we kept mind you!). With this new format, where we kept the money, we decided to use it to eat out after we played. However, after a few times, Papa had the idea of “rolling over” the earnings to the end of the week to do some fine dining, rather than a sandwich (both of which would be delicious in my book).

So, at the end of the week, we played on the mall and afterward, after counting up $45 to add to the other $50, we headed down to 99 Bottles to spend our loot. When we got there, it looked very crowded so we decided to go back home, put away our instruments, freshen up (whatever that means) and come back. So, that’s what we did.

25 minutes later, we went back. It looked just as filled as before, so we inquired with the receptionist/hostess. she said they brought out some more servers ‘n all so a table might show up soon. We decided to go somewhere else so we left 99 Bottles. Luke warned that we should stay in line because we’d probably get a seat soon. We left anyway.

We walked around the mall a bit. After taking a gander at the other eateries on the mall, we decided that 99 Bottles was the place to go so we went back. There was a short line. Man! We should’ve just stayed and waited!.. or so we thought. As we were standing there wondering what to do, the hostess looked at us and said, “There’s a spot over there about to open up if you just wait a little bit more.” Man, it was almost as if we never left!

So kids, the secret here is, if you’re going to a restaurant with a line, make your presence known to the person in charge, and then you can leave and do whatever you want (for a short period of time) and have your “ghost” hold your place for you.