âOkay, so, today at work I asked a question that made my boss recoil, but apparently, once asked, he has to tell me the full story or âbad things will happenâ. Which, as it would, immediately piqued my interest.
I did the mash up last night, so I know that I left potatoes in the bin. I was last one out, and first one in this morning, and the potatoes are gone from that bin. Bit of a âhuh?â moment.
And my boss ⌠he starts telling me about how they always used to put out roses outside the restaurant when they opened.
âWhat? Isnât that expensive?â
âI mean, yeah, but itâs just what you do when you open a restaurantâ
What the fuck kind of answer �
Anyways, the roses always used to disappear, so they had to replace them everyday, (This skinflint spending that much cash?!). One outside the front door, in that little metal thing that I had forgotten exists. Itâs above to the right of the front door, a small circle made by 8 vertical bands of metal, each in an ) shape. So, like, the cross-section is a )(. Apparently thatâs a flower holder.
And then outside of the back door, apparently the old wooden post there never held up anything, it was just a post with a vase on it. That he drove into the asphalt there.
In the alleyway.
âWhat? Why would you do something so pointless?â
âAnyways,â, he brushed me off, âlike I was saying, we used to put out the roses every night [[emphasis mine]] and they would always be gone by morning. City kids, right?â
âWhy did you keep doing this?!â
âWe had really good luck opening, I didnât want to screw it upâ
At this point I feel I should stress that my boss is a straight-laced no nonsense, no superstition, donât-do-needless-things, pennypincher without an ounce of spirituality in him. But throughout all of this heâs defending putting out roses at nighttime, like itâs the most obvious thing n the world.
Just when I think heâs playing the longest, weirdest joke on me, he brings out the iPad, and he starts showing me security footage. Itâs indistinct, itâs too dark, heâs trying to point out that the rose never changes from the beginning of the night to the end, but when it gets bright again, the flower is just gone, while the stem remains.
Itâs about this point that I realize: This is a faerie sacrifice. This is how you sacrifice things to goblins and faeries.
These are rose faeries. Now you might not know, even if you live here, but Newfoundland has a tradition of rose faeries. We basically took all the stuff british colonists knew about faeries and said, âyeah, well, itâs all about wild roses nowâ. Hike up to Signal Hill from behind the geo centre and youâll pass a faerie ring of rose bushes that someone planted because of that. (Itâs not obvious at first). Later in Newfoundland history, we star replacing all of the rose faerie tales with tales about Mother Mary, (As in, Christianity), whose flower is the rose. Ask around the old folk, theyâll tell you tales about people getting sick or getting well really suddenly, followed by a strong smell of rose. About people working on church roofs, falling down into rose bushes, and not getting hurt. About statues of Mother Mary crying rose oil, indicating that an infant will be left in front of the statue soon. Those are all stories that are actually about rose faeries, but they changed the topic. I guess they still pay respect to them, they just think theyâre paying respect to god with rose petals and rosehip tea.
âBut whatâs this got to do with potatoes?â
Well, he said, he kept this up for about 5 or 6 months, and then the winter started. And back then, the florists in town didnât stock as much in green houses, there wasnât enough call for it. So he wasnât able to get roses.
The restaurant had really bad luck for a while, but then one day, all of the potatoes in the restaurant went missing. Of all the things, not the tenderloin steak, not the fresh salmon, not the halibut, not the cherries, not the fresh baked bread, the potatoes.
And the luck came back.
And he hasnât questioned it since.
âSo, about how many potatoes go missing every week?â
âAbout 25lbs in little bitsâ
We turned rose faeries into gluttonous potato faeries.