Average Odd

Kyrie laughed quietly. Reading the article discussing the ins and outs of the restaurant business in general and pubs specifically, it was clear that the author had never actually owned or even worked in a food establishment.

“As if average means anything to those of us who are odd,” she perused aloud, “except perhaps to determine how far outside it we might venture.” Kyrie knew that she didn’t fit the profile of your “average” pub owner, but then she didn’t think she’d ever fit the profile of anything average. She hadn’t been the average college student, nor the average app developer. Why should that change now that she owned The Dragon’s Tale? Never mind that she was becoming more convinced every day that The Dragon’s Tale was far from your average pub.

Ever since Xander had returned to San Jose a week ago, she’d noticed more and more oddities around the pub. The feelings of happiness and determination had almost bowled her over the other day when she’d first come downstairs from the apartment. The last week had been spent figuring out what exactly she needed to do before reopening the pub for business, including menus, how many and what types of beer to have on tap, whether to offer wine and spirits, hiring a cook and wait staff, all of it. The other morning, in what had become her morning routine, she’d come downstairs with her coffee and done a walk-about through the pub and around the outside perimeter, stopping at the top of the beach to breathe in the briny air and let susurration of waves over the sand ready her mind for the day ahead. She loved walking on the beach early in the morning and hadn’t realized until she moved back how much she had missed it.

Returning from the beach that morning, three menus sitting on the corner of the bar caught her attention. She knew they hadn’t been there when she’d left the pub and she’d been careful to lock the doors. As she looked at the menus, a sense of satisfaction wafted over her. Glancing around the pub, her gaze landed on the pub’s namesake hanging in the place of honor over the bar.

“Is this your doing?” she asked, smiling up at the academic looking dragon.

Kyrie jumped when the painting winked at her. “Wait, what?” she muttered.

She shook her head and looked back down at the menus. They were the same ones used by her parents as far as she could tell. And they were a perfect fit for what she’d been thinking about for the pub.

“Well, why change something that seems to have worked?” she asked herself, sneaking a look up at the dragon in the painting. Did he just nod? She shook her head and pulled her coffee mug closer. Clearly she needed more caffeine.

Now, two days later, she sat at the bar reading yet another article on the best practices for running a pub and recognized that she was, depending on the metric, either above or below average on every single scale the author talked about. The whole tone of the article reminded her of how some of the software engineers reacted when they learned that several of her apps were just for fun. The engineers were even more confounded when her apps outsold many of the more practical ones. That didn’t fit the average app profile.

“I’ve never been average and I don’t know why I should start now. Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she told herself.

Her phone dinged with an incoming text. Pulling the phone out of her back pocket, she saw a text from Xander.

Hey. What are you doing?

Not much. Looking over menus. Why?

I have an idea. I’ll call you.

Okay. This afternoon? I have interviews for a chef this morning.

Will do. It’s a good thing.

Kyrie ended the conversation with a thumbs up emoji and went back to her menus. They really were perfect and now she just needed to figure out how much of everything she needed to order to be able to pull this all off. Now there, the information and articles and blog posts she’d found were actually helpful, and she had to admit, she was probably going to be average in her ordering… at least for now.

******

This week’s More Odds Than End prompt came from Fiona Grey. “As if average means anything to those of us who are odd,” she perused aloud, “except perhaps to determine how far outside it we might venture.” My prompt went to ‘nother Mike.