The manager, the cook, the Lion burgers and the microwave.

It was 9:30 in Bristol Zoo restaurant and the staff were all in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting. They had no-one in the restaurant because of the thunderstorm raging outside and they were taking a breather.
The door from the cold room suddenly flew open,
“We’ve got to get rid of this these Lion burgers pronto….” Tony Esposito the new zoo restaurant manager slammed a box of frozen burgers onto the kitchen worktop.
“Why?” Doris the short order cook looked at Tony and shrugged.
“We’ve got to. The restaurant inspector knew they were Lion burgers right from the start.” He paused and carried on,
“He curled his lip up and made a sort of roaring noise.”
“How will we? This bloody thunderstorm is keeping the punters away.” Doris said disinterestedly.
“Not by selling ‘em you stoo...” Tony stopped mid flow.
Polly the waitress looked at the ceiling and shrugged. She didn’t get involved in kitchen matters.
“I dunno how to. Not had the training, disposing of Lions.” she muttered and looked at her finger nails. She’d only had them done last night by Pat the Painter while watching X Factor on ITV3.
Tony looked at Polly then at the ceiling and then back at the rest of the staff, namely Gavin and Doris.
Doris was thinking about what could be done. Her years of training wouldn’t be wasted she thought.
“Could we use them in a shepherd’s pie? Sort of like a Lion pie but call it shepherd’s….” Doris trailed off when she saw the look on Tony’s face.
Tony threw her a ‘shut up and think about it’ look.
“He’d have to dig through the potato topping first and he might get bored….” Doris added.
Tony threw her a look.
“Could we flush them down the loo one by one?” Gavin the kitchen porter suggested. He added “We’ve got three loos.. We could take turns….” he stopped the suggestion in mid flow.
Tony threw him a look.
“Lion bars don’t have Lion in them. Do they?” Gavin said out loud. It was one of his many flashes of intelligence. Or lack of it.
Tony threw Gavin a withering look.
“Right!” said Tony “This is what they pay me to do, make decisions.”
He scratched his chin thoughtfully and looked at the box of 144 burgers.
“We’ll defrost them and fed them back to the bloody Lions. Clever eh?”
“Have we got any Lions left? There’s a 144 burgers in there?” Doris asked.
Tony shook his head and threw her a look and slowly pushed the box of burgers towards Doris.
“Right! Let’s get defrosting Dolly. I’ll hand you the burgers, you defrost ‘em” he said as he rubbed his hands together. He’d done a course on staff motivation earlier that month up in London and he was putting it use.
“Don’t call me Dolly, Tone…..”
Tony threw her a look that said it all.
Gavin stepped forward and grabbed the box of burgers. Tony had told him many times to use his initiative.
“Initiative, Gavin use your initiative.” he’d told him one day. That word just confused Gavin. Now he had stepped forward and was using it. He reached up and pulled down the microwave instruction book from on top of a cupboard, banged the dust and fluff off it and looked up ‘Defrosting Food’. He carefully weighed the burger, looked in the book and set the microwave to one minute and forty seconds at defrost.
Tony sighed and threw him a look.
“At that rate we’ll be here until midnight! 144 by I minute 40 seconds, do the maths. I don’t know about you but I’ve got a home to go to.”
Gavin looked confused and then looked back into the microwave.
“You can do more than one at a time Gavin...” Doris was trying to help Gavin out. Tony sighed,
“He’s your protegé Doris, you could both be cut from the same joint.”
Doris threw Tony a withering look. She turned to Gavin quietly mouthing what Tony had just said,
“You can put two in at a time lad...” Doris winked at Gavin as she said it.
Gavin looked confused and looked back into the microwave. Small puffs of steam were rising from the rotating defrosting burger.
Tony threw her a look and grabbed at the box of burgers. He pushed Gavin aside, opened the microwave door and rammed half of the box of the burgers into it and turned the timer dial to 20 minutes at full power.
“It can’t cope with that.” Gavin half whispered hoping that it wasn’t heard. “It just about manages to warm half a pork pie through.”
“Pork pie?” Tony reflected.
“Meant steak pie.” Gavin replied. He didn’t really know the difference. He did know chicken pies had white filling in them though.
“Don’t be stupid all your life.” Tony spitefully spat out.
The microwave whirred, thumped, grunted and stopped. The lights went out and the display went black. Tony slapped the top of the microwave, looking through the glass door totally perplexed at what just happened.
“You’ve buggered it Tony.” Doris looked pleased as she said that. Then she thought on and asked Tony,
“How are we going to make tea in the morning now?” she looked disgruntled at the thought of not being able to microwave a cup of water for her morning brew.
Gavin looked at the heap of burgers and stood and thought for a moment.
“Why don’t we feed them to the elephants? They eat buns.”
Tony dropped his head into hands and asked Gavin wearily,
“The elephants eat buns...” he trailed off and looked at Gavin.
“Yeah.” Gavin continued with his brainwave. “We could put the burgers into burger buns and feed them to the elephants.”
Tony separated the fingers covering his face and eyes and heaved a sigh so heavy it made Doris jump.
“Any more great ideas?” Tony said sarcastically to Gavin.
Gavin was looking at his reflection in a soup spoon ignoring Tony and quietly laughing. He turned it over and poked out his tongue. Tony watched Gavin and shook his head in wonderment.
“Oh.” said Gavin suddenly. “The penguins. We can feed them to the penguins.”
Tony shot him a look. Doris covered her mouth and stifled a laugh.
“Gordon Ramsay interviewed me once. He’s Michelin.” Tony said wistfully. He looked away across his fifedom, the stove, the serving hatch and back to Gavin. Polly and Doris. He bit the bullet and answered Gavin.
“We can’t. Penguins are pescatarian. Like a vegetarian that eats fish.”
Gavin looked confused and glazed over. He stared into the work surface and laughed.
 Tony turned Gavin around and leant menacingly into his face.
“What’s so funny dear Gavin?”
He sarcastically asked Gavin. Gavin drew back, shrugged his shoulders and picked up the soup spoon again.
“I was just thinking about giving a penguin a veggie burger. Do they have beaks like birds?” he laughed at his own joke. Doris stifled a laugh and looked at the floor.
“I thought I’d be Michelin by now, I ain’t even near fucking Dunlop….” Tony half whispered half said out loud.
Doris looked at him and Gavin just looked puzzled. Gavin picked up the soup spoon again and gurned into it.
“Right!” Tony took the burgers out of the microwave and threw them back into the box.
“We’ll feed the bloody lions frozen burgers.”
He grabbed the box and marched out of the restaurant into the lashing rain and walked towards the Lion enclosure.
“I hope they haven’t got fillings.” Gavin mused out loud and looked at his reflection in a serving spoon. He moved the spoon backwards and forwards to get it into focus.
Doris threw him a look and then laughed out loud.
“We’d better get on.” Doris said as she grabbed a sack of potatoes and tipped some out onto the workbench. She started to sort out the larger ones ready to make some jacket potatoes. She stood still for a minute musing on something and then said out loud,
“I suppose we should tell him about the Giraffe in the meat pies when he gets back.”
Gavin laughed, looked confused and then stared into his mobile phone and the serving spoon alternately.