Sweet n' Free

I was reminded this evening of one of the many reasons why I'd rather run a 5k in a pair of new dress shoes...with a hangnail, than serve an elderly couple who've wandered out without chaperones:

Do-it-yourself lemonade

While I can certainly understand being poor (I am), I find it insulting and spiteful to be made to make a first trip for the water with lemon and then a second trip a few minutes later for that magic pink-packaged ingredient that ties the whole cocktail together. I'm sure the reasoning goes something like:

"Being that it's way too embarrassing to come right out and ask someone who makes his living by selling things to people for actual money, I'll just have him get me the water first. Surely many people must do that every day (almost everyone), and he couldn't possibly fault me for doing it (I don't). Then, in two minutes, when he's distracted doing something else (I'm not. I only have one other table. I'm an underachiever, not Mr. Magoo), I'll ask him to bring that Sweet n' Low around."

Though I suppose that while not dumping the whole depressing scheme on me at once could be an attempt at being polite and sparing my feelings, I'd love to for someone to be frank with me just once and lay out the whole recipe and plan from the get-go for the sake of convenience. Don't break my window then come around the next day to steal the radio after I've spent an hour with a roll of duct tape and a Hefty bag patching up your handiwork. I know exactly who you are and what you're up to, so just give it to me straight: blue, pink, or yellow?

I suppose the upside is that I don't get bored running back and forth piecing together Ms. Daisy's depression spritzer. Nothing takes the sting out of a $14 dinner check better than knowing that I'm at least getting my exercise in. The only thing that could make this scenario more enjoyable is the (inevitable) request for more lemons and sweetener...and, of course, being asked to wrap up the remaining two bites of dinner along with a fresh loaf of free bread. At that point, one learns to be grateful just to not receive the gratuity in nickels and pennies.

Ice Ice...maybe

A rare sight in any restaurant's waiter's station is a full ice bin. On any given night, of the thirteen servers on the floor, one, maybe two of them are refilling the ice the five times it has to be done throughout the course of the shift. Most of the others will thank said team player(s) with an 'atta boy, but never actually exercise the possibility of doing such a thing, and some will go on just not thinking about the source of the ice and that the bin underneath the soda machine is not actually that source. (It's like how my clothes keep reappearing in my closet and drawers, but clean again. I don't really feel the need to investigate. I just keep hoping that it will keep happening.)

This group malaise is a source of mounting frustration for even the most seasoned waiter who finds himself being the ice mule of the night. He'll snap as he realizes that he has to fill that bin for a fourth time, or it will remain with only that one last sad, wet piece of ice sliding around the bottom of it for the rest of the night. This will come on the heels of the two ladies who've occupied his only four-top for the past two and a half hours having just left him four dollars...in change. The ensuing breakdown usually manifests itself as a mumbling tirade followed by an angry jamming of the scoop back into the bin, followed by an awkward silence in the immediate area for about three minutes. The same dummy will undoubtedly be toting that bucket back and forth for a fifth and final fill-up in an hour, accompanied by the following commentary by a supportive "team" member:

"Woow, you're really on top of that ice tonight, huh? ThA-Anks! I've gotta find out where that ice machine is one of these days."

...and a tumor is born

Admittedly, I'm that mule some nights, and it does get frustrating mostly because I can't make myself stop the insanity once I've started. I have no idea how it happens and even less about what forces me to continue. Most nights though I usually have no problem at instantly cranking up the look of concentration on my face as though I'm mere seconds from bursting into action on a drink order for eight after noticing someone looking down into the bin and then beginning to look around to let someone else know that it needs filling. I can play that game of chicken all night.

The true master of labor avoidance will walk their glassware back to the ice maker to get the ice they need, hoping that whatever cruel turn of chance that found the bin empty will right itself soon.

Dear lady who sat out on the patio three nights ago with your friends for three hours nursing a bottle and a couple of appetizers,

When I asked for you to fill out that "keep in touch" card, I meant for you to put your address and/or email address on it so that I might be the waiter to turn in the most cards so as not to have to roll silver that night. So you know for future reference, we (waiters) will never promote something without the prospect of some sort of prize or reduction in workload. Ever. I didn't really want to keep in touch with you or care if the restaurant does. So while I appreciate the "great service!" compliment you wrote across the card along with absolutely nothing else, it was completely useless to me. You might have thought I'd do a victory lap around the restaurant showing everyone the awesome comment card I'd just gotten or maybe just press it to my chest and smile inside for a few seconds of deep, genuine pride at what a great job I'm doing at being a waiter, but neither of those things happened. I just wished that, instead of the compliment, you might have opted for a more monetary show of appreciation, say maybe nine or ten dollars rather than the $6 you left on that $54 check. Thanks again.

We're out of that too

I was watching vids on YouTube this morning with my daughter and happened across a bunch of skits of (Sesame Street's) Grover as a waiter. I'd seen and remembered a few, like the tiny/huge burger, with the blue, mustached exasperated guest (creatively named "Fat Blue"), but didn't remember this one which is now officially my new favorite (I can have favorite Sesame Street skits. What?).

We've all worked someplace where it seemed that we were missing at least some minor component of what we needed to do our job at just about every turn. My recurring favorite is that once every never months that some couple orders that most expensive wine on the list...which, I find out from the bartender, sold out two weeks before, along with, of course, their eventual second and third choices. They inevitably settle on a couple of Diet Cokes, preserving my hope that I can extend my White Zinfandel sales streak to a new personal best of eight bottles in a row.

A few more of my favorite out-ofs:

• the liqueur that we've never had since we've been open that's a key ingredient of one of the cocktails that's been featured on our menu...since we've been open.
• espresso spoons: The average restaurant has three of them: one jammed in some inaccessible part of the dishwasher, one in the pen caddy in the office, and one at that table that's needed to be bussed for the past twenty minutes.
• creamers: Usually, if you can slide it by the M.O.D., a ramekin'll do here.
• coffee: one out of every 46 or-so waiters will brew a pot when they've used the last serving. After all, if we were team players we'd be professional athletes, not waiters.
• clean dessert menus: I think I saw one four years ago

I'd give myself carpal tunnel syndrome finishing half this list, so I'd better not.

Porky's Revenge

The post's title has nothing to do with anything other than my awesome new idea for a name for the swine flu. Seriously, if you're going to scare the shit out of the entire planet you might as well put a little effort into a catchy moniker.


On to more important things:

Dear Michelob Ultra-drinking douchebag (redundant, I know) who sat on the restaurant's patio tonight with his two other douchey friends, thanks for taking both copies of your credit card slip with you, ensuring that not only would I not receive a dime for serving you, but that I would actually have to PAY for you to have delayed my getting home by over an hour. I'm going to move on, but if I happen to see your face on the news within the next few nights with a caption underneath that reads something like "Raleigh man becomes latest fatal victim of swine flu", I might smile a little...on the inside.

And to the couple of who left me $5 on 57, I take back that heartfelt "Thanks. Have a great night" that I laid on you both as you walked out. I hoped briefly that one of the line cooks' pubes somehow wound up in your shrimp and that you'd spend the rest of your weekend hugging your toilet and praying for death...but I'm feeling much more okay about it now and I just hope that you can do a little better next time.

The truth shall set you free

This might be a better blog if rather than just relay tales from the awesomeness that is my job, I occasionally relay a helpful tip that I've learned personally or from a fellow waiter...but not yet.

I was able to escape Prom night early enough to get home to study for my exams this week. In a stroke of delicious luck I was spared all of the big parties (tables), maybe for the first time ever of all the prom and homecoming nights I've worked... but not a single Hummer limo got annihilated by lightning or a big fist slamming down from heaven, proving once again that God loves to make it look like I'm talking to myself.

And speaking of God ignoring me, a few quick side notes here: If you love Jesus with all your heart and he loves you even more, and you conveniently happen to have a few business card-sized reminders in your pocket that explain that he loves me too and all I need to do to discover that love is to accept him as my lord and savior:
1. keep those cards
2. replace that $1.35 you just left me with something I can actually BUY SOMETHING WITH. I promise, 20% tippers don't automatically go to hell...although this one will. Up high!
3. Stay out of the left lane ALWAYS
If there's one thing keeping me from believing in a higher power, it's the fact that with the exception of the Dalai Lama, degrees of religiousness and frugality are always directly proportionate. It's a problem.

I walked by a fellow server's table the other night where a couple were sitting there with nothing but a couple of glasses of water and a basket of bread between them, reading verses from each of their own personal bibles to each other...both holding (the bibles) one-handed of course to allow for the holding of hands, smiling up at each other every few seconds. You'd know that was my table pretty quickly as I'd be sprawled out five feet farther down the aisle, bleeding from both wrists.

God bless.

Prom Night

I was just having an awesome morning, working on my second bowl of Cheerios, watching Spongebob and thinking about how I just rocked my Marketing final... when I remembered tonight's prom night...and I'm scheduled to work...and I'm alive.



Prom nights at the restaurant are the only instances I find myself actually wishing for a wicked case of pinkeye - a no-questions-asked stay home from work excuse...along with leprosy, anthrax, and losing two or more digits (must include a thumb). Compound the bitterness stemming from having not had the nerve to ask anyone to my own prom with the 9% tips I'll be getting from each of the appetizer and Coke-laden (separately) checked parties of 12, and you've got the recipe for another 8-hour mumbling self-hate session. Please God, either let me have an aneurysm on my way to work tonight or hit Raleigh with a savage lightning storm that takes out every other Hummer limousine on the road. If you even just get one of them I'll stop stealing the quarters out of the Muscular Dystrophy display at the gas station . I mean it this time.

"Hey, girls. Great dresses!! Do you like mine? You don't think it's a little too purple or makes me look like a genie or anything like that do you?"
"Um... Are you riding with us?"