Archive for the 'waitress' Category

“and I guess I will protect myself from you.”

Published on December 15, 2006 in bluishorange and waitress. Closed

i’ve made a few embarrassing admissions on this website over the past few years.  this definitely won’t be the most embarrassing, but here it is: i watch standoff.  for those of you who don’t know about it (and you are probably numerous), it’s a show on fox about hostage negotiation.  initially i watched it because ron livingston’s in it, and office space is one of my favorite movies.  every time i see ron livingston, i picture him saying “say hello to LUMBERGH for me!” and i laugh and laugh.

i was also intrigued by standoff‘s lack of a tired will-they-or-won’t-they subplot.  in the first two minutes of the first episode, it’s revealed that ron livingston and his FBI partner are already dating, so i was curious as to how the show would handle that.  not very well, it turns out; standoff is mostly just a bland procedural show that happens to feature ron livingston.  in addition to the two leads, there are also four supporting characters who have nothing to do except yell orders, look things up on the internet, and try to see if they can get a clean shot at the hostage taker.  each episode is pretty much the same.

but i keep on watching standoff, and i figured out why.  it’s because i like to see people stand up for each other.  in the cheesy hostage situations, if someone threatens ron livingston’s girlfriend, he comes to her defense.

when i had this epiphany, i was immediately ashamed.  an independent, 21st-century woman such as myself should not find it romantic to see ron livingston take up for his partner in a crisis.  women can defend themselves!  they don’t need other people to do it for them.  but i can’t help it.

a story:

when i was 20 i was a waitress at a restaurant in a suburb of houston.  this was back when i really liked being a waitress, when i didn’t dread going to work every day, when waiting tables didn’t make me hate people.  the restaurant where i worked was a small one, run by a man named harris, who had never owned a restaurant before.  he had eight employees total, including cooks, waiters, bartenders, and a dishwasher/busser.  in our battle to make money amid the more popular suburban restaurant chains (a battle we lost eventually), we were like a little family.  at the time i was also dating jake, one of the regular customers.

one night i was working the cocktail tables around the bar area.  that was my favorite section; the customers were friendlier and more accommodating of my rookie mistakes, and there was a lot of money to be made.  on this particular night, one of my cocktail tables was occupied by a group of men that had just been out hunting.  they were sweaty and mosquito-bitten in their camouflage jumpsuits, there was a dead deer in the bed of their pickup truck, and they were drinking tequila.  a lot of tequila.

round after round of shots i served them, per harris’s instruction.  our restaurant was failing, we all knew, and any money we could bring in was good money as far as harris was concerned.  at one point i went to the table to deliver some drinks, and one of the hunters said, “hey, i want to show you a magic trick.”

i was immediately suspicious.  “what is it?” i said, as i put the drinks on the table.

“okay.  i’m going to hold my hand out like this, okay?” he said, extending his arm with his palm facing the man seated across from him.  “see my hand?”

“yes…” i said.

“now i want you to keep watching my hand, don’t take your eyes off my hand, okay?  and i want you to turn your head and kiss me on the cheek.”

“no,” i said, and walked away.  even if i’d been willing to kiss him on the cheek, i knew his intent would have been to turn his head towards me when i wasn’t looking so i’d end up kissing him on the lips.  it would not have been magical.

i avoided their table for as long as i could, but when their drinks were empty, harris told me to ask if they wanted more.  when i approached them, i stood as far away from the table as i could and said, “how about another round?”

“how bout my dick in your mouth?” one of them said.

after he said it out loud i could hear him saying it over and over again inside my head, how bout my how bout my how bout how, with the most offensive part removed, as though my brain was trying to protect me from it.  everyone was laughing.  i turned and ran.

i found harris in the kitchen, clutching his customary cigar and cognac.  “i’ll put someone else on the table,” he said, after i told him what happened.

“what?  you’re not going to kick them out?”

“alison, i can’t.  they’re good customers, and we need their money.”

furious, i stormed back out into the restaurant.  jake was sitting by himself at the bar, and i told him what had just happened.

“gee, that sucks,” he said.

i don’t like to date angry guys, guys that start fights at the drop of a hat, guys that challenge people with a “what are you looking at?”  on the whole i find that sort of behavior pointless and juvenile.  but in that situation i wanted jake to be as angry as i was.  i didn’t want him to take action, but i wanted him to get mad, if not at the hunters for saying what they did, then at least at harris for not kicking them out.

but all he said was, “gee, that sucks.”

while watching standoff the other day, i tried to think of a time in which someone has come to my defense.  other than the nice half of the commenters on this website taking up for me against the not-so-nice half, i could only think of one instance:

four years ago, my grandparents and my parents and i were all at my aunt’s house for christmas.  my grandmother asked me if i was still dating the same guy i was with the last time she saw me.  “no,” i said, “i’m seeing a different guy now.”

“i don’t like to hear about you dating so many boys,” she said.

“but if she doesn’t date different guys,” my dad said, “how’s she ever going to find one she wants to be with?”

it was the perfect thing to say, much better than anything i’d have come up with on my own.  my dad had come to my defense, he’d done it peaceably, and he’d done it with reason, something with which my grandmother could never argue.

i once dated a guy who never stood up for me.  he treated my feelings as an inconvenience, he defended other people when they were blatantly rude to me, and when i said something he didn’t approve of, he acted as though he didn’t know me.  in elementary school when the other kids bullied me, the teacher told me to suck it up and deal with it.  maybe this is why i romanticize the idea of people standing up for one another.  most of the time, i’ve had to defend myself.

solamente una mesera

Published on November 19, 2004 in bluishorange and waitress. Closed

if i still enjoyed waiting tables, i would totally want to marry this guy.  he knows what he’s talking about:

So who does the cooking? Mostly guys like Ernesto. Hardworking faceless guys from places like Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Mexico. You were expecting a bunch of Italians singing opera flinging pasta? Wrong. You hear mariachi music and guys cursing in Spanish.

But this doesnít jibe with most peopleís fantasy of how a restaurant kitchen works. They imagine someone like Emeril or Mario Battalia waxing ecstatically about herbs and oils, engaging in something close to foreplay as they lovingly prepare your entrÈe.

So sorry. Itís a Mexican guy earning a paycheck, watching the clock praying for his shift to end as he sweats in front of a blast furnace cooking your food. In every restaurant in this great land of ours, whether it’s French, Thai, Chinese, or even Indian, itís Se Habla Espanol.

Yuppies raised on a steady diet of Food Network bullshit want an opera singing food personality to reinforce their Williams Sonoma Catalog ideal of how the world should be. When it runs smack dab against the harsh world of restaurant economics and immigration it creates what my old sociology professor called ‘dissonance.’”

he never told me what he wanted to drink

Published on October 13, 2004 in bluishorange and waitress. Closed Tags: .

i put the menu and wine list on a patio table and he sat down and thanked me and i started to walk away.  “oh, hey, do you want something to drink?” i said, spinning around to face him, but when i spun around i slipped and my foot folded in half and i heard something pop.  i grabbed onto the patio cart to keep myself from falling.

“hey are you okay?” he said, looking up from the menu.  i didn’t move and it hurt so i said i guess i’m not okay and he helped me inside.  i couldn’t walk.  they took off my shoe and put ice and heat on my foot and i was crying.

and then i was sitting at a table by myself waiting for my dad to come get me.  everyone else rushed back and forth holding drinks and food and empty plates, waiting on the tables i was supposed to be waiting on.  martha gave me some napkins so i could blow my nose and wipe my eyes.  you were standing nearby.  “hey,” i said, “i’m sorry about the dog water.”

“it’s okay,” you said.  i looked down at my foot.  it was red, and it hurt under the ice.

we went to the doctor’s office, and my dad got me a wheelchair and pushed me into the waiting room.  while we waited i tried wheeling myself around.  it didn’t work.  “i don’t know how to do this,” i said.

“sure you do,” my dad said.  “you took physics.”

“i was good at physics,” i said, turning the wheelchair in an awkward circle.

the lady that x-rayed my foot asked me if there was any possibility that i was pregnant.  “no,” i said.  then i asked her how they would x-ray a really fat guy.  she said their machine wasn’t new or strong enough to x-ray a really fat guy.  they’d have to send him somewhere else.

so my foot probably isn’t broken, they say, but i’m supposed to stay off of it for a week.  i’m on crutches.  if i want to make something to eat i can do it myself, but if i want to actually eat it i have to do it standing up at the kitchen counter, or else someone has to bring it to me.  i live by myself and i make a living bringing people food.  i don’t like needing people to bring me food.  i don’t like needing people.

when my dad came to pick me up from the restaurant you had to help me out to the car.  i was gripping my dad’s arm on one side of me and holding your hand on the other, hopping on one foot in between, and the whole time i was thinking about how disappointing it was that your hand felt exactly the same as it always did.  i was hoping it would feel like dust.

craniectomy

Published on September 19, 2004 in best of, bluishorange, school and waitress. Closed

the other night i went to work trying not to go to work. what i mean is that i spent all afternoon calling my coworkers, trying to get someone to take my shift, because i think i had the whooping cough. or maybe it wasn’t the whooping cough, but some funny-colored stuff was coming out of my lungs for sure, so that’s how i knew it was bad. nobody could work for me, though, so there i was at work, trying not to go to work, with my technicolor lung butter.

i was standing near the kitchen when i heard the door open. that’s one thing i like about my restaurant, that the front door squeaks when it opens, so you can always tell when a customer’s coming or going even when you’re not watching. but i heard the door open, and i looked up, and my favorite literature professor was coming in, pushing a man in a wheelchair. the two of them sat in someone else’s section near the front of the restaurant, which was good because it would be way too awkward to wait on my former professor, but i thought maybe i would go say hi to her later. she liked those photos i took of quentin’s bridge, maybe i could tell her about when i went to see faulkner’s house.

i went into the waitstation where priscilla was pouring iced tea into glasses. “that lady at 38 was my favorite professor at U of H,” i said.
“really?” she said.
“yeah,” i said, “except i’m afraid to go over there because i don’t want to have to tell her that this is what’s become of me.”
“aww,” priscilla said as she picked up the glasses and walked out, “this isn’t what’s become of you.”

still hiding in the waitstation, i grabbed the schedule clipboard off the wall and looked at my shifts for the next week. “oh, no!” i said to one of the other waiters, who had come in and was leaning against the counter. “i asked off next friday and saturday, but i’m scheduled to work both nights.” 1
“oh yeah?” he said, not looking at me.
“yes,” i said, though i could tell he wasn’t interested. “and i bet there’s nobody who can pick up for me, either. i’m so tired of working here.” 2
“then why don’t you quit?” he said.
i looked up from the clipboard and he was staring at me, his look challenging. “it’s not that easy,” i mumbled, unable to articulate anything else. he walked away then, leaving me alone in the waitstation. 3

later, of course, i came up with a thousand and one better things to say, things both sarcastic and sincere, but mostly sarcastic.
you don’t think i look for jobs every single day?
oh, yeah, because my other career is going so well.
i’m so glad life’s that easy for you.
why would you say something like that?
well, i am having trouble fitting in my many job interviews.

but i didn’t say any of that then, because i couldn’t, because that was when i realized something. standing alone in the waitstation, hiding from a former professor, i realized that the clipboard in my hands contained a sheaf of papers which comprised the only plans i have for the rest of my life.

lately, every time i run into someone i haven’t seen in awhile, my response to the inevitable “how’ve you been?” is always a succinct “bored,” and my response to “what have you been up to?” is “nothing.” i choose to say “bored” and “nothing” because discussing the concept of boredom is, to me, preferable to discussing the x-files episode i just watched, or that sweatshirt i made into a skirt. how many hours i spent on the internet. the marginally-funny thing the dog did.

but in all the times i heard myself explain to people that i don’t really do anything, the boredom always felt temporary. this period in my life was just a natural step on the road to better things, right? it wasn’t permanent. right? after all, i spent a lot of time assembling, categorizing, and reviewing mental photographs of myself doing these better things. me walking to work on a chilly morning in a different city, me taking the dog for a walk in an unfamiliar park, me on the subway, me in a bar with a group of friends. me in my new apartment, working on something. these photos, i’d assumed, were my future.

i hung the clipboard back on the wall and stared at the schedule, my eyes filling with tears. nothing, i thought to myself, nothing i’m doing right now is going to make those photographs a reality.

after checking on my customers, i asked someone to keep an eye on them while i went to compose myself. outside in the back of the restaurant, with the grease traps and firewood and empty boxes, i sat down in a plastic chair and took a few deep breaths. several yards away, the chicken scratched methodically at the ground. i observed her process with interest: she would scratch the gravel with her feet, peck at whatever she had unearthed, and then scratch again. scratch, peck, scratch. i watched for awhile longer, wondering if i could find some significance in her actions. deciding there was no significance to be found, i went back inside.

and i worked. i talked to people and brought them drinks and food and processed their credit cards. i avoided the front of the restaurant as best i could until the professor left. i said hi to freddy, who was sitting near the bar. “i like your hair bondage,” he said. i wanted to tell him it was the only thing holding my brains in. i wanted to tell him about the thing i’d just realized, because i thought it might help. but i didn’t.

mostly, though, i thought about siegfried and roy. i saw that special the other day where maria skeletor interviewed them about roy’s tiger mauling and his subsequent surgeries and rehabilitation and his new outlook on life. i found the whole thing to be pretty cheesy for the most part, but there was this one scene where siegfried was talking about the strength of his and roy’s relationship, and something he said (i can’t even remember what it was) was so sweet and genuine that i almost cried, just a little bit.

of course i berated myself for it immediately, because, jesus christ, what the hell kind of person cries during a siegfried and roy special? at the time i’d decided i was crying because that kind of emotional bond is pretty touching and in some ways enviable, no matter how sequin-spangled it may be. in retrospect, though, maybe i was crying with envy because siegfried and roy had jobs.

footnotes:
1. the schedule situation has since been fixed.
2. the problem isn’t really the restaurant, though, is it? it’s me.
3. this situation has been fixed as well. we talked it out, things are okay, etc.

i don’t even like guinness

Published on September 10, 2004 in bluishorange and waitress. Closed

two separate conversations i had at work sunday afternoon with a fellow waitress, one while she was typing in an order at the computer:

sarah:  are you a double today?
me:  yeah, i’m a double every sunday.
sarah:  oh.
me:  i’ve been a double every sunday for the past three years, i think.

my guinness wallet card, front and back…and one while we were sitting at the bar having lunch:

sarah (noticing my open wallet):  what’s that?
me:  oh.  that’s my guinness card.  pouring guinness was my favorite thing when i used to bartend.  i liked to make each one perfect.  i’d pour it halfway, and let it settle, and then pour the other half, and i’d always make sure the top was perfectly smooth.  i even have a picture of one of my customers posing in front of a guinness i’d poured.
sarah:  could you do the clover thingy?
i poured this guinnessme:  no.  i could never figure out when to start making the clover, so the glass would always overflow before i was finished.  i could make an “A,” though.  anyway, my boyfriend at the time gave me that little card because he knew i liked to pour guinness, and i’ve kept it in my wallet ever since.  i guess it’s been in there since 1999.
sarah:  you like to do things for a long time, don’t you?
me:  what do you mean?
sarah:  well, earlier you said you’ve been a double every sunday for three years.
me:  yeah.
sarah:  and you’ve kept this card in your wallet since 1999.   you do a lot of things for x amount of time.
me:  hey, you’re right.  yeah, i guess i have a lot of those.

transparency

Published on July 12, 2004 in bluishorange and waitress. Closed Tags: .

scene:  a family of three — young parents about my age with their five-year-old daughter — and an additional teenaged girl come into the restaurant and sit down at a table for four.

me:  hello, how are you?  can i get you all something to drink?

teenaged girl:  i’ll have a sprite.

me:  okay.  (to the five-year-old) what would you like to drink?

five-year-old:  do you [something unintelligible]?

me:  i’m sorry, what did you say?

her mom:  she said, “do you like anime?”

me:  um, i don’t know.  i guess i never watched much anime.

five-year-old:  do you like [something else unintelligible]?

her dad:  honey, she’s not into anime.  she likes indie rock.

five-year-old:  do you like gorillaz?

me:  yes!