#server blog

Welcome! Thank you for stumbling upon my blog. I’ve been serving for seven years now. I have a love/hate relationship with the food industry, as many of us do! I have served in Mexican restaurants, Sandwhich shop, and a Sushi restaurant.

It was five o'clock, and these two early old birds were the only customers in the place. They had the relaxed familiarity of two ladies who had been friends the better part of their eighty years, and they were dressed up just a little extra, I thought, for a Thursday afternoon. They carefully sunk their fragile frames into opposite sides of a booth and excitedly studied the menus and exposed red brick walls. The hostess told me they were both celebrating their birthdays, two years and a couple days apart. “That’s adorable,” I thought. I took extra care of my two honored guests, my foster grandmothers. For that moment, I almost forgot about the apron choking my waste. One had a Margarita, the other one had a Lemon Drop martini. Cute. They both ordered ribs. Adorable. They both ate them all. Impressive. After they finished up, I surprised them with a brownie sundae with two candles. Their eyes lit up and the Margarita one cheered, "We're sixteen!" I recoiled in mock shock and played along with, "Well, I shoulda checked your IDs when you ordered the cocktails." We had a little laugh. The twin candles lit the moment perfectly as the sun began to set outside and Margarita revealed her wish to Lemon Drop, "Whattaya say? Another 80 years?" And then she pushed the sundae towards her oldest friend. Lemon Drop blew as hard as she could, but only extinguished one candle. Perfect. She slid it over to Margarita, who formed her lips into a circle and tried, I mean really tried. But she just didn't have enough wind in her today. So, she slid it back over to Lemon Drop who blew the second candle out. Every now and then, we all need a little help from our friends. “You can be our waiter at the next one too!” beamed Margarita.

For the purposes of this sad story, I'll focus on the lumpy father at the long patio table who sat as far away from his whisper-yelling wife as possible. Filling in the seats and genetics between this unhappy pair was a post-Rockwellian portrait of stringy-haired teens, spitting babies and an aunt and uncle who were in a silent race to the bottom of a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. This man, in his ratty sweater and half-shell posture, truly seemed defeated in every way. And I don't say that to demonize the wife. Who can know why a man loses the spark in his eye, or why he decides that basic grooming and physical health have no purpose? He mostly kept his head down and studied the menu like a weary sailor deciphering a treasure map. When it came time to take the order, I finally got around to him. He chose a barbecue plate with some ribs and smoked meats. And then there were the sides. See, the plates come with sides. And one of those side options is the fried macaroni and cheese. It is a beautiful thing, this “fried mac and cheese,” and it had even been discussed earlier in the ordering process by the wife, who had openly swooned for it but not ordered it based on its obvious fat content. The man paused for a minute, ordered the cole slaw and then sheepishly, rhetorically asked, "It comes with two sides?" I said, "Yes! You get one more." He weighed his options and then brazenly stated, "Oh, what the hell, the mac and cheese." Now, I honestly didn't hear the wife say anything. Perhaps she emitted a sharp warning sound set at a pitch only dogs and beaten-down men can hear. Or a coded sign like they have in baseball. Hell, it may have been only in the man's guilt-stricken head. But he immediately looked at her and said in an uncomfortable volume, "What? It's a barbecue restaurant?!" My pen hovered over the order where the second side would be written. I pretended to notice something outside. Then he shook a little, his face growing red, and he sarcastically continued. "Maybe I'll just order a salad! Would that be okay?" There was no answer. In fact, the rest of the family acted as if nothing unusual was happening at all. And since nobody else was carrying on, I finally asked, "So...the mac and cheese...?" The woman smiled warm death at me. A baby spit. The answer fell from his mouth like a jury foreman sentencing himself to death: "Yes."

“Great!” I said. I closed my order pad and it sliced down into my apron like a guillotine.