My Chilly Milk and Ice Beverage Brings All The Gentlemen of Superior Intellect to the Acre.

I’ve been at this job longer than I care to admit.  In that time I’ve developed a schedule of “regulars” who come in and ask only for me to serve them.  Perhaps it’s my sunny personality *scoff* or maybe it’s the way the pancake syrup stain on my uniform brings out the desperation in my eyes, but they seem to like me. 

On Wednesdays and Thursdays I have Thomas the Tax Guy.  He meets with his clients at our place.  He has a thing for bacon that’s been burned black, and—speaking of burned—should someone ever set his house ablaze, he’d probably die in the fire trying to decide whether to save his wife or his Playstation 3.  It’s a tough call once you’ve logged all those hours of Grand Theft Auto.

On Thursday mornings I have “The Samurai.”  They’re into some new-agey Deepak Chopra, Abraham-Hicks type stuff. (Think “The Secret” only more hard core.)

On random weekdays I get this guy who works next door.  I’m not quite sure what his “deal” is, but he wears shirts like “Darth Vader was Framed” tucked into his elastic-waist jeans (pulled practically up to his chin).  He isn’t morbidly obese, so I’m not sure what the pants are about.  He has a little friend who has the kind of snarky superiority complex only a mom’s basement nerd can cultivate.  He’s one of those “Worst Everything Ever” types.  They’ve gone from complaining about everything and only tipping a dollar to complaining about most things and leaving three.  I think I’m winning them over.

Saturday and Sunday mornings Jeff and Mark come in.  I can only assume these two have been friends since college if not high school by the way they bicker at each other.  It’s a total bromance.  They sit and talk about bedroom furniture, some RPG and make up weird breakfast creations like oysters and hollandaise sauce over hashbrowns.  One of their concoctions made it onto our new menu, though I don’t know who’s brave enough to order it.

Recently I’ve acquired another pair of friends on Sundays.  An affable couple of slightly rotund gentlemen who will sit at one of my tables for hours (I mean like five straight hours) drinking coffee and mapping out some kind of total immersion role-playing game.   I used to think they were scientists or something with all the papers containing unpronounceable words spread around the table, but no.  Hard core gamers.

Come to think of it…

All of my best customers are total, unadulterated nerds.

I guess it isn’t my personality or the pancake syrup stains at all.  They can smell the Star Wars on me.  They come in and they can sense that underneath all that makeup and Burberry perfume that I’ve seen every episode of Red Dwarf ever aired in the US.  They know that I can Mario Kart them all into the ground, and that I currently hold tickets to the Video Game Symphony.  Despite all my efforts to seem cool and fashionable and trendy, they can sense that I’m a fellow geek and they gravitate to me.

What I’m trying to say is:

My milkshake brings all the nerds to the yard.

 

Dear Nerdy Regulars (Should any of you happen upon this blog):

I love all of you dearly, and it’s your total nerd-ness that I find so endearing.  So please take this with the sense of humor it was intended to have…  In other words, don’t stop tipping.  My Red Dwarf DVD collection is nearly complete.

Nanoo-Nanoo,

Em

I Wonder If The Monkey Waiters Need a Third

Well there you have it.

A monkey could do my job.

Literally.

Please, no one tell my boss about this. Apparently the monkeys work for soy beans. Unless I get paid in magic soy beans, the gal at the Steve Madden store only takes actual currency.

11.5% Adds Up After A While

While I'm waiting for VH1 to discover me as the next hottest clip-show commentator, I wait tables. Let's get something straight: I don't hate my job. I mean, I put up with a lot of b.s. from people who don't seem to understand that I wasn't hired by their mother to specifically cater to their every outlandish request, but I also brought home $300 for two days' work this weekend, so... It all washes out in the end.

The problem with food service is you have to watch people eat. You need a diet plan? Nothing will put you off your own lunch like witnessing a 75 year old man who was clearly never taught not to eat (or breathe for that matter) with his mouth open masticate a plate of over easy eggs. In a word, gross!

Not that it matters. Anyone in the restaurant business will tell you they've forgotten what a hot meal tastes like. I don't know what it is, but you could be sitting through the slowest lunch shift in the history of time, and as soon as you serve yourself up a cheesy, gooey, sausagey omelet everyone in town shows up at your door. By the time you manage to get back to it to steal a bite, your delicious meal is more an egg-colored Styrofoam pillow. Yet somehow I've managed to gain 10 pounds working that job.

Go figure. You just get used to cold food after a while.

The thing I hate most about my job (that I don't hate) is this notion the rest of the world has that I should hate my job. That it's beneath most people and that I should be somehow ashamed of what I do. Yeah, I'm crying all the way to Coach.

Valentine's Day Redux

My back hurts.

I came home this afternoon and took a very necessary nap. I don't know who didn't get the memo that Mardi Gras is over (so GTFO!), but there's still a decent amount of tourists meandering around. Unfortunately, they tend to get hungry. As my luck would have it, these lost souls with their lack of social grace, basic manners as well as their belief that they are the only people in the restaurant (and possibly the world) find their way to me. Honestly, what is it about leaving one's zip code that causes one to forget how to function in a public place?

And while we're on the subject, what is it about leaving an 11.5% tip that says the waitress shouldn't chase you through the parking lot and kick you in the shins? Oh yeah, Lady. I did the math!

But I digress...

I came home and took a nap. I woke up with a painful spot in my spine as though someone had been repeatedly punching me right there for hours. Random pains in my back have been an ongoing problem for about two months now, exacerbated by this Mardi Gras crap. Who knew waiting on jerks and their hyperactive offspring was so hard on the body? I can't take it anymore. I need a chiropractor.



Or...

The other thing that sucked about this week is that Valentine's Day fell on the worst work-day I ever experienced in my life. (Crying out by the dumpsters, anyone?) By the time I got home I didn't want to do anything but sit quietly and wonder what I'd done with my life. I managed, however, to muster the energy to open the gift Man got me. (Nothing cheers a girl up like coming home to a beautiful string of pearls!) Most awesome gift and a shared bit of chocolate-explosion cake later, and we decided to reschedule Valentine's Day for this Monday night. Which gave me an idea...

A visit to a chiropractor, or a night at the Sheraton with a jacuzzi tub and a big squishy bed costs about the same, right?

Let's Man and I put my collection of 11% tips to good use.