the bitter waiter

My funny Valentine

Once in a blue moon, after a rough shift, I'll entertain a certain thought while downing a Grey Goose and Ambien: I wish I had someone to come home to.

And just as quickly as that fleeting thought enters my mind, it vanishes while waiting on certain couples.  Couples like Darryl and Janna, a twosome teetering finely on the line between white trash and people who enjoy Two and a Half Men.

They've dined in my establishment before, usually without incident.  In fact I rather enjoyed them because they were quiet, quick, and tip-friendly. 

However, a drunken Darryl and Janna recently entered the restaurant in the midst of a heated argument.  So naturally I was their waiter.

"Hi there," I said in friendly form.

"No!  Fuck that!" Darryl said to Janna while giving me a firmly dismissive gesture. "You make shit up and get angry about it even if it's not true!  Fuck that!"

Without being prompted I could tell the situation called for alcohol, so I poured some sangria into a kid's cup and downed it while pretending to wipe down the table next to Darryl and Janna.

"You're always getting texts at weird hours!" Janna declared. 

"From work!" he said in earnest defense.

After a few seconds of silence, I checked back in.

"Anything to drink?"

"Let me ask you something," Darryl slurred, placing his hand awkwardly on my forearm.  "You've gotten texts about work late at night, haven't you?"

I picked at a non-existent stain on my apron as a subtle way of reminding Darryl of my employment.

"Not really."

"But like...hasn't work ever texted you to see if you can come in to help during a busy shift?" Darryl asked.

"...At midnight?!" Janna bellowed.

"Why don't I come back..." I said as I tried to walk away.

"No no no, we need drinks," Janna said.  "But let me ask you this.  If your girlfriend got texts late at night wouldn't you be curious?"

Oh honey.  My last girlfriend was in college.  She was studying abroad for four semesters and that's why none of my friends or family ever met her.

"I, uhm, I would probably, er, I'd," I stalled.

"You've gotten texts late at night and I haven't cared, have I?" Darryl said.

"I got ONE text late at night from my MOTHER because she was at the Sandals Resort and there was a time difference!" Janna said.

"How about I get some drinks started?" I said.

"Well he definitely just needs a water," Janna said.

"Oh so I'm drunk?  DRUNK?" Darryl replied.

"YEP." Janna said.

"Fine," Darryl said.  "We'll take TWO waters."

"Nooooo I want another Chardonnay," Janna said.

"Fuck that," Darryl said.  "If I can't drink, neither can you.  Man if you bring her a drink, I promise there won't be a tip."

"I'll tip him myself!" Janna said.

"With whose money, I'd like to know?!" Darryl said.

I fled to grab two waters.  At this point, others in the restaurant had caught on to the escalating volume of Darryl and Janna's exchange, and the moronic manager told me to "do something."

"Where's my wine?" Janna said.

"Please you've been whining all day," Darryl responded.

I snickered reflexively, which pissed off both of them.

"We'll tell you when we're ready to order," Darryl said, followed by a burp.

For the next hour, Darryl and Janna sat at my booth, which is normally reserved for parties of four or more.  They did not order a single thing and left only after the restaurant had gone off a wait.

I returned home later that evening and mixed the meager remnants of my varying alcohol bottles into a single martini and crashed on the couch while watching Two and a Half Men. And about four hours later, after I came to, I wiped the drool off my mouth and said a quick "thank you" to the man upstairs that I had no Darryl or Janna to disrupt the quiet contentment of being single.

What would Bobby Brown do?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you were Bobby Brown and you ordered this club sandwich, after eating half of it, would you send it back because...:         

1) You put too much ketchup on the plate?

2) Half-way through, you realized there was bacon on the sandwich, and you apparently don't like bacon?

3) Half-way through, you were in the mood for a burger instead?  At a different restaurant?

4) All of the above?

 

(the correct answer is 4).

 

Bros and cons

I was stuck waiting on five fratty dudes the other night.  I could tell they were displeased when I, a male, approached their table.  In fact, they couldn't immediately decipher why I came to their table.  However, once I made my intention clear with a drink order inquiry, I learned just how stupid they were.

"Aaaah bro, you're our WAITER?!" announced Joey D.  "We thought you were just coming to, like, chat or something because you just stood there staring at us.  I was gonna be like 'Duuuude don't just come randomly chat with a bunch of dudes.'"

"Yes I can see how my coming to your table in a restaurant while wearing an apron with a pad of paper and pen in my hand would be misleading."

"Hey bro," interrupted Joey T.  "Can I get a beer?"

"Any one in particular?" I asked.

He looked at me as if I'd just asked him to name the eight wonders of the world.

"Dude, whichever's cheapest."

You're in a restaurant decorated with stuffed armadillos that's in between two drug stores, a Gap and a combination burger/donut/milkshake shop.  It's all cheap, dickhead.

"Do you all have buckets of beer?" Joey G. asked.

"We do not."

"Gah, this place sucks bro," Joey E. informed me.  "I'll do a margarita."

"Any one in particular?"

"Which flavors you got bro?"

I rattled off the flavors with the aplomb of a stoned Baskin Robbins employee.

"I'll have a strawberry margarita," Joey E. declared.

"Dude," Joey T. cautioned him, "Don't get a fruity drink.  Everyone will think we're gay."

Right.  You're just five muscle-bound guys with freakish tans and freshly shaved chests wearing colorful wife beaters and ironic RVCA hats that match your chartreuse sneakers.  The only thing that would make your table gayer is if Michele Bachmann's husband sat down and blessed your food.

Joey E. gave Joey T. one of those awkward "I'm craning my neck and opening my eyes in the direction of our waiter because I think what you just said might offend him and thank God he can't see me doing this" looks.

"Ooooooh," Joey T. said with pensive realization.  "No offense to gay people, dude."

"None taken, collectively," I replied.

In defense of the bros, they bought me a shot of cheap tequila (albeit one that had first been refused by the slutty girl at the table next to them).  And shortly thereafter, upon seeing a different table of three average-looking college girls arrive, they cashed out with me and invited themselves to sit with the girls.

However, an hour later, Joey D. drunkenly approached me as I was taking another table's order.

"Hey dude," he said.  "I think I over-tipped you, and I'm all outta cash.  I need to buy that girl a shot of something."

With that, I handed him back his tip in its entirety.  All two dollars of it.

I heard that

A slutty mom dressed like a secretary in a hard-core porn, whose breasts vied for space in her ill-fitting top like melons in a produce stand, had been a crazy bitch to me throughout her meal.  She was accompanied by her overweight, equally unpleasant friend Suzanne and the slutty mom's young son Joey.

As the bill came, the conversation went as follows:

SLUTTY MOM: So, it looks like Joey and I owe about $34 for ours and you owe $20. Cool?
SUZANNE: Sounds good to me.
JOEY: Mama?
SLUTTY MOM: Yes dear?
JOEY: Shouldn't Suzanne pay all the bill?
(Slutty Mom and Suzanne give Joey a puzzled look)
SLUTTY MOM: Why's that, sweetie?
JOEY: Because I thought you told Dad that the reason we like to go out to eat with Suzanne is because she orders a lot of appetizers and always pays the bill?

Dead silence. Except for me cackling like a witch over a cauldron.

You've got hate mail

I'd like to extend a big thank you to everyone who watched my 20/20 stint and took the time to e-mail your kind words.

I'd also like to thank those of you who had enough time on your hands to tell me how much you hate waiters, hate my blog, and hate the frigid way I walk through a restaurant candidly on camera.    

And on the heels of such disdain comes this occasional feature in which I'll repost some of my favorite hate mail/comments, along with my responses.

First up we have Benji, who wrote in response to my recent blog entry in which I expressed a lack of gratitude for receiving a tanning bed I.O.U. on a napkin as my tip.

Benji writes:

Dude did u ever think someone might have been short on cash etc.You never know someone's sitch.As for your other rants..Man you are one whinnying waiter!Did it ever occur to you that customers might be acting rude because they can sense your bitchiness and disgust of them.Sure there are rude ass peeps but there are also rude ass waiters .Chill a little u don't no what kind of day someone is having.

Dear Benji,

It's obvious you've never worked in a restaurant.  If someone can't afford to tip, then someone should get a Hot-N-Ready from Little Caesar's.  I don't know about you, but I'm always cognizant (look it up) of how much cash I have on me.  And should I find myself in a "sitch" without cash where I need to tip?  I run to an ATM.  I borrow cash from a friend.  But I DON'T leave a note on a napkin.  It wasn't my problem that Mindy was short on cash, so why should I be the one who's inconvenienced for her lack of consideration?

You see, unlike almost every other profession, servers make their living through tips.  Not minimum wage, not tans, not I.O.U.s, not verbal compliments.  Tips.  And on top of that, with each table we have to tip out the hostess, the bartender and the bus boy a percentage of the table's bill.  So not only did Mindy not tip me; I still had to tip out the aformentioned out of my own pocket.  In essence, I PAID to wait on Mindy.  Understand how all that works?

How would you like it if your boss told you you'd be paid in a coupon to On the Beach Tanning instead of monetarily (look it up)?  You wouldn't be very pleased, would you?  So please tell all your friends and family who can't afford to tip to avoid restaurants and stick with Taco Bell.
--
Something named "ImDaBomb" writes:

Dude ur blog is hella fucked up and racist.  You sound like a stupid gay homo and entitled and angry. If ur so angry about ur job maybe you should just shoot yourself and get it over with?

Dear ImDaBomb,

First, thank you for the suggestion.  My flask is almost empty and I was worried about how I'd cope with my upcoming double shifts, but through your prose I see a solid possibility.

Second, if you really, truly read my blog, you'll know that no one is safe from my ire.  I ridicule people for their dining behavior regardless of whether they're black, white, Christian, atheist, fat, thin, Hispanic, Armenian, blonde, brunette, strippers, actors, doctors, other waiters, and yes, even those pesky queers.

By the way, in your articulate, Rosa Parks-esque plight against racism, I see you use gay in a derogatory fashion.  Many of your DMV co-workers and neighbors in your welfare-subsidized dwelling could very well be closeted homosexuals, afraid to come out because you might go all hate crime on them.  So while you pride yourself on an anti-racism platform, you might question your integrity across the board as it pertains to equality.  

But thanks for reading.  I know that words not spray-painted on a billboard are usually outside your scope of comprehension. 

I'll tan her hide

Thanks Mindy!  Go lick yourself.

 

Mean girls

I recently had to babysit an uppity, foul-mouthed teenage girl and her fugly friends in my section.  They arrived with their ill-conceived air of superiority and gum-smacking mall speak.

I approached the table and interrupted their dish sesh from the school day's happs.  The three of them shared a collective glare as I posed my normal question, "May I bring you anything to drink?"

And then suddenly, Lolita the ringleader, turned the frown upside down and gave me a fake smile.

"We'd like, like, a pitcher of margaritas?"

"Mmmm hmmm," I responded.  "May I see your IDs?"

With that, Lolita gave me a coy look and pulled out a Woodland Hills Country Club Swim Membershp ID.

"Yeeeeeah," I said, "I mean, like, a driver's license or something with, like, your birth date?"

Lolita misinterpreted this as, "I'm flirting with you," and hunkered over just a hair to reveal some of her Hit Me Baby One More Time jail bait.  Whereas she likely envisioned all my manly chemicals rising into rapacious sexual desire, I would have rather watched "The 700 Club" while wearing wet clothes than peer into her Forever 21 blouse.

"What if, like, I left my ID in my car?" she purred.

"Then go get it," I countered.  "Or did you girls ride your bikes here?"

With that, Lolita could tell I wasn't playing around and she slumped back into her seat, folded her arms, looked at her fugly friends in disbelief and demanded a water "NO lemon, NO ice, AH straw."

"Sure!" I said with effervescent sunshine radiating from my shit-eating grin.  "And for you girls?"

The girls looked to their leader.

"Uhm...same?  Water?  NO lemon?  NO ice?  AH straw?" she said on their behalf.

I smiled again and walked off. 

From that point on, I could tell Lolita and her fugly (like, REALLY fugly) friends wanted to punish me.  Me?  I'd spent the night before facing Nyquil-induced terrors about being in high school naked, my TiVo had unceremoniously skipped "30 Rock," and I woke up to discover I had cereal for breakfast but was out of gin.  So I was exceptionally pissy.

"Uhm, is there any reason our guacamole is taking so long?" Lolita asked.

"Beats me," I replied, "but I think it's because you never ordered it."

"Uhm, yeah we did?"

"Uhm, no you didn't?"

"Jessica?  Sally?  Did I not, like, order guacamole?"

Jessica and Sally gave each other a nervous look.  They knew they'd be lying if they said yes. 

"Yeah, didn't think they remembered it because it didn't happen," I said in a blatant mimmick of Lolita.  "Do you want me to, like, put in an order of guacamole?"

"No, not if you didn't put it in when I first told you to."

That's what she said.

"Mmmkay great everyone ready to order?" I asked.

"We're going to split a caesar salad," Lolita said.

I could tell she wanted some sign that her pittance of an order annoyed me.  But like my stoic ancestors from the prairie before me, I refused to let adversity make me crack, and took her abuse with another smile.  Also, I knew I was seconds away from taking my afternoon sleeping pill, so I didn't give a fuck.

The salad came to the table.

"Uhm...we wanted this split three ways?" Lolita said.

"Sorry," I said, "we don't split small salads."

"Uhm...then maybe we should talk to a manager?" Lolita said.

"Today's actually my last day," I lied.  "So you can tell him whatever you want."

"Wow, sounds like someone really doesn't want us to tip?" Lolita said.

"Yeah, I had a table leave me, like, $100 earlier because it's my last day?" I responded.  "So I really don't need a tip on a small caesar salad."

With that, Lolita and company asked for the bill.  When she tried to pay with a credit card, I lied and said it was declined.  Neither Jessica nor Sally offered to pitch in, so I told Lolita she'd have to run to an ATM and withdraw cash.  She tried to up and leave right then and there, but I also told her she'd have to leave collateral in case she didn't return.

She left her cell phone, and about 40 seconds after she ran to the ATM, the manager told me I was cut for the day.  So I transferred Lolita's table to an unsuspecting server and stored her collateral in a safe place.

The walk-in freezer.

Take a picture

I recently had to deal with a young hipster couple on a whimsical first date.  He, of awkward and constant self-congratulation, and she, of the "Aren't-I-a-cute-Asian-girl-speaking-in-a-perpetual-whine" variety, quickly found themselves in my bullseye.

("Geek Sqaud" and "Ming," I shall call them)

I greeted them and set down the chips and salsa.  Ming quickly took to her iPhone and snapped a picture of the greasy basket and bowl and uploaded the pic to Instagram after giving it a faux vintage feel.  Geek Squad in turn took to his phone so he could comment on Ming's snapshot. 

"I liked your picture," he informed her with what seemed like slight arousal.

"I want a hot tea," she whined to me with an affected frown on her face.  "It's really cold!!"

I realized at this moment that her frown wasn't so much an affectation but a perpetual fixture on her face.  Someone hadn't just hit this girl with an ugly stick; they made her the ugly stick's bitch.

"I want a Root Beer," Geek Squad informed me while rubbing his greasy chip-stained hand all over Ming's.

"We don't have Root Beer," I informed him.

"Uhhhhhhhh," he countered, "What kind of establishment doesn't serve Root Beer??"

I rolled my eyes in annoyance so slowly that I thought I could see into the future. 

"I guess this means you all don't do Root Beer floats??" he asked.

Yes, we do.  We don't have Root Beer, but we do have a special version of it that, while not available on its own, manifests itself instantly if you pour it over ice cream.

He ordered a Coke and I trotted off.  Until I heard Ming call out, "Waaaait!!"

I turned around, leading with my raised eyebrow.

"Do you all have any hot soup, like miso soup?"

"You two do realize this is a Mexican restaurant, yes?" I inquired.

"Uhhhhhhh," Geek Squad prefaced his prose, "I'm not sure what you mean?"

"Root Beer floats and miso soup aren't usually served at Mexican restaurants.  Think tortilla soup or margaritas."

Or, think about heading to a food court.

I returned with their drinks.  He was taking a variety of shots of her with his iPhone, each one of them more pouty than the one before.  I wanted to add her on Facebook just to see which Hipstamatic ended up as her profile pic.

"Let's order, I'm tired of eating all these chips!!!!" she whined, frowned and pouted.

"We'll split a large steak nachos," he told me.  "And we want the black beans, guacamole, sour cream, salsa and jalapenos all on the side."

I returned 10 minutes later.  Before I could set down the cumbersome, scalding hot platter, Ming and Geek Squad had their iPhones out, snapping away as if I were setting a Kardashian on the table. 

He consumed the entirety of the nachos while she played with her phone.  He requested the bill, paid in cash, and left a 10 percent tip.

After sitting in deep discussion for an additional 20 minutes (samples of the conversation included her asking "Why did Dave Jones leave The Beatles for The Monkees?" and him informing her that his recent diet had kept him on the toilet more often than usual), they asked me if I would take a picture of them.

I discreetly switched the direction of the iPhone lense and snapped a shot of myself.  I returned the camera and trotted off to the back before they could take a stab at another attempt to digitally capture yet another hellacious shift.

Fun with pictures!

If you think *I* can be a vindictive server...

(thanks to faithful reader Kirsten Anderson for the picture)

I heard that

BITCHY BUSINESS WOMAN (on cell phone, dining alone):
Yeah I'll be right there.  I'm just finishing my salad. 
(looks at me)
Yeah, male.
(looks at me again)
Mmmm.  5'9"?  5'10"?
(looks at me one last time)
Hahaha, eww.  No, honey, he's a waiter.

(Minutes later)

ME (on cell phone, within earshot of Bitchy Business Woman):
Yeah just waiting for this woman to finish up so I can go home.
(looks at bitchy business woman)
Yeah, eating alone.
(looks at bitchy business woman again)
Mmmm.  170?  180?
(looks at bitchy business woman one last time)
Hahaha, eww.  No, honey, she tips 15 percent.