the bitter waiter

There's a cup for that

This week I served two smelly, foul-mouthed truck drivers who were no doubt on their way back to deliver squirrel meat to a colony of spelunking-cave dwellers in Appalachian outlaw territory. 

Darl and Vardaman sat themselves at a dirty table.  As I approached and tried to wipe it off, Darl farted and then said, "You can save that rag, we don't give a shit about a few crumbs."

"Where's the pussy?" Vardaman asked.  "We want a girl to wait on us."

"Sorry," I said.  "The owners are super gay and only hire male servers."

They both shuddered and ordered their Mexican cheeseburgers, iced teas and extra chips and salsa. 

In between dispelling gas and swapping stripper stories, Darl and Vardaman asked me for an iced tea refill every 30 seconds.  I'd brink over the pitcher, and they'd drink the entire contents of the glass, then proudly ask for another refill.

Finally I set down a full iced tea pitcher so I wouldn't have to approach them and be subjected to their various emissions. 

They left after paying with cash (and a 43 cent tip).

I was carrying the empty iced tea pitcher back to the kitchen before I noticed something.  At the bottom of the pitcher was a smelly, foul, black mushy substance. 

The boys had used it to spit out their chewing tobacco. 

I wish so many horrible things upon both of them; That someday, someone gouges out their eyes and forces them to sniff their way around this earth; That a bear mauls and eats both of them slowly and painfully; That they both share the same hooker only to discover that the hooker is really a murderous tranny with crabs; That they both wind up in prison and that some gay bubba truly gives them a reason to shudder.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am off to drink vodka in the shower and rinse away the memory of Darl and Vardaman as best I can.

 

It's all about Amber!!!!!

Valentine's Day is already one of the most horrific experiences you can endure as a server.  Compound that with a needy single gal with a February 14 birthday, and you've got a surefire recipe for a homicide.

Amber was one of those girls who could have been genuinely pretty underneath the make-up, fake casaba melon boobs, orange tan, candy-scented perfume, glitter, fake-blue contacts, and badly bleached blonde hair.  Most repulsive, however, was her tedious sense of entitlement.

You see, for as Amber reminded me & everyone within earshot throughout the evening, she was:
1) Hot;
2) Done with people who didn't give her the respect she deserves; and
3) Making this year all about her, starting with her Valentine's birthday.

I, on the other hand, after an afternoon spent simultaneously dipping my spoon into peanut butter and chocolate ice cream, and my straw into an open bottle of red wine, was in no mood.  Girls like Amber are a dime a dozen in Los Angeles.  Over the course of my time here, I've made it an almost life-consuming mission to guarantee they know I do not view them with the same false sense of respect with which they view themselves.

Amber and her token slutty Asian friend Molly Yi arrived first for a party of eight.  Amber instructed Molly Yi to decorate the table while Amber downed a sickly blue cocktail that she guilted Molly Yi into buying for her.  Molly Yi had a water.  

I stood at a neighboring table chit-chatting with a group of delightful lesbians who'd bought me multiple shots, when Amber noticed I wasn't equally as enthralled with her.

"Hey!" she shouted.  "You've been at that table for, like, 5 minutes..."

"Ok,"  I replied, slinking over like Michelle Pfeiffer in a cat suit.  "And did you need to order something?"

"No.."

"Ok," I replied.  "Did you need to add or detract from the number in your party?"

"No..."

"Ok," I replied.  "What exactly did you need?"

"Well..." Amber searched.  "It's obviously, like, a party and you could, I don't know, offer to help decorate or make sure my birthday party is festive."

"I see," I said.  "First, as I will likely be the one taking down all this lovely regalia at the end of the night, it's not really my job to put it up.  Second, you let me know when everyone in your party has arrived, and I'll make it supes festive."

Amber gave me an open-mouth eye-roll as Molly Yi struggled with a large heart-shaped balloon.  The lesbians shot me a look of sympathy.  I retreated and poured myself a shot of sympathy. 

Eventually the other zoo animals arrived, each one trying to outdo the others in spectacle, feigned warmth, and idiocy.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!" screeched Shawna, whose sentences sounded more like the battle cries of a blind zombie in an emergency room.

The other ladies offered similarly insincere birthday wishes, and Amber basked in them as if they were Academy Awards, not generic salutations.  With everyone seated, Molly Yi (under specific instructions from Amber), led everyone in a horrible round of group games, all to the tune of "Who Knows Amber Best" and "What are Amber's Favorite Things?"                                                     

I laughed boisterously each of the many times one of the party guests did not know the answers.

"You guys, seriously?  You all know my favorite episode of Friends is the one where Rachel's sister comes for Thanksgiving!"

"You guys, COME.  ON!  My favorite scene in The Devil Wears Prada is where she gets the Harry Potter book for the twins!"

"You guys, seriously, you suck.  My favorite jelly bean flavor is passion fruit."

This awkward exercise continued until finally one of the girls suggested ordering food.  After a highly complex, unecessarily difficult exchange of modifying salads, nachos, and who was on whose bill, food and drinks were served.

As a drunken Amber licked nacho grease off her face, she gave me a glare and said, "I hope you're pulling out all the stops with my birthday dessert, because no offense?  You haven't been very attentive."

"None taken," I replied and walked off.

I returned after the plates were cleared with the tiniest, measliest chocolate flan I could find.  I let the birthday candle burn for one minute so that it would also appear tiny and meager.  With as little fanfare as I could muster, I approached the table as Molly Yi and Shawna began a tentative round of the "Happy Birthday" song. 

I returned moments later to hear the girls' demeanor had changed drastically.  Amber was yelling about how she wasn't chipping in for her own birthday meal.

"Amber, nobody's asking you to pay," Molly Yi assured her.  "Just because we're figuring out how to split it doesn't mean we expect you to give money."

"It's just..." Amber began defensively, and through forced tears, "I just feel like you guys are making my birthday seem like an imposition.  And do you have any idea how shitty that makes me feel???  Like, just throw down your credit cards and split it between you guys, stop making me FEEL BAD!!!"

"No one was arguing about the bill, Amber," Shawna offered with a little less consolation in her voice.  "This is, surprise surprise, not about you."

And with that, the girls turned on one another.

"You're being a bitch for no reason!"

"You don't need to be rude to Amber, it's her birthday!!"

"NO ONE even knew the answers to all my questions, you guys are shitty friends!!!!!!!!!"

I did not censor my smile when I returned to the now very quiet, very tense table to pick up the various credit cards.

"Did everyone have a super festive time???" I inquired.  Amber started to cry again.  Molly Yi took to taking down the balloons. 

And the lesbians and I did a round of shots to celebrate a party truly fitting of its hostess.

Saved by the bell

"YOU.  HAVE.  TO.  TELL ME IF ANYONE FAMOUS IS IN HERE!!" Suzie declared.

I had just clocked in and barely had time to swallow the gin and tonic I'd stashed in my right cheek before hearing her battle cry.

"My husband and I are visiting from Arkansas and we HAVE to see famous people while we're here!" she continued. 

Oh she was an awkward little thing.  Her XL sleeveless Robert Pattinson T-shirt was tied into its own side loop over acid-washed white jeans with blue and pink paint splatters.

She looked like a dancer for a DC Talk tour.

Her husband resembled a piece of white bread, crusts still on, nothing on it, notable only for breath that smelled as if he'd been kissing the wrong end of a dog.

"Oh would you take a picture of us???" she asked.

I obliged and she immediately set to filtering, captioning, and posting it on all manner of social media.  I still had yet to introduce myself or take a drink order, mind you.

And then it happened. 

In an understandably demure manner, as if to not attract attention to herself, actress Tiffani Amber Thiessen and friend entered the restaurant and were sat at a booth in dangerous proximity to Suzie and Ass Breath.

I, naturally, wasn't about to say anything, and not so much out of respect for Miss Thiessen but because I wanted to be rid of the Arkansans ASAP.  Ass Breath, however, was quick on the draw.

"Honey!  Don't look now, but Tiffany Allen Tyson just walked in," he said in a shouted whisper.

And because they apparently speak in a language that twins teach each other, she caught his jumbled reference without need for clarification. 

"Oh my GAAAWD oh my God oh my God oh my God!!" Suzie started to freak.  I didn't know if she was going to cry, lose her breath, or give birth to a litter of kittens.  She immediately took to her phone and Tweeted (something to the effect of) "N A RESTRNT W KELLY KAPOWSKI FRM SVD BY THE BLL!!"

"You have to tell me EVERYTHING she orders, EVERYTHING she says!" Suzie insisted.

"She's not in my section," I replied.

"I DON'T CARE!!! OMG PLEASE!  EAVESDROP!  TAKE OVER THE TABLE!!!!"

"I'd rather die," I responded.  "And you two need to order or we'll have to give this table to someone else."

The three of us looked around at the nearly empty restaurant.

Still, they ordered. 

Minutes later, as I returned with the drinks, Suzie had her questions and statements ready.

"Ask your co-worker what she ordered!"

"See if you can take a pic of her without being noticed!"

"Do you think she'll mind if I go up and say 'hi???'"

"No to everything," I responded.  "Especially the last one.  Here in the big city, most actors don't take kindly to people interrupting their meals for picture requests or chit chat."

Suzie gave me a determinedly blank look.  My warning did not register. 

With a gulp of her daquiri, Suzie bolted and barged in on T.A.T.'s conversation.  I, of course, stayed within earshot to savor the awkwardness.

"I'm....such a huge fan of yours," Suzie began.

T.A.T. and friend were caught off guard, but still quite polite.

"Oh, well thank you," she replied.

"I own every episode of Saved By the Bell and Melrose Place," Suzie said.

"That's so sweet," T.A.T. tried with a smile, "but I wasn't on Melrose Place.  I was on 90210."

"Oh..." Suzie responded, and walked away immediately.

She returned, near tears, to Ass Breath.

"Omg she was SO rude," Suzie proclaimed.

Trust me, she wasn't, not by a long shot.

With that, Ass Breath wrapped his arms around his wife & shrouded her in the impenetrable fortress of his breath.  And thanks to the unintentional deflation courtesy of T.A.T., I didn't hear a peep from them.  They minded their manners, tipped well, and then left. 

I was, truly, saved by Saved By the Bell.