the bitter waiter

Tiny dancer

Anyone who enters my section - regardless of age, race, gender, or sexual orientation - is an immediate enemy and affront to all I stand for when he/she enters with entitlement, impatience, and an entourage.  I have no fucking time for that.

First, if you are hoping to impress upon the world the extent of your wealth and power, as evidenced by your deer-blood-fueled, dick-size-compensating oil rig of a car, dining here is no testament to your desired stature.  Perhaps they roll out the red carpet for you when you pull up to The Ivy or Mastro's, but here?  All you'll step on en route to the front door is the urine of a homeless man who's eating the tortilla chip crumbles he found on the patio floor.

Second, don't come to a restaurant if you're in a hurry.  Just don't.  It's like making a quick stop by the post office one week before Christmas on your way to the airport.  What valedictorian hopes to get a quick bite at a busy restaurant on a weekend without a reservation when in a hurry??  I DON'T UNDERSTAND PEOPLE.

So.  Keeping those two thoughts in mind, meet Jaay and his posse.  Jaay, a Germanic Aryan if ever there was one, entered in layers of sweat suits, a basketball jersey, an askew ball cap, trinkets, earrings and a lone corn row.  Towering over the table at 5'5", Jaay had a Goliath of an ego.

His posse was an array of equally entitled and delusional young munchkins.  They barely spoke to me during the ordering process, which was mercifully brief, and the volume of their party ensured me a minimum of 18% tip, so that alleviated some of the tension.  Until.

"Yo, man, we're in a hurry," Jaay informed me without peering up from his iPad.  "Can you, like, tell chef to put a mad spin on it."

"Yeah I'll get right on that," I replied.

I ran to the kitchen and told the chef to take his time with Step Up's order.  He didn't understand me, but smiled anyway.

I returned to find that, despite my best attempts, the food had been delivered to Jaay and company.

"Thanks dude."

I actually couldn't tell if he'd said "Thanks DUDE" or "Thanks BOO" but I knew I didn't give a fuck either way.

The shit really hit the fan when it came time to pay the bill.  His credit card was declined.  We went through the awkward, militantly polite first round exchange of "Oh there must be something wrong with the card"/"Sure I'll try it again."

And once again, the card was declined.

"No dice," I said.

"That's racist," I heard someone mutter in the back of the booth.

"Uhm, that can't be declined," Jaay said.  "It must be your machine."

"Nope," I said.

"Lissey," his equally Aryan friend told me.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"LIS-TEN," he repeated.  "...I don't think you know who [Jaay] is..."

"I don't know who any of you are," I said.

"This is JAAY...THE DANCER?  For Gaga and shit?"

I shrugged my shoulders and ran a hand through my perfect hair.

"I don't know dancers," I said.  "And the fact remains - the card was declined."

One by one they each threw in just enough money - to the penny - to cover the bill. 

Oh his way out, Jaay came up to me.

"Tell the owners I won't be back," he said.

"Thank you," I replied.

WAITER RANT

Most of my friends are well-trained when it comes to dining in public with me.

--And I assure you, I am not a diner-nazi.  I am not above splitting up a bill - CONVENIENTLY AND CLEARLY - for a server.  I'll send back - POLITELY AND PATIENTLY - something that was prepared improperly.  And yes, I will tip appropriately if I receive service that is just inexcusable.--

But as Hell would have it, I occasionally encounter one of those rare situations in which I find myself breaking bread with someone I haven't seen in awhile, someone who is now a complete monster.  Someone you want to watch die in the first five minutes of a Scream movie.

Some girl I kind of knew from an old day job many years ago insisted she and I meet up in a restaurant (more on that later).  I kept putting it off until her persistence beat my brimming anxiety.  Oh, and her latest text stated it was "important."

We met at this horrible vegan grasshole in some forest off of a cayote scattered-trail in Silverlake.  Old wood-framed paintings of pilgrims aboard ships, eating only vegetables, adorned the restaurant walls.  Because if anyone is the poster child for vegan compassion, it's one of our nation's pilgrims.

My bitch "friend," who doesn't even read this blog...

(CUT TO: FIVE MINUTES INTO MEAL:
BITCH FRIEND: Oh my God, I love your blog, I read it everyday, "Angry Trainer," so funny!)

...was 2o minutes late.  ("Karaote lesson ran late.  For this JayStay [Jason Statham] movie I'm doing."

Yeah as a featured extra, you overcompensating little self-promoter.

I ordered carrot water (water with generous shreds of carrots, unstrained) and she had a kale lemon tea root sack thing.  She apologized ceaseslessly, in the literal sense of the word meaning "not ending," as she composed a five-minute text message to her nail stylist regarding their scheduling snafu.  

We attempted to order.  This took a goooooood 10 minutes?  And that's a conservative estimate.  You see, BITCH FRIEND likes to say she's "allergic" to things because she's educated solely by Dr. Mira Cull's "Oprah" segment about eating only baby food and chia seeds.

Once we cleared the hurdle of ordering, she cut to the Chase, the only pun that still makes me grin.

"I wanted to ask you....

Oh shit, she has this dramatic pause.  Please don't ask me for money.  Please don't ask if you can crash on my couch.  Please don't ask me to film some horrible break-up scene for your demo reel, where I'm the sassy gay best friend who snaps you back into faboo.

...you're friends with Amy Poehler, right?"

"Uhm.  No." I replied.

"I thought you, like, were on a stand-up team with her?" she asked.

"What," I asked, "is a 'stand-up' team?"

"Like...funny people who get up on stage and say funny things?"

"Oh," I said.  "Improv?  Not stand-up.  No.  I am not friends with her, I do not perform with her.  I take classes through a program she started.  Or something.  I really don't have the energy to explain it all.  But I have no connection to her at all, other than I know some people who know her."

"You...aren't working with Amy Poehler?"

"No.  Not in any shape or fashion."

"So you wouldn't be able to get me a meeting with her?" she asked.  "My manager thinks I'd be great for comedy..."

"Yeah, no, not even, like, a thing, I do not know her."

I was in shock.  Utter shock.  Why the Hell would you go through with something as formal as lunch to ask such an asinine, presumptuous, ill-informed question?  Just text or Facebook me that delusional shit next time!!

Furthermore, what rank, odorous, staggering gaul must one possess to go years without maintaing consistent contact, to never ONCE post or text "Happy Birthday!" or "like" a post on Facebook (YES I AM AS NEUROTIC AS THE REST OF YOU ABOUT SHIT LIKE THAT, THE SECRET IS OUT!!), and then ask something of that magnitude?

Even if I were gang-banging Amy Poehler with a group of stoned indie improv hipsters on the reg, I would never be so shallow as to ask her to give my friend a hoist up the Hollywood ladder.  Gross.  What a rare form of eww that is.

So, I got up and left.  I did leave appropriate cash on the table for my tip.  But I left that obnoxious little bitch then and there.  And I genuinely hope that today, for the first time, she reads this blog.

By the Minutes: Halloween

11:43 a.m. - Wake up in a panic, remembering that I've once again forgotten to purchase/rent/slap together a mandatory Halloween costume for work, which begins at 5 p.m. 

11:44 a.m. - Go back to sleep.

1:30 p.m. - Wake up.  Make myself a PBJ, a pot of coffee, and a glass of wine. 

1:32 p.m. - Decide to go as a server from my previous job at California Pizza Kitchen (the fact that it's wrinkled and splattered with Thai sauce and cheap merlot is part of the get-up).

1:35 p.m. - Make a pitcher of strong margaritas (mama's taking a Lyft to work tonight).

4:55 p.m. - Eat an expensive brownie once I'm alerted that my Lyft has arrived.

5:15 p.m. - Arrive at work a scooch late.  Sneak in a scotch.  Scoff at the accusation that I seem "screwed up."

5:20 p.m. - To my delight, my section has been - and remains - empty.  Halloween is one of our least busy nights of the year.

5:32 p.m. - Retreat to the restroom to take a swig from my flask (the strong margaritas - a splash of fresh lime juice, a splash of slaughtered jalapenos, a splash of agave nectar, a splash of crushed ice, and a rent's worth of tequila). 

5:45 p.m. - Ask the hostess about her costume.  "I'm, uhm, like a sexy 'Phoebe from FRIENDS?'" she tells me.  She has on a skimpy bikini, with a stuffed cat, and a small toy guitar.  I summon the strength to hate her even more. 

6:28 p.m. - Still no tables.  Brownie and margaritas are both still serving their purposes.

6:35 p.m. - Order small steak nachos.  Claim they were made incorrectly.  Void the ticket and eat the "error."

7:15 p.m. - First table.  Two sad secretary types in generic witch and 80s girl costumes.  They don't dare be friendly or warm, only cautiously polite.  They split a happy hour tamale plate and two house margaritas.  The total comes to $17.85 or something and they leave $2.15 as a tip.

7:57 p.m - Two grating little entitled teenaged female shits, not even pretending to be in costume, come up directly to me as I'm talking to my table and say "Trick or treat" while indifferently placing garbage bags in front of me.  They are not even customers at the restaurant.  My exact words are "Go fuck yourselves."

8:30 p.m. - The owner, dressed as Indiana Jones but with none of the details correct, asks me how many tables I've served.  "One," I answer curtly, as if it is the greatest inconvenience that could ever befall me (BECAUSE IT IS).  He smirks and walks off.  "Clean every salt shaker," he says once his back is to me.  I alert Lyft that I am ready for a ride home. 

8:31 p.m. - After cleaning at least one salt shaker, I inform that owner that I'm ready to love.  "Hot plans?" he asks inappropriately.  "No there's just nowhere else on Earth I'd rather be than here, that's all," I say.  "Oh well I loved your witch costume, Happy Halloween!" he says.

9:05 p.m. - I arrive home to find the basket of candy I'd left for any trick-or-treaters completely empty.  I eat a dinner of Buttferfinger minis and the remainder of my margarita reserves.