Snarf.

I'm pretty sure that before I'd met Smith, I didn't use words like "snarky", "svelte", and "yes!" with a little closed fist, elbow to chest action. I also didn't believe in earrings that weren't studs and boots that were not chunky heels. I didn't know what a kitten heel was, nor had I ever sampled eggplant parm. I didn't blog, and I had stopped dreaming about making my living as a writer. Before Smith (which can coincidentally be shortened to BS), I didn't shop at NY &Co. or Sanrio. So to Smith, I say "Happy October 27."

I really intended to blog about how I'm developing courses for SCC for customized training purposes, and that my first table today had a $40 tab and left me nothing, and a table of old ladies were so cute and wrote "our waitress did an excellent job! Great fun!" on the comment cards we were supposed to hand out today. But for some reason I could do nothing but think about how awesome Smith is. Yes, I realize that totally makes me sound like a lesbian.

Don't forget to tip your servers...

because they need tips more than teachers. We don't make more than minimum wage or get summers off. We don't have health insurance, dental plans, and 401Ks. We don't even get the satisfaction of knowing we have a job that makes a difference. That we are irreplaceable. Nope. We are dispensible. Anyone who breathes and can even kind of spit out the words "are you ready to order or do you need a couple minutes" can take over my job. And I like to think I'm a little better than the others because my opening lines aren't canned: "Hi, my name is [insert awful waitress's name here] and I'll be your server today. [No pause for air.] Can I get you some appetizers today, maybe some onion rings or ultimate nachos? [No pause after table shakes head.] Can I get you beverages then? We have Coke products: Coke, Diet Coke, Mellow Yellow, Mr. Pibb, and Rootbeer." I swear there is an invisible cue card she reads off at every table. And I like to think I'm better because when I come to work in the morning TO OPEN THE RESTAURANT, I work. Unlike the 10:30 opener who walks in, ten minutes late, clocks in immediately and heads to the bathroom to do her hair and other things that take ten minutes. When she comes out and I've gotten all the chairs down and most of the tables washed, I suggest she take the booths because, frankly, my hand is about to fall off by this point and I'm sweating because the heat is on superhigh because the managers in charge of important things like temperature don't actually work hard like I do. They sit in an office. With coffee. Anyway, 10:30 server declares: "Let someone else do it" and moves to the bar for a ten minute conversation with the bartender. "Someone else" becomes me because there is no one else there and this shit needs to be done before we open.

Though we have yet another new person telling us what to do, I like her because she lets me pick my own section as the first one there (and the one who does all the work). I'm not dumb; I take the section comprised entirely of booths. People like to sit in the booths. Little did I know that I'd just fucked myself. This day the booths were filled with people with kids, people who let their elderly fathers pay for the meal (with a $50 that wiped out all my change!), and old ladies. All people who believe a 5% tip is more than fair. Thank you ma'am. Your 93 cents will go far in paying my: A) house payment B) car payment C) electric bill D) school loans (yep, those were a good idea at the time. As in, I thought by getting a master's I would actually get a real job at some point). Do these people think I am a waitress for the fun of it? Because it's enjoyable to serve other people all day long, making minimum wage and hoping I was helpful enough that someone really thinks I deserve a bonus for my hard work? And the guy that actually does give me a 20% tip only acts to balance out all the shitty tips, so that when I have to claim all the money I made today it really isn't so wonderful anymore. Crappy tippers are really just a burden on good tippers.

I had a thought mid-week as I left with another $8 in my pocket after a shift full of demanding people who leave 7%: restaurants should take after airline companies. There's a first class for those willing to shell out the extra cash. They get bonuses: more attention, pillows that have been cleaned since the last flight, liquor. Why can't restaurants be the same way? There should be signs that distinguish 20% tippers from 10% tippers from 5% tippers. The 20% tippers should get the section where the temperature is regulated, where chairs have soft cushions. They should have drinks immediately and the best servers. The 5% tippers should be relegated to the back of the restaurant. A long walk from the front door and the bathrooms. The heat should be broken, along with every fifth chair. They should get the servers who just broke up with their boyfriends or stayed out too late last night or have unprecedented cramps that day. They should get what they pay for--bad servers, bad food. Because that's what they do to me. Bad tippers make me crabby. They make me long for a position as cashier at Wal-Mart where customers are gone as soon as they purchased emergency tampons and frozen pizza. I, of course, would be a server in first class. I am good. I can manage more than two tables at one time. I can smile and talk to your children and offer balloons and my soul. My responses are not direct quotes from the training manual, and I don't try to upsell everything you order because if you wanted an appetizer and ranch dressing and a large order of onion rings, you would have asked for it.

On a happy note: I sort of have a sort of job lined up at South Central College as an outside training consultant. The hours are unknown at present, as are enrollment and content. But it's a start. And my thesis is finished. Sort of. And I recognize that there's a lot of "sort of" in my life. That makes me a little sad. That makes me cry when Panko asks how work is. Wait a sec, this isn't turning out to be a happy note. Must be time to stop and go back to a life where I am certainly not a writer. Or someone who believes there are happy notes.

COCK FABRICS...

Jess and I saw this as we drove down Madison Ave. last night after a stop at Wal-Mart for pizza fixin's. We laughed for far longer than appropriate for twenty-somethings who teach college and have hobbies such as: reading, attending limerick contests. Apparently the "HAN" part of HANCOCK FABRICS were burnt out. We considered returning with a camera--a nice picture of me under the sign would have been lovely--had Jess not wanted her pizza and me my hot fudge. And despite Jess's belief that my purchases (hot fudge, ice cream, frozen french fries) were the purchases of a woman in the midst of her lady time, they were really the impulse buys of someone who doesn't exercise nearly enough and lacks Vitamin C in her diet.

Other things that have been keeping me from communicating with others:

1. finishing my thesis (mostly--I probably have one more small revision)
2. waitressing (I almost made $10 today in tips--a record!)
3. cleaning the in-laws filthy garage (apparently the boy's mother felt it necessary to keep every stuffed animal he ever owned in garbage bags in a leaky garage--even the ones that looked like they were carriers of ebola and polio and bird flu
4. making cupcakes for people at work--with orange frosting. it got me extra cheese on my potato wedges.
5. going to wyoming. probably could be a blog in itself--forty hours in one weekend in a small car with the boy, the dad-in-law, the flatulent sis-in-law, no radio stations, one "town" every hour (some even had gas stations!), a CB, and more trips to McD's than I care to think about. i met the boy's uncle--the one who talks a lot but you don't really know why no one's heard from him in seven years. i saw the boy's other uncle--the one who weighs less than me, dying from some rare bone cancer. and yellowstone, old faithful, fears of stepping off the path into boiling water holes.
6. thinking about the job interview at SCC that Panko hooked me up with. not quite as cool as Japan, but it's a start. i'll let ya know.

You only have the minimum amount of flair. Now Brian over there, he's got 47 pieces of flair...

It goes something like that. I keep wanting to ask people if they have a case of the Mondays, and I want to offer my customers extreme nachos and potato boats. Waitressing, I've found, is a lot like being in 206A. There's probably work to be done, but it's so much more entertaining to stand around and talk about the managers, the customers, the bartender, the greeters, and any server who isn't there at the moment. I find myself sympathizing with the one who has two kids and three jobs. We talk about child support and how she dislikes reading. I talk to the server who wants to hook up with our manager--the one who's a year younger than me and proclaimed today that he's "shit larger than our lunch crowd." I know the feeling. I had one table today, not counting when the boy came in with a coworker. His food cost more than I made today. A sad realization.
Sorry, Xtina, for not divulging more, despite the fact that I already have so many stories. I could go into the one about how the owner--you know, the GM's father who also owns the restaurant downtown and will soon be picking up his new 'Vette according to my car dealer--pulled aside each of the servers to tell them precisely how to fold the bar rag, ehm towel, and which corner the spray goes on top of the trash can. How he tells me every morning to make sure the chairs are straight and the table tents are in order. How the one touch screen in my section is messed up and results in blazin' sauce on the wings instead of the preferred Minnesota mild. How the manager insists it's my fault, even though the screen does the same for him as he voids the mistake as a "server error." (Yes, this is actually an option on the screen when you void an item.) You see, I could tell these stories, but then it makes me realize how sad my life has become. And I'm not really knocking serving; I know you do it too. But this is my only job now; it's my life. It's not a simple break from teaching, a way to let your brain relax for a few hours. My brain is comatose.
And I let me thesis sit. A golden ticket I won't let myself cash in. I partially blame my father for this one. For years everytime something bad or challenging or unfortunate happened in my life, my father, in his sage wisdom, would respond "welcome to the real world." He still does this. He would tell me this when I was having problems in school. SCHOOL! Like that's even close to the real world anyway. But I'm left with this giant fear of failing, of seeing the "real world" as something I don't want to be a part of because it's ultimately filled with disappointement and sorrow. So I do something I can't fail at. I'm a good waitress. Not too clumsy or inattentive or overattentive. I smile. Sincerely. I really don't mind it when I'm there. But it's not a career. It's not something to brag about at class reunions. It's not something that will get me insurance and a pension and sense of fulfillment. Of satisfaction.

On the flipside, I really like that I'm not forced through two novels a week, that I can peruse my shelf for any book I feel like reading. I just raced through Memoirs of a Geisha. It should be a movie in a few months, likely one of those that people just don't go see. Too much thinking involved. Now I'm returning to a Margaret Atwood. Cat's Eyes, though I've heard it's not as good as Handmaid's Tale. Eh. Just knowing there won't be a response paper to follow is enough to let me enjoy it.