When Water Attacks Or Why I Am A Minion Of Satan

In my past life, I was a waitress. You can tell that by the picture. It’s photographic proof that I once was, in fact, gainfully employed (PS. My coworker did actually not look like a Tim Burton drawing).

While I’m normally of the “you have two feet, get it your damn self,” ilk, there was something about serving that was intensely satisfying. The us-versus-them attitude of the staff versus customers was uniting and strangely comforting.  All you had to do was say, “Table 24 is being an assjacket,” and one of your coworkers would cheerfully approach the table and rip a large fart as they walked past.

If that ain’t awesome, I don’t know what is.

One particularly busy Friday night, just after the restaurant had opened its doors to the public, I was given a table of eight. It was technically not in my section, but the server who it belonged to was slammed and couldn’t take it. So it was given to the most experienced server they had – me.

(Stop laughing. I have TOTALLY been good at things before.)

I watched from the server’s station as they sat down, preparing myself with my fakest smile, as it happened, almost in slow motion. The busboy, unsteadily balancing a tray of water glasses, was bumped by another table and eight glasses of water were dumped nearish to my table.

Shit, I thought to myself, as I hurried over with a bunch of napkins and (what I hoped to be) my most apologetic face.

When I made it to the table, ready to do damage control, the child who’d had the misfortune of a nice, cool bath was screaming and crying. He was probably ten and WAY too old to be carrying on like he was, considering he’d gotten a few drips of water on him.

Seated next to him was his grandmother, a battleax of a woman, who took one look at me and held out her arm haughtily for me to dry it off.

Um.

No.

I’m totally not your bitch, lady.

I had a toddler at home, and I wasn’t about to behave as this woman’s slave, too. I handed her a stack of napkins and apologized profusely in what I hoped sounded like a very sincere voice. I’m not sure anyone could actually hear me over the shrieks of the kid, though.

Then the battleax spoke, “I expect to get MY meal for FREE.”

I nodded, inwardly rolling my eyes. Getting my manager to comp something was as easy as getting Jesus to rise from the grave, and frankly, these people weren’t exactly soaked or anything. Most of the water had gone on the floor behind them.

For the next hour, every time I brought something out, they made a “joke” about dropping it on them. It was very tempting to actually do so, but I did not. It was old the first time they said it, and by the time I brought the check to them, I was ready to stab them all with a dull fork.

I got approximately fifteen cents for busting ass on that table, but I didn’t complain when they stiffed me. I was tired of feeling their glowering eyes on me every time I moved, having them run me around the restaurant for this or that, treating me as though I was a minion of Satan.

I mean, I AM a minion of Satan and all, but how the hell did THEY know?

Moral of the story: I’m so much happier to be a blogger. I can totally hide my devil’s horns from the computer.