"Are those the customers from hell?" asked my boss The Wife, from behind the line in the kitchen. All I had done was punch in an order for mozzarella sticks with extra marinara.
Crystal, the other waitress, nodded, grimacing.
"Make sure you go with her to take their order," she said, gesturing at me and shaking her head sympathetically.
When they came in the front door, the man went immediately over to the hostess stand, which was empty at the time, and grabbed himself a stack of napkins. I rushed over and asked if I could help him, explaining that there would be place settings on the table.
"I always grab extra," he replied, making his way without invitation to a table in my section. The hostess was nowhere in sight. I grabbed a pair of menus and followed him and his wife.
"Can I bring you a beverage to start with?" I was trying my best not to sound the way that I felt. He immediately blew out and dismantled the candle and holder, leaving the pieces separate and lined up against the wall.
"She's going to have the house Chardonnay, and I want unsweetened iced tea, with extra lemons and an extra glass of ice."
Oh. I see.
So you can imagine that it was no surprise to me when The Wife Boss called them the Customers From Hell. I suppose I was kind of surprised at her volume when she said it, given the fact that she knew they were seated about five feet from the kitchen door. It made me like her more.
They ate overcooked burgers with overcooked bacon on top. He wanted no bread with his, but ordered rice on the side(?). He wound up finishing her french fries. Whatever.
After work Amy, the hostess/manager asked me how I was doing. She seemed eager to encourage me, worried that I wasn't going to stick it out. She's kind of right, I suppose. I mean, I interviewed for a full time gig down the street last week, and if they offer it to me I will take it. Health Insurance and all, you know. But I will probably have to continue waiting tables anyway, for the money. I just hope I am able to get some sleep soon. I have this problem, which has happened before when I was a waitress, where I go to bed and my mind races, and just as I'm falling asleep something will jar me awake and I suddenly find myself in a panic, my mind racing.
"Shit! Did I forget that guy's side of mayo?" And so on. I don't know if other wait people do this, but it has plagued me for my entire adult life. Even after I hadn't waited tables for years. Some people have dreams that they are back in school and they have a test and they haven't studied for it and know they are going to fail. I have nightmares that I keep getting more tables and I can't keep up. I'm hoping that the rise of high-gravity beer will help me through this time.
The Local Health Food Store is still a mixed bag. My boss has no organizational skills whatsoever, and also seems to be burned out, so it seems unlikely that it will get any better. On the other hand, in addition to a nice discount I am able to take home a whole lot of free food every week, so I feel compelled to stay on there at least one day a week- unless of course I get this other full-time gig, in which case I'm going to have to quit. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but the Local Health Food Store has a program where they allow employees to take food that is unsellable (for various reasons- bruising, effed up packaging, one day past the sell by date)for free. And there is always a lot of it. Last week I brought home two whole local organic chickens. Saturday I brought home two local organic pork chops for the b.h., as well as a couple pounds of local, organic, grass-fed beef. I also snagged a couple pounds of local organic zucchini and crookneck squash, a bunch of organic broccoli, a bunch of organic asparagus, and a large package of local organic romaine lettuce. On top of that I got a few small containers of organic rice pudding and some local organic ricotta cheese. All for free. So yeah- I'll be hard pressed to give that up.
Looking forward to a visit from my good fiend T this week. He should be arriving tomorrow evening while I am at work. Luckily I have managed to get Wednesday and Thursday off, so we will have plenty of time to goof off. The list of visitors and potential visitors keeps growing. I love it. I may be gone a couple days, but will hopefully have some good photos of Random Weirdness when I return.