I Was "Summa Cum Laude" -- Would You Like Fries With That?

Arriving home last night, I slowly unlaced my shoes and peeled off my clothing. Note the mandatory black and white color scheme; after seven years of working primarily in the performing arts, I have taken a part-time job as a waitress...

I slumped on the couch and could still smell the odors rising from my work clothes: deep fried catfish, baked cabbage, and stale cigarettes. I pushed the pile further away with my foot. (Apparently, I no longer lead a glamorous life. But was my life ever really glamorous -- even if it may have sometimes appeared to be?)

I slipped on an old cotton T-shirt and limped to the kitchen to make a cup of herbal tea. Leaning against the stove, waiting for water to boil, I scanned my body as a dancer might: feeling for points of tension, strain, and injury. My lower back ached from five hours of sprinting across the concrete floor, my shoulders were tight, and my throat felt sore. (My wrists -- with tendons like Achilles -- felt okay: not good, but okay. After many months of excruciating wrist pain -- and appointments with neurologists -- and an electroencephalogram I still haven't been able to pay off -- "okay" is pretty fucking wonderful.)

So I ran a bath with lavender salts and soaked for an hour, sipping camomile tea.


~ * ~


Reflecting on the night: it went surprisingly well.

I waited on several families with kids, and I genuinely enjoyed most of them. (To my surprise, most of the kids also enjoyed me.)

The loveliest by far was a four-year-old girl named Brooklyn; she wants to be a waitress (like her mother), and because I appeared to be living her dream, she liked me instantly. She promptly left her grandmother's side and followed me around like an acolyte.

I had intended to give her a tour, but she was a regular customer and knew her way around the restaurant better than I did. So I enlisted her help as a "junior waitress," pointing at the broom and vacuum cleaner. She began an anti-crumb crusade: dutifully sweeping (with the handle of the broom wobbling at least a full foot above her sun-bleached head)...


~ * ~


The men appeared to like me also.

(Naturally, I preferred hanging out with the kids. Their motives were simpler.)

Sometimes the middle-age male attention was fine. Several men who came to dine alone at various points in the night were perfect gentlemen; most were widowers, grateful to be fed (and conversed with) in genuine kindness. One left a tip that was nearly as much as the cost of his entree; as I stood (on aching feet) clearing his table, I felt a rush of gratitude.


~ * ~


Another man (divorced and in his 50s) required subtle distancing.

He told me I was "beautiful" and he asked my name... then tried to hold my hand. He kept flirting in a rather stomach-turning way...

So I told him to behave himself. I warned him that perceived indiscretions would be punished by motherly finger wagging, accompanied by his full name in a disapproving tone. I also cautioned him be polite since I had access to his food and was not afraid to enact revenge surreptitiously...

(He laughed -- heartily -- and mostly kept a respectful distance -- though he frequently stared as I moved through the restaurant, and I felt mildly disgusted by the time he finally left.)