you asked for onion, here's your stupid onion...

Here we go again. The waitress dream. After 9 years I still have nightmares about that horrible job. 

The dreams are always similar. Last nights: I couldn't remember my number in the computer. I didn't know how to make coffee. I had absolutely no clue what kind of food we offered. All of the chairs in my section were tiny chairs and people were sitting in them and not reaching the table. A woman was furiously yelling at me about her tiny chair and I replied, "LADY why didn't you simply ask me to get you a normal chair? Why are you trying to be a martyr here?" Someone actually found my old apron and it was still stocked- with my lip gloss and everything... but my notepad was out of paper. I had a million tables waiting for me and I was in the wrong part of the restaurant. Nobody was nice to me. All of the girls were awful and wore too much makeup and super tight pants. (Trying to ensure a 3 month relationship with one of the cooks- no doubt.)

I hated that job. HATED. THAT. JOB.

I remember one instance... an elderly couple were dining on hamburgers. How grand. Now, I love elderly people and I am very respectful but I will never forget this crotchety old bastard. He orders a burger with onion so that is what he gets. Just seconds later he grabs my sleeve and says, "What is this? I ordered onions!" I, still in my mind reacting to the grabbing of the sleeve and thinking about what I would say to him if he wasn't 97 years old, reply, "Yes, those are onions on top of your burger". He says, "You're stupid!! You don't know what you're talking about!" I then said, " I'M STUPID??? I'MMMMM STUPID?? You're looking at onions telling me you don't have onions!!" I walk away before this gets any more embarrassing and ask my manager to go fix his lunch. The big mix up was that he wanted his onions grilled. Well WHATDAYA know??? A simple adjective was to blame. Onions = raw onions. Gotta add that adjective in there, guy. So needless to say - my patience failed, the manager smoothed it over and that was that.

I lived to fight another day. One where I waited on a group of 15 women. The amount of hot tea with lemon and milk was disturbing. The few who didn't order tea chose to create their own lemonade with water, lemon and sweet & low. I assured them that we had lemonade prepared but they took the free road. I had never seen so many orders of scrod. It was overwhelming at 11:40 am. After two and a half hours and a bill of nearly $180 (yes, that's right, 15 people eating for $180- that's the Chelo's way) the women were ready to pay their tab. Calculators EVERYWHERE. It had to have taken over 30 minutes to figure out who owed what. I stood nearby, smoking like a fiend, anxious to get the hell out of there. Finally they were ready to plaster on their shawls and head out into their Mercurys and Buicks. A woman came up to me with the money - the book felt very thick. She said to me, "Thank you so much for all of your help, you were WONDERFUL!" with a pleasant smile on her face. I thanked her and slipped away to count the bread. They left me change. As I poured the change onto a table my blood boiled feverishly. I decided to meet her in the foyer. "Excuse me," I said, getting her attention, "I already have this whole pouch full of change so here you go, you can keep this" and I poured the change back into her hands. "Oh thank you so much!" she said- having absolutely no idea what sarcasm was and feeling as though I was a gracious gal.

I clearly am not cut out to be a server of any kind. I have a very hard time accepting the words of douchebags or the pennies of the innocent and elderly. I am proud, stubborn and sarcastic as hell - and I cannot fake pleasantness. If I hate you, it's gonna be pretty obvious.