A Sidewalk Does Not a Patio Make

Let me tell you about waiting tables on a patio: it sucks. My restaurant has a patio in the summer and people knock themselves over to get one of those crappy little two-tops next to a busy Manhattan street. It's not relaxing out there, that's for sure. Sirens, buses, homeless people watching you eat french toast? Why bother? But people love it. But what really annoys the fuck out of me is when someone complains to me that it's too hot or too windy. Oh okay, let me stop the wind for you, lady.

Someone today waited twenty minutes for a table on the patio/dirty sidewalk. After they rearranged the tables to suit their needs they called me over and said the sun was too bright. They wanted to move. I reminded then that we are in fact outside which tends to have sun and told them that the entire inside of the restaurant was shaded if they wanted to move their gloober-globber asses in there. Of course they did not. They wanted to move the table somewhere else making it almost impossible for me to walk around them, but sure. Whatever makes my customers happy is what I want. Uh huh. They also tipped me $7.00 on $62.00. Assholes. I hope they get a touch of melanoma from their three minutes in the bright sun.

Another time a lady freaked the fuck out because she saw a rat on the sidewalk. It's a sidewalk. In New York City. That is where they live. Be thankful the rat didn't pull up a chair and order a bloody mary.

Another time a lady called me over because a gnat had flown into her mimosa and she wanted another glass. I personally think that drowning in a mimosa is a pretty good way to go, but whatever. It's a gnat. Who cares? Fish it out and continue drinking. I read somewhere once that we eat about a pound of bugs a year and don't even know it because they get in our food all the time. She didn't like that factoid. I took her mimosa inside and pulled the bug out of her drink with my impeccably clean hands. I then poured her drink into a new glass and gave it back to her. She should have been more specific and asked for another drink and not just another glass.

I hate working on the patio.

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What a bunch of Jugheads

Waiting on teenagers is right up there with waiting on French people and old ladies. You have to put forth a lot of effort and you get very little in return. Being close to a high school is just one other unfortunate aspect about my restaurant. The main unfortunate aspect of course being that I work there. Kids get off school and then think they want to come into my station and hang out with fries and milkshakes. What do they think this is? The soda shop and they are in a fucking Archie's comic book? Get outta my station! I don't have the time or desire to wait on six kids who want to share two shakes and three orders of fries and a soda with six straws. And they always ask how much something is going to cost with tax which means they don't have any plans to tip my ass. Last week, four adolescents came in and ordered some cheap ass crap off of the apps menu. Their bill was $19.32 and they gave me a twenty and told me to "keep the change." Uh, wow, thanks so much. I finally have that sixty-eight cents I have been saving up for and I can go buy that half pack of gum I've been wanting. As they left, I told them to let me know when they had their first job in a restaurant. "Why?" said the little fat girl who had Future Fag Hag written on her forehead. "So I can come in and not tip you, sweetie. Don't come back. Buh bye."

What a cry baby!

As you may or may not know, I have absolutely no tolerance for children in my station. It's not that I blame the children, because as a dear friend of mine always used to say, "it all comes down to parenting." So true. But I still hate children. And the parents. I am equal opportunity hater, yo. Last week, as I was watching a little girl lick a salt shaker like she was a cow, I began to think of all the ways I wanted to gain vengeance. First though, why in the hell would a parent think it is okay for their child to lick a salt shaker? It is gross on so many levels. Gross for the person who will use it next and gross for the kid because that thing is loaded with germs. I mean, I barely wipe down the tables, do you think I ever clean a fucking salt shaker? Those things end up on the floor, in the seat cushions, and, in at least one instance, in the hands of a scary scary homeless lady who payed for her hamburger with spare change. But lick away, little girl, lick away. This same little girl later opened the lid and poured the salt onto the table while her mother just rolled her eyes and said something like, "oh, these kids...ha ha ha..." She thought it was fine. And then I had a vision. I thought how thoroughly satisfying it would be to somehow dip her precious little two-year old hands into a jar of Tabassco sauce and then just sit back and watch. Watch as she puts her cute little fingers into her mouth and begins to experience the spicy burning sensation that is so perfect on a burrito but not so perfect on two-year old fingers. As she starts to cry, I rush over to show my concern and then she puts her fingers up to her eyes to brush away the tears. And the heat of the peppers burns her corneas. Her eyes are crispier than the bacon that her mother sent back three times because it wasn't done enough. Poor poor little girl. "Maybe she has a tummy ache?" I say to mommy. "Or maybe she saw a big scary spider!" Or maybe she shouldn't have been licking a fucking salt shaker.

Poked By Connie Chung

As a cater waiter, you get used to being at really crowded parties with people poking at you to get a bite of tuna tartar. I can't stand being touched when I am working. Don't tap me on the shoulder, pull my elbow, grab my arm or even look at me funny. It pisses me off and makes me ignore you for the rest of the night. If some lady is annoying me, I can make sure that no other cater waiter gets within ten feet of her for the rest of the night. It's a game we play. At every party there is some Ms. Bitchy McBitch Bitch who is overdoing it on the appetizers. When this happens, we put out an all points bulletin to the other servers with a description of the Over Eater. "Lady in sparkly blue pantsuit, ugly shoes and big hair has had her quota of quesadillas. CUT HER OFF! AVOID PANTSUIT LADY." And we do. And the bitch gets no more food from us for the rest of the night.

Last week, I served a party with a few celebrities. It was honoring Barbara Walters for her lifetime achievement. Apparently she has interviewed some really famous people... Liz Smith was there and she looked so fucking old. I swear to God that her face looked like a 85 year old piece of bacon that sat in a tanning bed for a couple of decades. Not pretty. Nope, not pretty at all. It was really crowded as usual and I was elbowed in the ribs by some greedy woman grabbing at a grape filled with goat cheese. I turned around to see who the fuck was that hungry and it was Connie Fucking Chung. Seriously, Connie Chung? Maury Pauvich couldn't take you to dinner first so you didn't have to knock the breath out of me to get a grape? I resisted the urge to tell Maury that I needed a DNA test to find out about my baby daddy. I gave his wife a grape and then I mentally cunt punched her.

Bitchy Cater Waiter

Although most of my wealth comes from waiting tables, I sometimes earn riches by being a cater waiter too. It's a whole 'nother ball of wax. If you've ever been to some fancy dancy wing-ding where food was being passed around by a bunch of douchebags dressed in tuxedos or all black, I was one of those douchebags. I have to wander around the party with food that is usually on a silver tray and say over and over again, "Crabcake? Crabcake?" or "Goat cheese tart? Goat cheese tart?" or whatever the fuck they threw on my tray. They always try to come up with some creative bullshit name for the food when really it's just cheese on a fancy fucking cracker. One place makes me call a chicken quesadilla a "chicken bouquet" so all I do all night is explain that it's really just a fucking chicken quesadilla. Some places wrack their brains trying to come up with other things than a tray to put the food on. I have served hor'dourves on leaves, logs, tiles, cardboard boxes, sand, rocks, ice and one time on a freakin' skateboard.

The people who go to these events always seem to be on the verge of starvation. It's like they just came in from some poor African country and all they have had to eat for the last eight months was rice and dirt and they can't wait to get a bite of the pig in a blanket that I'm lugging around on a tray made of straw. People grab and pull and rush. They don't even look to see what's on the tray. They want it. I could be serving my boogers dusted in powdered sugar and they would eat three or four of them before asking what it was. And once they find out where the door to the kitchen is, they surround it. They wait like white on rice or lions on wildebeest ready to pounce on that chicken dumpling. Sometimes it's fun to walk out with a tray that you are using to pick up crap and every time someone will try to eat a piece of garbage.

The only good thing about this gig is that if people don't like the food they can just kiss my ass. Not my problem, pal. I love it when some uptight bitch asks me if we have any vegetarian options and I can look her in the eye and say, "nope." Don't care if you're lactose intolerant or allergic to nuts or don't like pickles. I gots what I gots, so eat it or get the hell out of my way. Okay, I suppose there are two good things about this gig. You can usually manage to have a glass of wine through the night when you cater. Find a friend in the bartender and find a long empty hallway or dark corner and you down a glass of wine or three. I find that I am a much better waiter when I am slighty buzzed. It's the only way I can deal with the asswipe that wants his mini-cheeseburger cooked at a different temperature.

Sad Mimosa Lady

When I got to work I was told that I would be serving a party of 25 that day. Joy. Rapture. I got it into my head that the people would be cool, hip, lots of fun ready for brunch! Sadly, it turned out to be 23 premenopausal women who had just completed some walk-a-thon and came into bitch and whine about how difficult it was to complete. One lady got there early and came right up to me and asked for one of the special five dollar mimosas. "Sure, no problem." Then she begins to tell me that she needs it to be in a regular juice glass and she needs to pay for it now and she needs to drink it quickly before her daughter gets there and sees her drinking. Sounds like the bitch is not only dealing with the change of life, but she is a closet alcoholic too. A winning combo! She slides me the five bucks on the down low obviously forgetting that in this country we have this crazy little thing called tax. And tip. So I print out a check for $5.42 and laid it on her table along with the five dollars. Well, the ovaries hit the fan because her daughter saw it. The mother comes up to me and chastises me for bringing her a check and telling me the whole point was for her daughter to not know. What she failed to realize was that I did not give a rat's ass. I want my 42 cents, bitch. "Well, my daughter saw the check and started asking me questions about it and wanted to know what it was for and blah blah blah, my ovaries are dried up..." I very politely explained that I had to present her with a check because she had not seen the total yet (and I did not want to front her the 42 cents). She pulled out a dollar that was more wrinkled than her neck was and gave it to me. Later when they were gone, I went to get the check presenter for the single mimosa and she had taken the five dollar bill out of it. She stiffed me. She walked out on that check just like her youth had walked out her. I didn't care. I voided the mimosa and moved on with my day. Unlike her, my future was bright and carefree and I was allowed to drink mimosas in front of whomever I please.