Welcome, February 15th. Servers Love You.

It is February 15th and we have survived another year serving on Valentine's Day. We all know it was horrible; two-top after two-top streaming into the restaurant trying to have their very own private special moment while crammed into a section that normally has three tables but on this day has five. Yes, we made money. Yes, we we worked hard. Yes, we welcome February 15th with open arms.

Here are some of the highlights of my  Valentine's Day:

•  Getting to work and seeing that the whole menu had been reprinted and everything was one dollar more than it was on February 13th.
• The mother and father who told their four year-old, "This is Mommy and Daddy's night, so we need you to be really quiet and play on the iPad." Cut to two hours later when the kid interrupts their lovemaking to ask for a glass of water and they just scream out for him to go play Angry Birds.
•  Amanda and her two girlfriends who could not understand why it was going to take an hour to get them a three-top.  The restaurant was set up for couples and it takes forever for two two-tops that are next to each other to leave at the same time. Amanda and Company left after twenty minutes, presumably to go home to their dates for the evening: Ben and Jerry and big side of lonely
• The man who called at 7:30 asking for a reservation. Hey, buddy, you're lucky we even had time to answer the phone. Any guy calling at 7:30 on Valentine's Day has poor time management skills and a really pissed off girlfriend. You're worse off than the men I saw at CVS yesterday afternoon scouring the picked over aisle of candy. Plan ahead, dude.
• Brian who called at 9:15 to see if we were still on a waiting list. I told him that we only had two people on the list and I expected it to be slowing down in the next half hour or so. He showed up ten minutes later as part of a five-top and got pissed off that there was no table for them. "I just called, like two minutes ago and someone told me there were only two people on the list!" he tells me. "It was me you talked to, it was about ten minutes ago and people have continued to come in since then. And you did not tell me you were a party of five." They waited at the bar for thirty minutes until I was able to shove them into a booth that was way too small for five people.
• The moment my manager finally cracked a smile. It didn't happen until almost 10:00. I expected him to have a managerial boner about the potential cover count but I guess the stress was too much to make him excited. He couldn't relax until he saw the light at the end of the "Closing at 11:00 Tunnel."
• My co-workers who opened up a can of kick ass teamwork and made the night smooth and tolerable and almost enjoyable.
• Telling people "no substitutions" all night.
• Leaving work only forty-five minutes later than planned but still before closing.
• Getting home to a surprise dinner of chicken and penne with homemade vodka sauce, salad and warm bread accompanied by pink tulips and a chilled bottle of champagne, followed by chocolate cupcakes with vanilla ice cream. Yes, I have a better husband than my husband does.

And how was your Valentine's Day??



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