No More Waiting

I got my first restaurant job in 1984, at the swankiest, bay-view vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco. For the next two decades, I worked slinging hash.  Whether driven by financial necessity or lack of any better ideas on what to do with my life, I waited to get by.

Here are some random notes from those days.  I decided to post them today because I am so grateful not to be waiting any longer.  Christmas was always the most heartbreaking time to be waiting as a single mom.  

Flashback:  2004, Sonoma County

On busy nights, you wait to pee so long that you eventually don't have to pee anymore---so what happens?  Where does it go?  Does it turn into b.o?  Or that pimple on your cheek?  The pimple is probably from the food you grab and throw into your mouth...handfuls of cold french fries dipped in garlic aoili and swallowed as you walk to your new table, slowly you turn to get the water pitcher off the waitstand to buy yourself that extra second it takes to suck your tongue over the front of your teeth to make sure you don't have any remaining globs of starch stuck there.  Two seconds later, you greet your customers: "May I offer you a cocktail?"

Sonoma is chock-full of cork-dorks.  Everyone is either a grower, a maker, a connoisseur, or, the most popular category, a wanna-be.  You have to learn how to talk the talk to get through a night with a room full of c.d.'s:  from appellations to stelvin's to tannins and terroir, you had to at least be able to b.s. credibly.  

Mocking customers and gossiping about each other gets your through the night.  Who is Catherine bagging now?  She's already moved through the grill and saute station's offerings and now is making her moves on, the manager: forbidden fruit.  She can use the kitchen crew for sex, they won't get their hearts involved -they're tough and smell like stale sweat mixed with food.  Of course, if you get on their bad side, you won't get that little extra snacky-treat when you're starving at the end of the night or that half a cheesecake for "your son."

Snobby Waiter Sniggers:

"Ranch dressing!"

"Well-done halibut!"

"Irish coffee with a half dozen oysters!"

"He thought the Marin French Double Cream was an ice cream!!"

"Fat guy on 32 started off with a half dozen Hog Islands, then had a New York with frites, a side of choufleur gratin, and a Diet Coke! HA! Lot of good that will do him!"

"She wanted a wine cooler!"

"Pina Colada! Ha! 'I'm sorry, we don't have a blender in the establishment.'"

You get home so tired, your feet and back aching, but you are completely wired from the adrenaline of dealing with hundreds of demands simultaneously.  You stink and your face is sticky with sweat and grease from the open kitchen.  But you have a nice little pile of cash and tomorrow till four o'clock to forget you are a waitress.