(These are commentaries that I had written before establishing this blog. In a moment of catharsis, I decided to go ahead and get one, because really let's be honest, otherwise I'd be on youtube.)
I am a college graduate that works in a restaurant. To some people this sounds lame, to some people this sounds completely normal. I’ll be honest: I graduated in the top twenty of my class of over 800 from a well ranked school…I wasn’t expecting to be a waitress living at home once I received that coveted (and costly) diploma. But just yesterday I received an email informing me that I wasn’t qualified enough to be an administrative assistant, and I’ll admit that this job does help me pay off those absurd college loans, so I’m working hard to be thankful.
The restaurant I’m working at keeps me busy, that’s for sure. Located across from the biggest local high school, my Chinese restaurant is filled with oddball employees, expectant customers, and more business quirks than anyone could know what to do with. For example:
Some charity association puts out a donation box by our cash register. You know, the ones that use the honor system, asking you to put some change in the box but that leaves the mints out in the open for you to take. After school gets out, we have a lot of fifteen year olds streaming into the restaurant to buy a coke or a tiny box of fried rice, sometimes an order of chicken fingers if they’re feeling extravagant. My boss realized that this community was not familiar with the honor system, or perhaps, lacking honor, and so each day at 2:15, she hides the box of mints behind the counter and takes it back out again at 4:30. Only much later did I learn that my other boss uses the money to pay for his fishing trips.
The men of the restaurant are obsessed with fishing. Our sushi chefs, especially, have the fishy mania. During slow periods, we’ll see them behind the sushi bar looking down innocently at their cutting boards. One would assume that they’re sharpening their knives, preparing for a rush, or at least reading sushi magazines. No. They are making fishhooks. They add sparkley dangles and gummy fake bait and metal wires that look like they could withstand towing the whole boat, much less a fish. There is a whole collection of them hanging beside the sushi plates. Just yesterday, five of our staff came back from an overnight trip and waltzed into the kitchen, covered in blood and trailing coolers of three foot bluefish. They swiftly chopped off the heads, drained the blood into a pot, and proceeded to make fish gut soup in the middle of the dinner rush. I decided to eat at home instead of have the servers’ meal.
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I am a waitress, substitute teacher, nanny, and interpreter. Between the four of them, I spend the majority of my time running about and covered in food. Although often the day-to-day of it is very humdrum, I still get plenty of memorable moments in between the mundane.
Take, for example, a regular customer that I have at the restaurant, whom I know to be very rich and very fat. Super friendly, great car salesman, huge flirt (although the last two clauses might be redundant). Recently he came in with his college aged son and asked me to—and I quote— “deflower” him.
“He just turned 18 and is very virginal. You’re an older woman, experienced. It’d be great if you’d show him the way.”
My boss later said it was the only time he had ever seen me speechless.
Earlier this week, the man came back. Reminding me of the possibility, he extended the offer, saying that if it didn’t work out with his son, that I could be his mistress.
“I have two houses. The wife wouldn’t mind.” The thing about being a waitress is that you can’t just leave your customers alone, you have to keep coming back to check on them until they leave. So I couldn’t escape this one, especially since I still had to bring him his lo mein. Then I realized what an opportunity I had on my hands.
“You know, Giles, I have a lot of college loans that need to be paid off.”
He didn’t even blink.
“How much? 100,000? 150,000? It’d be gone in a day.”
As I neared my college graduation, I had often joked that I should just be a stripper while I looked for the right job. But now that I am actually actively searching for good employment, and prostitution is a viable and clearly lucrative option, it’s no longer a joke. Maybe he’d throw in a car too.
