WAITRESS

“Come on baby leave some change behind. She was a bitch, but I don’t care. She brought our food out on time, wore a funky barrette in her hair. Come on baby leave some change behind. She was a bitch. Good enough to leave some change. Everybody’s good enough for some change. The girl’s got family, she needs cash, to buy aspirin for her pain. Everybody’s good enough for some change. Some fucking change.” Waitress (1994) by Live.

With all due respect to Live lead singer Ed Kowakczyk, I’m not really sure if indeed, “everyone’s good enough for some change.” Right off the bat, my radar went up on this chick. She came to our table with an attitude. We hadn’t sat down for more than two minutes when she approached with her little pad and pen. “Drinks,” she blurted out? (by the way, can someone help me out with this rule, where exactly should the ? go in that previous sentence?. If I put it next to the ‘s’ in drinks, then I have both a ? and a , next to each other inside the “ and I know the punctuation is supposed to go inside of the quote marks…so which is it?)

Our table ordered two iced teas, one Diet Coke, and one water. She looked at us impatiently and asked if we were ready to order? Sorry babe, but I need more than two minutes to make up my mind. Feeling a little pressured the guys went ahead and ordered and when it got to my turn, of course, I wasn’t ready. Now, I don’t know if I said something or looked at her funny or what, but I pissed her off. I seem to be having that affect on women lately. So she gave me that arms-crossed, foot tapping, sideways look. I risked getting my head chopped off, but I asked to sub the bread on my sandwich for a wrap instead. Ooh, the look she gave me! I said I’d have the fruit salad as my side item and she made no acknowledgment that I’d even said something. She went right on taking the next order. Before she left, I apologetically asked her if I mentioned I wanted the fruit salad? “Yes.” And she was gone.

Gone for good, apparently. Our drinks never came. We gave her a good 15 minutes. We round-tabled the discussion as to who was gonna draw the short straw and have to get up, walk over, and ask the bee-ahtch where the hell our drinks were? I volunteered. We all know what kind of week it’s been for me, so I was already not in the best of spirits. I was ready to take her on. I was as charming as one could possibly be going on eight hours sleep in the past three days. Honestly, I was nice. I politely asked her if she’d mind getting our drinks? She was totally surprised and actually apologized before disappearing to get them.

I wouldn’t say the drinks arrived immediately, but she brought the out some five minutes later. There was only one problem. The large plastic cups all had that sort of steam-effect where you couldn’t really tell what was in them. They all had lemons and straws with the little piece of paper on the end. The point of the little piece of paper is to be able to identify the drink, no? Yet they all had the papers on the end, and it was virtually impossible to tell which beverage was which. Even the water took a few seconds to identify. She hovered over us as we tried to sort it out. Despite taking 20 minutes to get us the drinks, she made absolutely no effort to be either nice or apologetic. She fussed over separating the drinks and couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t decipher the tea from the Diet Coke.

She steamed away and shortly brought back our food. Zero banter. Just, the quick look at us. “Chicken salad wrap? Soup? Chicken Sandwich?” I felt like saying, “You mean you don’t remember who had what?” I refrained. We ate, and asked for our check. She brought it over and I made another mistake. My friend asked her for a to-go box. No reaction. I followed suit and asked her for a to-go cup for my tea. Hey, I need the tea to take my meds with. Shoot me! Jaysus, if looks could kill! She shot me a nasty look and without saying anything, left in a huff.

We never saw her again. She never came and picked up the tab, and she never brought out the to-go stuff. We had to ask another waitress to pick up the tab. I gave up on the to-go concept and just wanted to get the hell out of there and never come back. We discussed what kind of tip we should leave this girl. All of a sudden the song popped into my head, “da-di-da, everyone’s good enough for some change.” I don’t really think she was, in fact, ‘good enough’ but my friend decided to give her roughly 10%. $4 on a $34 tab. I think I would have opted for $3. Unless someone spits on my food, I don’t think I’ll ever actually stiff any waitstaff or server. But if anyone was deserving to be stiffed, this bitch was.

What makes people this bitter? For the life of me, I’ll never understand why people in a customer service-oriented job can have such a negative attitude given the fact that it IS their job to be nice an cordial to people. Anyone fitting the description of this bitchy waitress, do me a favor and quit your job and do something more suitable to your personality. Us customers will be a lot better off for it.

P.S. Special Happy Birthday wishes go out to an awesome blogger writer, Island Girl Amanda