Deliah

Deliah was a drama student at the University of Colorado who worked as a waitress to pay her living expenses while she was in school. She was a terrible waitress, but a nice young woman, prone to extremely dramatic moments, usually when talking to one of her tables while completely oblivious to the other five tables in her station. She'd get so wound up in her stories, her arms would fly all around her expressively and more than once knock something off another waiter's tray or hit someone in the head. Her customers were always asking the other waiters about their food, or even if they could order. Deliah couldn't be distracted from her performances.

The cooks at the restaurant where we worked insisted on black ink on all the tickets, and one night when Deliah and I were at the hostess stand picking up charge slips with our ticket folders, I noticed the pen had been switched out of my folder and replaced with one with blue ink. I always carried two or three pens, but I noticed Deliah had my pen so I said, "Is this your little pen with the blue ink, 'cos I think you've got one of my Bics." In one of the loudest stage voices I've heard, Deliah said, "I HAVE A BIG BLACK BIC!" and when I started laughing, she slapped me. It was worth it to hear people at their tables giggling - I guess we all had dirty minds - and the slap didn't really hurt.