Bar Experience

I was tending bar when Susan was hired to be our new Supervisor. Mini-skirt, 4-inch high heels, push-up bra and press-on nails (she lost one in someone's salad once. Yuck.) Mark, the lecherous putz of a Food and Beverage Director, said she had "a lot of experience working in bars" but we all wondered on which side. Apart from flirting with the cooks and just about anything in pants, Susan liked to decorate the Happy Hour buffet table. All well and good, but she didn't ever seem to take into account just how that table was going to be used, so plates could wind up just about anyplace and items that should have been placed in near proximity could be at opposite ends of the table. Susan's deal was "making it look pretty."

One particularly memorable "pretty" buffet was for a Mexican themed variety of hors-d'ouevres. Lots and lots of crepe paper strewn all around the legs of the chafing dishes - plenty of streamers and confetti and paper mache shared the table with candles and several large cans of Sterno. In a word: Kindling. As soon as someone walked in the front door, the wind blew the streamers into the open flame, setting off a kind of fuse that soon had the entire ten foot table erupting in flames. I managed to put out the fire with a couple of nearby pitchers of water and a wad of table cloths, while Susan said  things like, "Hurry!" or "Oh, gawsh!"

From time to time, she'd come behind the bar to "help." This usually meant, I helped her get her high heels unstuck from the floor mats while she helped herself to my tips. She didn't know how to make a drink, and she couldn't use the register, so mostly she just talked to the customers, ate the cherries out of my garnish trays and got in my way. Inevitably, she mistook the relieved look on my face when she finished "helping" for gratitude, and always promised to show up again when she was needed. (I should be so lucky.)

On/Off

When I was a banquet captain, most of the on-call people I hired were waiters and waitresses I knew from working in other hotels and restaurants. Monica was one of these. We met in our early 20s working in a pancake house. I waited on her and her mother when she came in to fill out an application, and we are still friends almost 30 years later. By the time Monica was filling in for me on the banquet staff, she had a full-time office job, so we didn't work together much. She was a great waitress, though she's actually a little shy. That quiet nature made what was likely one of the most embarrassing moments of her waitress years even more hilarious the night we were clearing tables during a wedding reception at the point of transition from "Dinner" to "Dance" and Monica unplugged the DJ. She thought she was unplugging the hot plates that we used for coffee service. There were people on the dance floor, music, and flashing colored lights when suddenly everything went dark and quiet. We heard, "Oh my gosh!" and in about 10 seconds the lights came back on again, with Monica, beet red, and huddled next to the electrical outlet. We loved to tease her afterwards about "that time you unplugged those people's wedding."

Wedding Gaiety

I've cut some pretty fantastic cakes in my years of working banquets. The quinceaneras were probably the most elaborate ones, with fountains and trellises, and often 15 separate layers. Wedding cakes were usually four tiers with a groom's cake on the side. I never worked for a hotel that offered formal cakes, so they were always set up by third parties, with varying results. Sometimes, it would strike terror in your heart just to walk past the cake table, when it was visibly tilting or rocking with the slightest movement. There were other issues to contend with as well, like under-baked cakes that began to slide or sink as they thawed, or cakes delivered by people who didn't know how to set them up.

Until I started cutting cakes, I never realized how many different ways there are to construct one. I've seen forms made from plywood and bolts and huge ceramic bases, to Styrofoam and plastic. Very large cakes also usually have several wooden dowels in them that (hopefully) the guests never know about. As unnerving as it could be to even approach some of the towers of cake at these events - let alone take them apart and cut them - it was one of my favorite parts of the job. The cutting of the cake is one of the most important ceremonies and I liked having that responsibility. I wish now I'd taken pictures of some of them.

The worst cake story I know of isn't (thank God) my own. I knew a waiter who knocked the top of a wedding cake onto the bride's lap. I never worked an event where the cake was set up at the head table, but I know that, depending on the bride, the bride's mother and the caterer, a cake is liable to be set up just about anyplace if the banquet manager or banquet captain aren't around to guide things. I did work for another captain at an event where the cake fell, and the hotel ended up paying for it (which meant we gave up part of our gratuity with it). When I became captain, I didn't take any chances. I stuffed wedges of cardboard under layers, and propped up sagging frosting with floral arrangements ... whatever I could do to make that cake live till the cutting.

I enjoyed the responsibility, but it's ironic that I spent so much of my life making everything just right for straight couples at their wedding receptions, considering it's not even legal for me to get married. I wonder if any of the couples think about that double standard when they're meeting with their dress designer, florist, hair stylist, wedding planner, baker, photographer, caterer or waiters, when likely several of those professionals are gay? A while back, I wrote a little piece about "The Gays" and their usefulness. I posted it to Facebook a few months later, and I'm reviving it again, here. I hope you like it.
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There are so many ways that having a gay friend can validate your straight life-style, not to mention support it. How many times in my day do I perform simple little gay things that nobody is even aware of? There must be millions of them . . .

The Gays contribute so much more than just that lively piece of window dressing that you can take to the bathroom with you because he's "just one of the girls." And If The Gays didn't get to do all of the things that they are so good at, it would be the end of weddings for straight people (At least weddings that anyone wanted to go to.) Think about it: wedding planner, cake, flowers, dress, hair and makeup, decorations, catered food, wait staff, and best man (who is just a little too close to the groom for the bride's comfort) would all go out the window. A justice of the peace and a quick pass by a Wendy's drive-thru would be about all you'd get.

And it's not just weddings. The Gays practically invented Bette Midler and she is the Number One Choice for recorded music at funerals. Think about it: "The Rose?" Nope. "Wind Beneath My Wings?" Probably not. The original Gary Morris version doesn't have any of those "fly, fly fly" things at the end. Funerals would be over in 10 minutes leaving the bereaved alone in a room full of tuna noodle casserole and bundt cake wondering why the Irish Tenor didn't show up for the wake.

So what if you have a gay friend? What do you do now? Is he going to make you all gay-like and expect you to talk gay-talk? Will he make fun of your shoes? Will he go shopping with you and help you decide if that episode of Law and Order that has a gay person in it is just as The Gays see it, live it and breathe it every day? Is he gay enough? Too gay? Can you take him anywhere and "no one would ever know?"

Well, there isn't just one brand, girlfriend. You've got to pick The Gay that is right for you. And make sure he's not planning on running off to Massachusetts or anything political. Remember that this is about what The Gays contribute to mainstream society... not the other way around. They are the minority. One of the beautiful things about a democracy is that 90% of the population can vote to dictate the rights, social mores, intimate expressions and living arrangements of the other 10% of the population and there's not a damned thing they can do about it.

Or is there?

The Right (way) To Marry

It's more appealing to be presented with a full bottle of any restaurant condiment than it is to get one that looks used. Of course, restaurants don't throw away the condiments if the bottle isn't empty. They do what is called "marrying," pouring from the emptiest bottle into the fullest bottle so nothing but a full bottle ever goes out to the table. Granted, sometimes this is done with a huge bag of ketchup mounted on the wall in the service area and not from bottle to bottle, but the point is, it's likely some of the ketchup or other condiment has been around for a pretty long time, just getting topped off over and over again until it starts to bubble and then, one fateful day, a customer lifts the cap and rotten ketchup erupts like projectile vomit. (Sometimes, it's a waiter that gets hit, but in most cases I've observed it's the customer.) That's when you know it's time to throw that bottle away.

The worst condiment to marry is mustard. It's thick and especially difficult to get to drain, (though I actually did work in one restaurant where the manager made us marry those tiny bottles of Tabasco. We had to use toothpicks just to make it drain and we usually ended up hiding the half full bottles in the bottom of the trash instead of marrying them. It's not like we had four hours to do our sidework.) With ketchups, you can set them upside down in the service area and most of the sauce will eventually drain to the head of the bottle, but mustard usually requires a little more force. The way I learned to pack the mustard to the end of the bottle was to do a kind of wind up, using centrifugal force with the cap end pointed forward, swinging my arm in full rotation four or five times.

I was working in a small cafe one night, finishing up my sidework, when I attempted this wind up move on one of the tall skinny Heinz mustard bottles with the metal cap. The kind of metal cap that doesn't secure very well. I spent two hours trying to scrub the perfectly straight yellow line I created running up one painted white wall, across the ceiling and down the wall behind me and never did get the stain out of the paint. After that, I made sure I held my finger over the cap. Or sometimes, I just threw the bottle away.

Drunken, Dangerous Liasons

I've been busy with the LGBTQ film festival in Austin, aGLIFF23, so I haven't had much time for blogging. So far, everything we've shown has been well received. It's important to me because I was part of the programming team this year. The theater we've been showing them at is called Alamo Drafthouse. They started here in Austin and have a handful of other locations but they have completely spoiled me for seeing movies anywhere else. They have chefs and very good food, with beer, wine, soda, coffee service (and even hard liquor at the one downtown) and very comfortable seats. Imagine waiting tables in a movie theater? Wow.

So, my mind's been on movies and I remembered when my friend Jill and I used to work the breakfast shift together at a downtown hotel, grab a cab, stop by the liquor store and go to the movies with a bottle of Southern Comfort hidden in Jill's backpack. Jill was usually supposed to work in the cocktail lounge at night (she pulled a lot of splits) but she'd inevitably call in sick. We'd get huge cokes at the movie and split a bottle between us, so we were smashed by the time the movie was over, and she was in no condition to be working.

Two times stand out for me in particular from our drunken matinees. One was the time we set an empty bottle on the floor and it rolled all the way down the theater under the seats on the sloping cement ... faster and faster ... man, that was loud! The other time was at the same theater (our favorite). The Cooper was built in 1962 for Cinerama and had smoking lounges on the sides so you could have a cigarette and watch the movie at the same time.

(It has since been torn down to make way for a Border's or Barnes and Noble -I can't remember- such a shame.) Anyway, Jill and I both smoked. Especially when we drank. So we were sitting on the side bench watching "Dangerous Liasons" at 2 in the afternoon, guzzling Big Gulps of Southern Comfort and Coke and puffing away, when I got up to put the empty bottle in the trash can nearby. I'd been sitting in the middle of the bench and Jill was on the end so as soon as I stood the bench flipped and dumped her on the floor. I immediately joined her there, because my knees won't hold me when I'm laughing that hard. There were only about ten people in the movie at that hour, but apparently, "Dangerous Liasons" is not the kind of film most people find funny, so we never did have the nerve to go back to the main part of the theater. We set the bench back upright, finished our drinks, and left before anyone could kick us out.

The Body Slammer

It was 28 years ago that I met The Body Slammer. We worked together at a pancake house; she was on the day shift and I worked nights. Every once in a while our shifts would overlap and those were some of the best times I had at that restaurant. I loved to hear her laugh - she's got kind of a husky voice and she can really cut up. She knew I loved Tammy Wynette, and she would strike a pose at the end of the service station and sing just the one line, "Staaaand by your maaaan!" and then crack up. She used to tell me stories about the older day waitresses that would have me in stitches, too, like when one of them was walking out of the service area and didn't see the buscart that was blocking the entrance. The cart was about waist high, and stopped the waitress, but it didn't stop the tray of cheeseburgers she was carrying and it went sailing out into the dining room - packed for lunch hour - like a flying saucer. Another time, one waitress we both liked was waiting on the founder of the restaurant with the board of directors. He'd ordered the fried chicken special for lunch and told her, "Carol, this chicken is cold." She said, "Just like a picnic!" and the board spent 20 minutes trying to decide if she was a great waitress because she had a quick and cheerful comeback, or if she was a smart-alec and needed to be written up.

The Body Slammer is a year older than I, but we did go out drinking a little before I was actually supposed to. When I turned 21, she went with me to The London House, a popular nightclub at the time that had three different sections: A disco, a big band dance floor (with an actual live big band), and a lounge. We got drunk as skunks, and stumbled our way back up Colorado Boulevard to our apartments when the bar closed, laughing all the way. Back then, we used to drink pretty often but not always together because of our different shifts. When I could, I'd join her at La Plaza for two-for-one happy hour, and if she worked a graveyard shift, she might come out with the rest of the wait staff to open the bar at Coco's. They could start serving liquor at 7:00 a.m. (maybe it was 8:00) and one Sunday (still Saturday night for us) I had way too many Manhattans there. There's just nothing quite like being drunk when the church crowd starts coming in. I had to work that night - Lord, I was hungover - and the cooks all knew it. When I'd go back in the service area to pick up an order, they'd ring their bell, bang on pans and wrap their arms around each other's shoulders singing, "Staaaand by your Manhattan!"


I just got in touch with The Body Slammer again through Facebook. It's been a long time since we've seen each other, and I'm glad we're going to be able to catch up. She moved back to North Dakota, married, raised kids and divorced, and I moved to Texas (and didn't do much of anything except get old). We haven't talked on the phone yet - different schedules and all - but we're fixing to. Her friendship meant so much to me when I was just getting on my feet in that big city, and yet I never did find out how she got that nickname.

The Fool

I had a crush on a guy I had briefly dated, but never seemed to get over. We both contributed to the twisted un-relationship we had, him telling me, "It's not that I want to go out with you. I just don't want you to go out with anyone else." And me saying, "I just want you to ask me out so I can tell you no." Looks bizarre from a distance, but it was True Love while I was in it. Anyway, I said that to say this: The guy I liked had a roommate who was the most annoying, whiney and helpless thing I'd ever met. We'd all be out at the bars together and inevitably, the roommate had to go home because he felt dizzy, or didn't want to use the restrooms in the bar or spilled something on his shirt, etc. Of course, he couldn't drive himself home, so I'd wind up alone.

One night, we were all gonna have coffee after hours, and whiney-boy had too much beer (probably two of 'em) and was complaining that he couldn't walk. I didn't want to miss out on spending time with my crush, so I said, "Here, I'll carry you." I picked him up (he outweighed me by about 40 pounds) and took a few steps on the wet pavement and slipped. I went down - him on top of me - landing on my knee, turned sideways. I didn't know I'd fractured it at the time. I was too busy trying to calm him down, first because his neck hurt, then his back hurt, then his head hurt. Brother. We all went to coffee. I was limping a little, but I thought it would pass. I went home that night about 3:30 and woke up at 6:00 with my knee about twice normal size and every shade of purple imaginable. Right away, I called the hotel and told them I didn't think I'd be able to make it to work that night. (I had to use a bar stool for a walker to get around my apartment since I didn't own crutches. I think of that every time I hear Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck if ..." ) Turns out, I was in a full cast, non-weight-bearing for four months. Even after I got the cast off, I wound up working PBX for a couple of months because I couldn't put much weight on the knee. Twenty years later, I still have trouble with it.

One of the first gigs I got sidelining outside of the hotel after I was back on my feet was at Coors, working for ARA, a huge concessions conglomerate that handles convention centers and the like. I was told the job involved some "light cooking" and I said I thought I could handle that. 30 minutes into the shift, I called the food and beverage director of ARA and told her, "I will never, ever, ever and forever work for you again. Barbecued chicken for 300 people is NOT 'light cooking'! I don't even know how to make this for ONE person, let alone 300!" She asked me if I was walking out and I said I didn't do that. I'd finish the job I contracted for, but she was a liar, and she should be ashamed of herself. And she needed to tell me how to cook the damn chicken. In addition to preparing the chicken, I baked cookies and put together tossed salad and filled bowls with potato salad, set up the buffet (including the tables), bussed, broke everything down and washed the dishes (pans and serving stuff, since it was all paper plates). I was working with one other "waiter" who told me about some place he worked once where they had people who "didn't do nothin' but wash dishes all day." I don't think he got out much.

Curb Service

For many years there was a place on the corner of 1st and Broadway in Denver called Mary and Lou's Cafe. Homemade pie, biscuits and red-eye gravy and other down home food. In the early 90s, it was remodeled and renamed The Hornet. About a week after the new place opened up, someone drove their car into the corner of the building. They repaired the building, re-opened, and a couple of weeks after that someone else did the same thing. When they repaired it the next time, they put a big sign on the corner window that said, "Drive-Thru Now Closed."

Custer's Last Stand

One convention I dreaded every year at the hotel where I was a cocktail waiter was hosted by the Native American Housing Authority. This is a lobbyist organization that would meet in Denver to discuss their grievances with the United States, which usually boiled down to grievances against white people. There's some history behind all of that. Oddly, the event coincided with the Annual Stock Show and Trade Fair. The same dates.

In spite of the fact that our particular hotel was filled almost entirely with Native Americans, in one of the grandest gestures of insensitivity, the hotel management insisted that we all dress like cowboys ... "for Stock Show." My favorite bartender used to describe this week as "Custer's Last Stand."

The last year I worked at that hotel, I cocktailed $1300 worth of drinks (at about $1.50 to $4.00 each) on the first night of the convention and made a total of five dollars in tips. That's about 450 drinks. I ran my butt off and I was yelled at, catcalled, pinched, grabbed and insulted all night, but I didn't have any support from the hotel because the room revenue was where they were making their money. Also, in spite of the alcohol classes the hotel had started requiring the f&b staff to take to lower their insurance premiums, they insisted that we continue to serve people who were clearly drunk "because they were staying in the hotel and weren't driving." (Never mind that bartenders and waiters are still responsible for the patron's safety if they fall down and hit their head or OD on booze.)

On the last night, after most of the conventioneers had gone home and only a dozen or so remained in the hotel, I was tending bar when a woman from their group walked in just before last call. The woman seemed relatively sober, and she sat at the bar in front of the taps and ordered a draft. These taps had the kegs sitting right underneath them, so at that area of the bar there was an extra 18 inches or so between me and the customer. I set the beer in front of her, she took one sip, put it down and started to go over backwards dead drunk.

Now, this woman was NOT small. I reached out quickly and grabbed ahold of her arms, but she must have outweighed me by 100 pounds (at that time .... only by about 40 pounds today). I held on as best as I could and started screaming for Chuck, the security guard, but she was pulling me over to her side a little bit more every second. By the time Chuck arrived, I had the toes of my boots hooked against the drain board of the beer taps and I was hanging by my waist off the edge of the bar. I was about to let her fall 'cos her head was only a couple of feet from the carpet by then and I didn't wanna go sailing over head first myself. Chuck got a good grip on her and let her down easy and she never did come to until we splashed her face with some water.

I learned later that there is a genetic mutation that aids in the metabolizing of alcohol that Native Americans do not have, so they are much more prone to its effects. I don't know if that would have made a huge difference in my feelings about waiting on that group, 'cos it's awfully frustrating to do that much work for so little money and to be abused that way. Mostly, it makes me angry that the hotel fueled that situation by threatening me with my job if I didn't keep serving them booze. (I'm pretty sure the cowboy getup didn't help matters either.) Thank God I'm not working there any more.

Dollus Interuptus

"Wow. You made these yourself?" was all I could think to say when the bride's aunt delivered the enormous bride and groom dolls. Each about two feet tall, designed to look like toddlers in a tux and an antebellum gown, they might have been mistaken for "children from a previous marriage" if they hadn't been so quiet and (for the most part) well-behaved. The aunt insisted the dolls were to be placed on the cake table as a surprise gift for the happy couple. More likely a shock, but family trumps good taste. The cake topper was the traditional bride and groom (represented as adult figures) and the giant dolls stood sentry on either either side of the cake, like mutant offspring, easily 8 times the size of their "folks."

About halfway through the cocktail reception before dinner, our banquet captain, Paul, made some last-minute adjustments to the flowers arranged around the cake, and accidentally knocked over the giant girl doll. Apparently, the dolls were set up using some kind of spring mechanism located inside that had sprung when she fell. Obviously flustered, Paul had turned the girl doll upside down and had his hand up her dress almost halfway to his elbow when one of the waitresses let out a shriek, "Paul! What are you DOING?!"

The whole room froze. Paul's face was beet red - he did look guilty - and yet I don't think the scene would have been nearly as disturbing if the dolls hadn't been so close to the size of actual children. The rest of the wait staff helped him by doubling over with convulsive laughter. For the rest of the event, we kept after him, saying things like, "What was she wearing under that dress?" and "You know she's not real, don't you?" and "Really, Paul. Couldn't you have waited till you got home?"

Disaster Planning

Working in the banquet department of a hotel can be like booking passage on the Titanic, knowing full well before you sail that the ship is going to sink. You even know why it's going to sink.

In banquets, you're provided with an outline of the menu, program, seating arrangements, number of guests ... all the details any reasonable person (sales and catering staff are obviously excluded from this description) would need to predict impending doom. The banquet department is where the sales staff gets to realize their creativity without actually having to do any of the work. If they dreamed of pink fluffy clouds, leprechauns and seating for 400 in a broom closet, it was up to the banquet staff to "take care of the details."

I remember one ongoing fiasco - a collaborative effort of the entire sales and catering staff, most of whom barely spoke to one another - of which I was the primary "detail" person. For an entire Summer, I acted as the poolside bartender for a complimentary cocktail and hors-d'oeuvre party the hotel hosted to drum up new business. These events were co-sponsored by liquor distributors and often featured gimmicky new cocktails such as the "Lynchburg Lemonade." Sometimes, we couldn't even get people to drink the stuff for free. A series of colorful flavored rum schnapps was still sitting on the shelf of the lobby bar 5 years after their debut at a Pool Party. Every once in a while, someone would ask, "What's that?" but nobody wanted to drink them.

There were a couple of things right off the bat that really sucked about these parties. One was the weather. The pool was an outdoor one, located on the 6th floor of a downtown hotel and open to the air. Standing rules were that the party was to proceed, regardless of rain, hail, lightening ... the hotel had invited people and we had an "obligation" to come through. Even if it wasn't particularly stormy, the winds can really kick up in Denver from time to time, so trying to run a buffet and serve drinks often meant dealing with billowing table cloths and skirting, napkins and promotional materials blown into the pool, Sterno flames blowing from underneath chafing dishes like flame throwers. One afternoon, I was nearly knocked unconscious by a 10 foot hard plastic Spuds McKenzie (Bud Light's bulldog mascot of the 80s) the distributors had attached to the railing surrounding the pool deck. The wind knocked the sign loose and Spuds' foot landed on my head, knocking me to the ground. I remember the catering director being especially concerned about the dog. "It didn't break, did it?"

Another problem with the parties was knowing how many people were actually going to show up. The rule was we had to keep the food going for two hours and, in theory, each person was supplied with two free drink tickets with their "invitation." The invitations were passed out randomly on the mall downtown; just a flier that entitled the bearer to two free drinks and free hors-d'oeuvre at the hotel on Wednesday, starting at 5:00p.m. The event was supposed to end at 7:00, but the sales staff was so eager to please that these parties frequently went on for several hours. The kitchen would estimate how many people were going to attend, based on how much free food the Chef was willing to give away. That usually meant we had half of what we needed just to get through the scheduled part, and anything more required the patience of Job and finagling that would have been daunting to an Enron executive. The sales staff demanded, the kitchen refused, and I was stuck between them, facing a patio full of people who had been promised something that was not being delivered.

One afternoon, I had the party set to go, was dressed in whatever promotional t-shirt I was required to wear for the day (shivering in the wind because it was not the kind of day anyone would choose to wear shorts and a t-shirt unless they were doing it to keep their job) when people started showing up with blank pieces of pink paper. No details about the party ... no "2 free drinks" mentioned, and nothing about how long the event was supposed to last. One of the sales execs had taken it upon himself to pass out the "flyers" on the mall that afternoon without bothering look at them first. Instead of grabbing the stack that the printers had delivered, he just handed out these blank sheets of paper and told people to show up on the 6th floor of our hotel at 5 o'clock for free food and drinks. And they did! It's hard enough to limit people to two drinks at a host event anyway, but when they don't know about any limitations, it's pandemonium. As usual, it was my job to land on my feet as best I could and balance the demands of the guests with the resistance of the kitchen and the spinelessness of the sales staff to create a "party."

From my Summer of bartending on Wednesdays at the pool, I accumulated almost no money. I wasn't allowed to have a tip jar and the grat was only based on the food that was supposed to be served, not what actually went out; my bartender fee was split with the sales department and my wages were negligible. About the only perk to the event was the free t-shirt I got each shift as my uniform, and most of those were stained by the time the shift was over. I look back on that time and so many like it and I wonder why I stayed. It must have been something like Stockholm Syndrome. Or maybe I was just waiting to get even with Spuds.

The Big Chill

When I was a young waiter, from time to time I'd have customers (mostly women, but a few men) who liked to flirt with me pretty aggressively. I was so naive, and I embarrassed easily, so I can see why it was fun for them, but it wasn't usually so much fun for me.

There were two gals in particular who did their level best to shock me. They dressed in short skirts and bustiers with fishnet stockings and high heels. Kinda like drag queens (if I had known what a drag queen looked like at that age - I wasn't out yet). One night they came in to the restaurant, asked for my station, and ordered dessert. Lots of lip licking and playing with their straws and other suggestive movements, and then, "I want a banana nut crepe ... with a REALLY BIG banana!" The other gal ordered her dessert, probably just as tauntingly, but it's the crepe I remember.

Brother.

I called the order for the crepe (the only part of the order the cook handled) and when it came up, I made the dessert ... 3 little balls of vanilla ice cream rolled in the crepe, covered with hot fudge, sliced bananas over the top, whipped cream and chopped nuts, all on a dessert plate. Then I braced myself for the inevitable finger in the whipped cream or the "Nice nuts" comment; I just wanted to get it over with.

I set the dessert in front of the woman - very buxom in her bustier - and those little balls of ice cream, warmed by the hot crepe, shot out the end of it straight into her cleavage. I was laughing so hard I fell down. I really couldn't have aimed any better if I'd been trying. It's still one of my favorite moments from waiting tables, but after that I did learn to serve the crepes flat side forward.

Streaker

I used to work at a very popular diner on Colorado Blvd in Denver called "House of Pies." Breakfast served all day with 80 kinds of pie baked on premises. The restaurant was typical California diner-style with huge plate glass windows running down the side facing the parking lot and a little strip of shrubs and landscaping in between the parking lot and the windows. Uniforms for the guys were khaki pants and and a white shirt, but the women had to wear a white blouse with a kind of wrap-around brown polyester jumper skirt that buttoned on the side and tied in back in a big bow.

One night, we were packed with people lined up to the door, and one of our waitresses was being dropped off for work by her boyfriend. When she got out of the car, she shut the bow of her uniform in the car door. Her boyfriend drove off and she twirled right out of that wraparound skirt/jumper and started screaming for him to stop. Really, she was lucky that there was so little holding that uniform to her, or I guess she might have been pulled with the car. It sure happened fast. It looked like one of those tablecloth tricks.

She ran for the shrubbery alongside the windows to take cover from the cars on the street only to realize that she was now the floor show for the entire restaurant, crouching next to the huge windows in a blouse and pantyhose. Her boyfriend finally heard her and stopped the car. Then she had to get dressed and walk past all the customers on the waiting list, knowing that these were the people she would be waiting on in a few minutes.

Please Like Me

I never felt like I had the technical skills of a really great waiter: Organizing, prioritizing and multi-tasking were things I learned by trial and error. Some people are naturally gifted in those areas, but I wasn't one of them. I relied heavily on my people skills and my natural drive for acceptance. I was born with a need to be liked. I was usually extremely popular with about 90% of my customers and loathed by the other 10%. Not much in between.

Sometimes I really deserved the 10%. Here are some situations where I'm probably lucky I didn't get my ass kicked:

(On a night when half of the restaurant was filled with a meeting of the Clown Convention who had shown up without reservations.)"Hi Folks. 7 tonight? Did you want to sit on this side of the dining room or over there with the rest of the clowns?"

(To a woman standing at her table with an empty coffee pot held straight out in front of her.) "I almost didn't notice you. I thought you were the Statue of Liberty! Is there anything I can bring for you?"

Customer: "Do you have restrooms?"
Me: "No. That's why we put those little (coffee) pots on the tables."

(And to the Titanic Society as I'm spilling 8 glasses of ice water on their table): "Lifeboats!"

**The last one did get me a big tip, though everyone was soaked. I was carrying all eight stemless glasses without a tray. I learned not to show off after that.