War Story Wednesday

Hold on to your hats blogger friends! This week I have no other than the QUEEN of the internet LiLu, from livitluvit gracing my small, simple blog with her witty and creative musings.
To say that I am excited that she is guest blogging for me is essentially the understatement of the century.
So without further ado, here it is:

Though I have long since retired from the world of restaurants and bars, I remember the trials and tribulations I endured throughout my decade in the industry like it was yesterday. I started out as a sixteen year old hosted at a suburban TGIFriday's; and yes, every cliché you can imagine about it? True.

I'd been eyeing the much larger tips servers made for some two years by the time my 18th birthday rolled around, and I started my first shift training "on the floor" the day I was legal. (Insert obligatory "barely legal" joke here.)

I was pumped, but (understandably) terrified, despite that fact that I was shadowing a good friend of mine.

The night went well; almost too well, in fact. I cavorted with customers, winning them with smiles and extra bread sticks and upselling them on booze and appetizers all the while. I was a natural.

That is, until we got seated with an 8 top.

"Just treat them like any other table," my friend and mentor coached me. "Drinks, apps, entrees. You can do this."

And so I did. Green though I was, I managed to get their drinks in record time, enter all the courses in the computer with the appropriate delay times, and was riding high by the time their soups and salads were up in the kitchen. The group had a one year old I'd been playing peek-a-boo with, and their wallets, I mean hearts, were mine.

I waltzed over to their table with three salads on one arm, proud as anything of my newly acquired "carrying" skills.

"Here we are, folks! One Italian, one Thousand Island, and finally, an olive and vineg-"

I saw it happen. I saw the ramekin of olive oil slowly, tenderly, terrifyingly, TEETER...

Before it gently slid off the edge of the bowl and upended its entire contents onto the bald little head of the toddler.

Stunned, the baby sat there with a little plastic yamaka resting on his crown, the oily yellow goop slowly dripping down his wee button nose.

And then I died.

Or, everyone uttered noises of surprise and clucking and frantically grabbed napkins and blotted while trying not to laugh because hey, if you think about it...

That's pretty damn funny.

Fortunately for me, the family was amazingly cool about it, but my mortification was complete. I hid in the kitchen until they were gone and ate my weight in Sesame Jack chicken strips to forget the pain.

I went on to be a helluva waitress, but I never forgot.

And I put the cocky away...

At least until I became a bartender.