bitterwaitress

 

The Season of caring, the Season of sharing, the Season of idiots so distracted by showing off the over-priced shit they bought at F.A.O Schwartz that they lose an earring, a wallet, an iPod, their child.

 

I understand it’s stressful to lose something like a wallet. Actually, no I don’t. I’ve never lost my wallet in my life. Even while so drunk I careened down two flights of stairs onto the Broadway-Lafayette F-train platform (not an isolated event by any means). Even while hurridly dressing to get out of someone’s bedroom before our little tryst was discovered. Nope. Never (go ahead Fate, have your way with me). Maybe I never lost my wallet becuase that’s where I kept my coke.   

 

 

So you lose something at a restaurant. What do you do? You call, usually at 8 p.m.on the Saturday night that you lost it. (It would appear that people only lose things at lunch or at the first dinner seating.) Then, you become irate becuase the person answering the phone, often nowhere near the dining room, cannot immediately run to the table where you were sitting, crawl between the legs of the strangers currently ensconced there (this is life after all, not a Sharon Stone movie) and forage for your precious money clip or lip gloss. Then you must go through the humiliating experience of giving your name and phone number in case the item is found. How inconvenient for you.    Then there’s the item of sentimental value. Yeah, right. What you really mean is it’s something your wife gave you and that she will kill you if you lose it. Like the time you lost your wallet. In the hotel room with a hooker.We all know how this goes.My favorite part, though, is listening to the yuppies try to weasel their way around their racism. “Well, I had it on the table when the busboy (read Mexican ) cleared it!” Or, “are you sure that the busboy didn’t find it?” No, I’m not sure, and why should I be sure? Why should I care? I always like to ask them to describe the busboy, since they are not assigned to specific tables. You can pretty much stop them right there. “He was wearing black, I know that.” Really? They all wear black. “What did he look like?” Okay, they give up and just leave their name, but not without the final snipe of “So you WILL call me when you find it?” “Yes, sir, I will call you IF we find it.”    And as for the leaving of the child? Yes, it did happen once, about 20 years ago at my first restaurant job, when some drunk rich guy called to see if he left his son there. he had. I hope he left enough in the will to cover the therapy for that. I guess the kid wasn’t of great sentimental value.