I Have No Title

Last Saturday night I was in Section 2 (farthest section from the kitchen, all big tables) and by 7:30 I was beat.  I didn’t know how I was going to take one more step, and I felt like having a tired crying jag.  At 3 minutes before 8, I noticed a drunk guy at the register.  He was holding a glass of beer and doing what resembled a pee-pee dance.  I heard him ask Cora if we would seat a party of 10 and since it wasn’t 8pm yet, the answer was yes.  Then another bleary eyed guy joined him and asked if he should bring all the kids in.

Shit.

Not only was it my turn, but I had the only tables which would fit all of them.  I gave the second guy the I’m-dead-tired-please-take-pity-on-me-and-go-somewhere-else look, but he couldn’t interpret it through his beer goggles.  So I got 5 drunk adults and 5 bawling kids 5 minutes after close.  Yay for me.

I got their drinks, took their order, called it in to the cooks, and made their salads.  At 20 minutes after 8, I noticed one of the guys at the food window.  He was telling the dumbfounded cooks to cancel their order.  The cooks already had the steaks on the charbroiler, so what the hell were they going to do with those?  They all looked at me like I knew what the hell was going on.  Guess again.

I convinced the guy to stay since 1. their table was already a mess, 2. I was holding all their salads, 3.  the food was cooking, 4. I knew there was no way in hell I was getting a tip on just drinks and a bunch of ruined food, and be damned, I WAS GETTING A TIP.

I took the salads out and the pee-pee dance guy was missing.  He was at the register paying for his beer.  Shit.

What ensued after that was the biggest clusterfuck I’ve ever seen.  Two people left to console Pee-Pee Dancer in the parking lot.  One woman sat at the table and cried.  One guy tried to quiet all the bawling kids.  I stood there and wondered who had a gun.

The guy who originally tried to cancel the order came back to the table, said, “Fuck him,” and ate his salad.  The not-crying woman stood at the food window and told the cooks how sorry she was for keeping them late.  Over.  And over.  And over.  The cooks called me to start taking food out and to get her the hell out of the window, but she turned her attention on me and apologized.  Over.  And over.  And over.  Then she told me she was a waitress.  Bullfuckingshit.  If you were, you wouldn’t be standing here taking up my time and letting the food get cold. 

I delivered the food to the table and instead of eating, the “waitress” went back outside to talk to Pee-Pee Dancer who caused more trouble and wasted more of my time by leaving than if he had sat his drunk ass down and ate.  The crying woman choked down her food in about 3 minutes, and she and her husband split.  The other guy shoveled food into the kids with one hand while shoveling food into his own mouth with the other, and he split after about 10 minutes.  The “waitress” sat at the table, by herself, for 20 minutes after everyone else left.  She even ordered a second glass of wine.

In the end, I got a $40 guilt tip from them and an example of drunken family fun.  Did I mention the guys were brothers?  Yep, family reunion.  Good times, good times.  And hey, it wasn’t even 9 o’clock yet!  Still lots of time for the dysfunctional family feud.