Thursday, August 14, 2014

Table Six

I keep feeling the need to get some of my life as a waitress off my chest. Weird things happen to waitresses. People expose themselves in our presence in ways you wouldn't believe. Really, we see the best of humanity and the worst of humanity, right there during the lunch rush. With our pockets filled with crumpled straw wrappers and granules of artificial sweetener we devote our time to strangers, ensuring their glasses are perpetually full, their needs all met before they've even voiced them. We serve them, and then we judge them, as soon as we see what kind of a tip they've left us.

Table Six certainly didn't embody the worst of humanity, by any means, but she sure left an impression. She was an Australian visiting her friend here in Savannah. She was slight, and her head was covered with a silk scarf. The whole potentially dying of cancer aspect of her softened the blow of our incredibly uncomfortable interaction. She was vacillating between the vegetarian plate and our local steamer clams - two vastly different dishes. I recommended the clams, but admitted it wasn't the healthier of the two options. As I stood at her table, answering her questions, poised to write down her order as soon as she made her decision, she reached her hand out and patted me on my tummy as she said, "Well you can eat anything you like since you're eating for two."

Be nice. She's dying of cancer.

I heard my mother's voice in my head. "Stand up straight, Anna." I looked at Table Six and, with my smile still on my face, said, "no, ma'am, that's just the result of my poor eating habits combined with my poor posture."

As I straightened my back, and sucked in my tummy, she smiled and said, "Oh, you're right. It does rather disappear now that you're standing up straight."

Every time I had to stop at her table she would say something like, "You really are quite slim," or, "Please, don't go changing your eating habits. You're really lovely."

Tip: $10.00 on $55.00.

5 comments:

  1. Now people at work won't stop asking me when I'm expecting.

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  2. You handled that with grace :)

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  3. What the heck else could I do?! I told another one of my tables about it yesterday, and that lady told me about how she asked a flight attendant at the beginning of an international flight when she was expecting. Can you imagine how uncomfortable that must have been?!

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  4. I once asked a little boy on a plane whether or not he liked travelling with his nice grandma... it was not grandma... it was mom... Damn that was a long flight...

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