Yesterday, I got to the restaurant at 8:45 p.m. and
had a cig at the dumpsters with Weepy Wanda. These days, she mainly works 2nd
shift. However, she enjoys hanging around after she clocks out to get high with
Pork-Chop Jane. They toke their weed and discuss their boyfriends. Sometimes,
they do drugs and gossip for two to three hours. I shit you not.
Anyway, Wanda was all smiles.
I said, “What are you so happy about?”
“Cindy got fired.”
Cindy is a rough-edged waitress who also works the 2nd
shift. She has a ton of tats and has been warned several times for vaping
inside the establishment.
I said, “What did she do?”
“The manager doesn’t like her attitude.”
“That’s it? There must be more to the story than that.”
“Cindy’s been on her last warning for several months
now. But the manager was cool about it. He said that she’s free to work at any
Waffle House in the entire state of Texas. Just not at this one.”
Well, my friends, what can I tell you. They come and
they go. It’s the Waffle-House way.
The night was extremely busy, but unfortunately the
grill operator was Slow-Poke Benson. The kid still doesn’t know how to cook a
fucking egg, and Dwayne the Dwarf refuses to teach him. Dwayne says that he’s
too fucking old to be an instructor.
One of my orders took nearly 30 minutes to complete. I
was afraid that my customers were all going to stand up and walk out. But most
of them turned out to be jovial souls, and they waited patiently without
protesting.
Slow-Poke Benson finally left at 2 a.m. And let me
tell you motherfuckers something. I wasn’t sad to see him go. Waiting for that
kid to finish an order is an exercise in frustration.
Then this greasy old biker limped into the restaurant and
sat at the hi-bar.
I said, “Is that a Harley?”
He nodded grimly. “Damn straight, it’s a Harley. I
wouldn’t ride nothing else.”
“I’ve always been afraid of motorcycles. They seem
kind of dangerous.”
He nodded again. “I lost my fucking foot about a year
ago after dumping my bike in the street. But I swore that I’d get back on the
horse and ride again. And here I am, my friend.” He paused for dramatic effect.
“Nothing in the world is going to keep me off my Harley.”
After he finished shoving the rest of his hash browns
into his mouth, he left me a five-dollar tip.
At 3 a.m., a drunk guy staggered into the parking lot
and took a nap right by our front door. Somebody must have called the police
because three squad cars came rolling in a couple of minutes later. The man was
arrested for public intoxication, and Pork-Chop Jane was asked to write a
witness statement describing everything she’d seen.
This filled her with joy, and her boyfriend helped her
spell the difficult words.
Of course, I was mopping and sweeping while she had
all the fun. Jane is by far the laziest person I’ve ever met. Sometimes, I just
want to smack her in the head with the mop. Yet she’s only nineteen, so I do my
best to remain patient.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad night. I ended up with $260
dollars for the ten-hour shift.
"This filled her with joy, and her boyfriend helped her spell the difficult words"
ReplyDeleteMy friend, brilliant!
Skillet
Thanks. But I feel guilty. She's just a kid.
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