Waitresses

8/25/08

Katie, Megan and I go to Zen Zero, and not twenty seconds after we are seated an absolutely joyous waitress appears.
“Hi,” she says excitedly, placing glasses of water in front of us and a basket of shrimp chips in the center of the table.
“How are you today?”
“I’m doing great,” I say. “How are you?”
“I’m just smashing,” she says in a way that you know she really means it.
“I like your t-shirt,” she says, pointing to the weird Daniel Johnston drawing and I’m pretty sure she just thinks it’s cool, but I don’t know.
She takes our drink orders and returns to the kitchen.
“Oh my god,” I tell Megan quietly. “I think I am in love with her.”
I couldn’t quite place her age, other than she looked just a little too old for me. Something about her face felt like she knew more than me. Something about her long blonde hair tied in a ponytail seemed like someone who had gotten over trendy haircuts. Thus, I knew I could never have her, which was great and I could spend the evening developing a boyish crush that would never come to any sort of fruition, which was just fine with me. I spend the time between here and when she brings our drinks wondering if she likes Daniel Johnston.
She returns with Coca-Colas and takes our order, and I start acting like my dad whenever our family is out to dinner. Megan orders her Phad Sae Ewe with baby corn instead of broccoli and I playfully rib her for it.
“The broccoli is the best part,” I say. There’s really no rhyme or reason there, and as soon as I realized what I was doing I tried to stop. My dad does this every time we’re served by a waitress, and he makes even more of an effort to be charming in an assholish way if she is incredibly pretty. Although I do not feel like I am being an asshole, I’m completely in the mindset that I am playing a game.
Megan, Katie and I talk about school and I talk about how I am in love with this waitress. How she is going to marry me someday because she is the best waitress I have ever been served by. This is no lie. I can’t think of a single waitress or waiter who has been as good as this woman. I feel weird calling her a woman, I’m tempted to call her a girl but I was chastised for that in a writing class once so I try to say woman but I feel like it’s a compliment if you say girl. It means she’s young enough to be considered a girl. Woman makes me think of someone’s mom. Maybe it’s because I hate it when someone calls me “this man” or, even worse, “sir.” I much prefer guy. Maybe I should refer to her as a gal.
Anyway, we eat our food and eventually she brings us the check. I notice on the receipt that her name is Gretchen and I turn to Megan with glee.
“Oh my God, her name is Gretchen. That is the perfect name for her. If I were writing a story about this, that is what her name would be,” I say.
She laughs at me and tells me to shut up, while Katie asks what I was saying.
“I’ll tell you later,” I say.
“Oh, I see how it is. You guys have your own little secret club over there or something,” she says.
“No, it’s about…”
I stop as Gretchen walks by carrying some glasses from another table.
I lean over to Katie and say “It’s about my future wife, I don’t want her getting wind of it at this moment.”
We all slip our little credit cards into the tops of our little leather ticket books and stack them neatly on the corner of the table. She collects them, returns and distributes them. I sign the line before I notice that my ticket is only for $3.07, which is far too low for a mid-range restaurant. I look at the receipt, which reads $9.07.
“Shit,” I say. “She didn’t charge me enough.”
It’s apparent from the time I notice the error that I know what I need to do. I know that I need to flag Gretchen down and have her fix it, even though it feels like I should just sign the slip, pay $3.07 for a $9.07 meal and leave, but even if the waitress or waiter wasn’t Gretchen, I feel like I’d have to let them know. I like to chalk it up to “Catholic Guilt” but I don’t think that’s it at all. Maybe a little, but it’s like a little test to see if you are an honest person or if you are an asshole. Granted, I am both at times but I have to wonder how many people in this town would just sign the thing and let the owners take the discrepancy out of her tips.
I flag Gretchen down and I tell her what has happened.
“I know, I probably should have just signed the thing and left, but I can’t do that, you know?” I tell her.
For the first time in the night she breaks from her giddy routine, which isn’t a routine at all because I can tell she is honestly happy. Except for that little moment, but it’s what happens when anyone realizes they’ve made a mistake.
She returns to the register and re-calculates the total and brings me the proper ticket.
“Thank you for noticing that. They would have probably taken it out of my tips,” Gretchen says.
“No, it’s totally cool,” I say.
“Well, thanks again,” she says before leaving with our empty dirty plates.
I spend the next thirty seconds deciding on how much to tip, because the service really was amazing. I wonder if this was all some kind of social experiment. Something she does on a nightly basis to see who is willing to fuck her over, even though I’m sure she’s sweet and kind and perfect to everyone, and as much as I like to believe people are good, I still think there is at least one person that would take advantage of the error and I hate that about humanity.
On the other hand, I can’t help but think that if the waiter or waitress tonight had been a complete bitch or asshole, I would have had dinner for three bucks. I think that’s my problem, or the thing that keeps me from being a good person. I’m good to the people who I decide deserve it, and to those who don’t I treat them the way they treat me. Goodness feels like too much of a chore if someone is treating me like shit, and they should know that if they mess up my ticket that I am going to keep my mouth shut and let them pay for it. It’s a fallacy. It has to be, because there is no such thing as a perfect world where everyone is just nice and kind to each other. Because I cannot deal with rudeness, I am often rude and by doing being so I am perpetuating rudeness.
I wasn’t put on the spot tonight, though. The decision I had to make was completely obvious as soon as I noticed something was wrong and if I said that I should take advantage of it I was only putting myself in someone else’s shoes. If anything, Gretchen probably now knows that at least some people are honest, and she seemed to genuinely appreciate that.
As we are leaving, I see her on the patio talking to some customers and she makes a really ugly face, and I really like that. It’s the last thing I see of her before we walk down the street to the car and maybe it’s nice because I know she’s joking around but it’s a funny last image of someone who was so pleasant it made my exhausted evening a lot better, and I say that in the sappiest way possible because I feel sappy. I have to feel sappy in a situation like this, even if I am an asshole.