CULTURE CURMUDGEON
So a group of guys walks into a bar. Let’s say it’s a Forest Park bar, like an Irish bar.
These guys are meeting after work and most of them are still wearing dress shirts but maybe those shirts are open at the collar and probably nobody’s wearing a tie at this point. But, still, these look like employable types and they’re reasonably well behaved. I mean, it’s a Tuesday night. They’re getting some dinner and a couple beers and going home.
Now the waitress-let’s call her Molly-has a table full of unsupervised men on her hands, and she is flirty from word one. Her shtick is Brassy Coquette, sort of street-sweet-broad.
Hey, guys [bat eyes, lean in], just to warn you, I’m a terrible waitress. Ha ha. What’ll ya have?
Well, she isn’t kidding. Molly not only has no idea what kind of beers are on tap, she repeatedly mixes up the pints that she later manages to deliver to the table.
Two rounds, three rounds, all of them wrong.
I told you I was a terrible waitress!
Molly also does not care about the food.
What’s good? Who knows?
Molly mostly disappears for long stretches of time and returns noisily with the wrong beers for the wrong guys. And tableside she’s drawing more attention to herself than anyone really intended to offer-loud-mouthing her way into the casual dining lives of strangers.
Why? Because she can’t help it.
I gotta get up early tomorrow to work my other job.
Other job? Really? That sucks.
OK, maybe they’re being a little hard here. Two jobs, long hours, works on her feet. Give her a break.
Yeah, two jobs. To pay my student loans. And my credit card bills! Ha ha. I like to travel. I have to travel, you know? I’m going to Chile next.
Oh, Chile. Of course.
This kind of sticks in one guy’s craw.
“Chile?” he says, surprised and laughing. “Forget that.”
Only he doesn’t say “forget.”
Boy, Molly does not like this. All the souped-up insousiance, all the semi-pro pep falls from her face. Her smile now an angry pout.
And just like that, the dinner-and-beers guys lose an instant buddy they didn’t even ask for.
Molly retreats somewhere unseen and stays unseen, her longest disappearance of the night. Will she come back? She’s got to come back. They don’t have a check. Fifteen, 20 minutes …
Anything else?
Molly is forcing herself to smile and it looks like it hurts. Very. Tight. Face. She is not making eye contact. She is asking the mustard bottle a question she doesn’t want answered.
They’ll take the check. Most of the guys are going home and cash out-tipping, say, 20 percent-and three will stay for a last beer.
So Molly is back with the final round, not smiling, not anything. Let’s-get-it-over-with.
Who knew the night was all about her?
You go out to eat, you’re an unwitting blip in somebody else’s half-assed work day. It’s their show, their station, and you’re just passing through so move along. Or stay and talk. Lend an ear. It’s not their fault. The chef is new. Something broke. Some other ass – ruined everything.
At some point in every restaurant visit in a lifetime of eating out, there is this question: Why aren’t you eating at home? Why are you paying for this?
There’s like $13 in change from a $20 for the last round and Molly leaves it on the table in one of those vinyl folders. The three guys are talking and are vaguely aware of this. They are still talking three, four minutes later when Molly reappears.
All set?
She says this quietly, without emotion, and is gone before anyone answers. And so is the cash.
Come on. No way she’s keeping a $13 tip on like a $6 tab. That’s silly.
But there she goes, out the door with her backpack slung over her shoulder. Molly is skedaddling. She is peeking over her shoulder, and she is smiling again.
Thanks, guys!
Sure thing! Enjoy Chile!