Don't Say It

[A story from the past.]

“Is five dollars okay, honey? For your tip? Is five dollars good?”

I am needing more than the socially acceptable one second to come up with a response to this. Think. Think. Any more of a pause between utterances and this woman is going to understand her mistake and feel awkward. Or worse - she won’t understand it, she’ll decide I’m stupid, and then I’ll feel awkward. All of which, when either of you depends on the other for an evening's service (not to mention a living) is, well, awkward.

Is five dollars okay? Not on a fifty-nine dollar check it’s not, lady. Not after I ran to the kitchen and back twenty times, sweating like an obese porn star in a futile quest to satisfy your buffalo sauce-guzzling family. Not after I gave you six times a half-portion of everything, with no salt, with extra pepper. Not after providing bottomless Mr. Pibbs - as though you needed them, you horde of overindulgent, sugar-pushing crazies.

But I didn’t say that. It only took me a bit longer than my one-second window to come up with “Oh, yes, sure, that’s fine!” Because the thing was, she might really not know. Or even if she did know, she was the customer - in corporate restaurant speak, the “guest” - and therefore was always right. She should probably not be told by an employee that, actually, the standard at minimum is fifteen percent, twenty is nicer, and rounding up is really, really appreciated.

So, five dollars.

Herein lies the thrill of being a waitress: Maybe you’ll make rent and maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll make so much money in a week that you’ll be able to buy a Cole Haan handbag at retail, in cash, guilt-free. Or maybe you’ll find yourself on the phone with Dad, whose generosity, mercifully, still extends to your car insurance. You just never know.

In waiting, the tip is not the icing, it is the cake. And there is no icing.