The weekend was fun.
We had a birthday dinner party for Meg. Food was great, conversation fantastic.
The busser, a very tall and lanky boy and I use the word boy because even at 7 feet tall, it was obvious that he was still breaking his 18-year-old-molars, was so ‘on it.’ Every time we paused in the conversation, there he was asking if he could take away the plates. Are you done now? Now? How about now? To the point where I had to exclaim to him that he was the most ‘on it’ bus-guy I’d ever encountered. As he was talking, I noticed that he had a small smear of a tomato-based product on the right side of his cheek, very near his mouth and briefly wondered, but not out loud, if he sampled people’s food on the way in or out of the kitchen. He exuberantly asked if we would mind telling his supervisor that he was doing such a great job, to which I replied, no problem. He just needed to point out who she was and I was all over it. He went into a long and lengthy description. Towards the end of it, he pointed and said, ‘Look. There she is.’ to which I asked, ‘You mean, our waitress?’ and he said, ‘Oh. Ya. She’s your waitress.’
In a few moments, she came over.
‘Hey. The tall guy? The busser? Really doing a great job. Really right on it.’
‘The busser?’
‘Yes. He’s really just been great.’
Pause
‘Really?’
Meg starts to giggle across the table.
‘Yes. He has just really been fabulous.’
Meg is still giggling.
‘Are you being serious?’
She looks at me. ‘Serious?’
‘Yes!’ and now I’m trying not to laugh. ‘Really! He’s been great.’
‘Ok. Thanks.’
I don’t think she believed me. In fact, I think we might have hurt his career of dish-stacking. He came back a few minutes later, I think to see if I had actually delivered on my promise. He turned to me and there, next to the red smear, was now a chocolate smear. Now, I’m not saying it was the remnants of the dessert he had just cleared from our table. I’m just noticing it as a coincidence. He is awfully tall. Maybe he’s always hungry and can’t help himself from eating leftovers to support his frame size. Or maybe he’s forced to eat scraps because the mean supervisor lady won’t give him any portion of the tips since she obviously doesn’t think he’s very good at his job. I don’t know. But that guy could stack deep. On the last trip, he had about 12 different plates, lots of flatware and a tall stack of glasses, all sizes, along with quite a few wine stems with his fingers laced through. He blew into the top glass as he walked away, slowly, so as not to let the wine, still in some of the stems, drip out.
Toot.
Toot.