54

Two Saturdays ago, my station included table number 54. On one of the rounds, the guest's bill came to $54.54. I thought that was pretty cool and showed Jennifer, one of my section buddies. 

This past Saturday (one week later), I got the same section, and was taken back when once again table 54's check came to $54.54. I showed Jennifer to make sure that this really happened twice and she remembered it from the previous time as well. 

Weird.

I remember last year seeing 11:11 or 1:11 on the clock all the time. I read somewhere that that is supposed to mean something, but was I just LOOKING at the clock at those times, or just noticing them above the other many times I looked? 

A couple of months ago, in one week my change at the grocery store was $6.66 and the change I gave out to a table at the restaurant was also $6.66. I wouldn't have thought much about the two, but they occurred within a few days of each other.

It was a little creepy.

Numbers are fascinating. Three of my six children were born on some family member's birthday, my first being born on mine. The first three were born on "First Friday", which had a significant meaning to me at the time. 

Just some numbery thoughts:)

How Does it Feel?

Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

Like A Rolling Stone- Bob Dylan




That portion of the lyrics to that well known song were floating around in my head as I came back into the kitchen from the dining room. The music in the restaurant was sometimes more country, sometimes more rock but never too intense for anyone. It gets rather bland at times, but some songs stand out. I found myself instinctively singing along in my head with this song that day and that portion hit me in a new way.



I repeated them again to myself.



Yes, it is hard. I shuffled through the kitchen unloading my dirty tray and gathering drinks for another table and just began to ponder that. Those words, not meant for this situation or for me at all, but yet somehow there as if pieces of the world were sympathizing, singing, mourning along.





Just one year ago, I had never stepped foot in this place. We had gotten a gift card from my mom for Christmas with free babysitting and supper for the kiddos included. We had put off going out together in recent years, but times were changing.  We waited until summer to go and then received another card from Mom for our anniversary to the same restaurant only weeks after going the first time. On that second visit, I began to look around, pondering what it would be like to work there for some reason, not that we had discussed me getting a job, I was just thinking.

I took this picture the first night we visited the restaurant. After we got home we sat outside after the kids went to bed.  

On that second visit, I walked to the restroom and passed by a server. We made eye contact, in an almost do I know you? way, but I know we didn't. It turns out he would be my trainer the first day I started.




Only one year ago, everything was so different. No one there knows what it was that I was and what it is that has so radically shifted. Everyone there and everywhere has their own stories. We're all in this crazy human boat together.

That was Strange

This past weekend I had to work a lot, you know Valentine's Day and all. Saturday started off just great, smooth sailing, great tables, and then just before close a group of kids (late teen early 20s) came in without parents and clearly didn't "get" the whole this-is-not-the-food-court -or-McDonald's thing.  About half of them looked at the prices and decided just to have drinks, with plenty of free refills of course. It was rough to say the very very least (and believe me I could go on and on) and I had to stay a couple hours later than I expected. I didn't get home until after 1 A.M. and I was completely wiped out and quite frustrated.

She always bums my quarters for this, but she's pretty good. 

The next afternoon I did some grocery shopping with my oldest. As we were almost done, we had to back track through the store to pick up something we had forgotten when an older lady with a thick accent of some sort stopped us.


"Can I ask you ladies something?" she said.

I nodded. I was expecting her to ask where something was located in the store or something like that.


"What's the difference between a waitress and a toilet seat? "

It took me a few seconds to process (through the thick accent) that she was telling us a joke.


"What?" I asked.


"A toilet seat only has to deal with one a**hole at a time."


She had no idea who we were, that I was a waitress, that I had just had a very crappy night, or anything. She just stopped and told this joke to two total strangers.


Weird, crude, but down right funny...and true.