I usually have a strict policy of not writing about where I work. But this is not about where I work, it is about a moment in time, it just happened at work. I must share.
The time: last night.
The place: a very nice restaurant, a.k.a. "my 2nd job."
The restaurant was packed, my section was full, and I was running--okay, politely speed-walking, but with my fists clenched and my teeth gritted--to the bar, my head filled with cocktail orders. Wine. Beer. Martini, slightly dirty, extra bleu cheese olives. We don't serve bleu cheese olives, I'll have to make them. That means I need to find some bleu cheese.
I admittedly had consumed far too much coffee that day; the night before I hadn't slept more than 3 hours, thanks to a University of Miami student who wouldn't leave! really good book I stayed up all night reading. So my nerves were fried, I was jittery, I was in the weeds*.
Compounded on this was the crush of patrons, all of whom showed up at once, and everyone was grinding through the night to keep up. No matter how much I stared at the bartender, he couldn't make the blenders blend any faster. But I couldn't walk past my tables empty-handed. I felt it necessary to wait, I am a waiter, I will wait. So I resigned myself to compusively shoving bleu cheese into green olives while trying not to get too red in the face.
A shake of this, a muddle of that, and finally my drinks were made. For fun, little lights are tossed into the glasses to brighten up the tables, which can be a bit dark beneath the nighttime sky. I had four: one red, one blue, one green, and one yellow. I should mention: they were in martini glasses. Tall, glamorous, gravitationally-unstable martini glasses.
I whooshed out the door with my tray of beverages, down the steps one-two-three, and rounded a corner. I looked up to see if the people at the table were smiling--They are, good--and SKREECH...My foot skidded on the smooth terrazzo floor.
There was nothing to cause me to trip; I was just walking too fast. And it was a barely-noticeable catch in my step, but it was just enough to knock the tray of glasses off-balance, wobble, wobble, this way and that. I looked like a Cirque do Soleil performer, trying to catch the wobbling glasses, and for a minute I thought I had them--until I looked down and saw the look of shock and awe in a nearby patron's eyes, wondering if I was going to make it. We made eye contact, and I stopped moving--but the glasses didn't.
In moments of extreme distress, the space-time continuum slows and each moment passes like a slow-motion scene in The Matrix. Every movement leaves a trace, which you can see as you have an out-of-body experience and you float above yourself, viewing the catastrophe as it unfolds below. At that moment, time almost stood still as I watched four glowing martinis tumble over, over, and down down down to the ground, little lights lit so brightly in the dark night, streaking a rainbow of colored light arching down. But there was no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. It would've been lovely, if it weren't for the sad reality of the impending crash.
Crash.
I stood still, surrounded by broken glass, colored lights, and wretched little bleu cheese olives scattered around the floor, doused with puddles of would've-been-delicious liquors. I didn't want to react or look upset. My co-workers, my kind-hearted wonderful co-workers, helped me clean it up--correction, they cleaned it up while I went and stood in the back and hid--and the bartender made me new drinks, no questions asked. I then brought the new drinks to the table, where I was greeted by smiling faces and congratulatory comments for not throwing the drinks on the ground again. Because of course, from all the way on the other side of the restaurant, they saw it happen. Everyone saw it. And later that night, when I was in bed reliving the moment over and over, I could see all their faces staring at me, through those streaks of colored lights, as they gave thanks that I wasn't their waiter.
~
I called my mother the next morning. A kindred spirit, she runs a restaurant and has worked in the trade for years. She would understand my pain.
"Oh, that's nothing," she said. "You only get extra points if the drinks land on somebody sitting at a table. I've done that before, that's the best."
*In the weeds: a restaurant term for when a server can't catch up to everything his/her tables need.
