I’m on the toilet with my dick in my hand, debating whether to masturbate. My bow-tie hangs limp across my chest, my tuxedo pants drape over my ankles, and my black dress socks are full of sweat, dishwater, and tears. It’s 3 in the afternoon and I am due back on the floor in an hour. Usually, I have more than an hour between shifts but my table of housewives decided to camp out after we closed. In most cases my frequent dirty looks and palpable abhorrence of the people I wait on leads them to quickly cash out and move on with their days. But these loathsome housewives were so used to the disgusted gazes of their husbands that my disposition was scarcely registered by their Diet Coke-fueled brains. In my attempt to embarrass them I dropped off two obscenely large pitchers of Diet Coke, but they assumed I was being considerate – I wasn’t. The restaurant manager would have written me up had he witnessed my mocking service, but he had left at 2 just like I should have.
And now I’m sitting on the toilet waiting for my wet socks to dry and my chafed thighs to cool with my dick in my hand. I want to masturbate, it’s my fourth double in a row so my penis is overdue for a flogging, but I can’t clear my mind of the hate I have for those chubby housewives. And my penis remains flaccid on account of chubby housewives on the brain.
I stand up, pants still around my ankles, and move to the mirror, to practice informing my boss that I am too sick to work the evening service. I know I’m not actually going to use the speech; I have bills to pay and weed to buy and girls to impress. But I go through the routine anyway, in an effort to prove I still have free will and am not beholden to this job. Satisfied with the Performance That Would Never Be, I dust baby powder on my thighs, zip the heat-incubating tux pants, button my shirt, clasp the bowtie in place, and head back on the floor.
The evening crew is trickling in. The hostesses are trying to organize the night’s seating schedule while Greg, the “cool” 35-year-old waiter flirts – or tries to flirt – with them. Greg’s a sidewalk philosopher, quick to offer advice, quick to offer life-lessons, and quick to lose credibility once you look past his Abercrombie and Fitch-swathed bravado. Greg thinks he knows the ways of the world, but the fact that he waits tables in his thirties and isn’t an actor indicates otherwise. He can’t even properly navigate the restaurant politics of a Benihana knockoff in Michigan. Oh sure, the chefs like him because he invites them to all of his parties. And the hostesses like him because not only is he open to dating an insecure 17-year-old but he also invites them to his get-togethers, and is always down to buy their under-aged asses some booze.
But Greg’s influence stops there. Like a midget working at an apple orchard, Greg grabs the lowest hanging fruit. His transparent efforts to appeal to the chefs and to wield influence over the hostesses cost him the respect of the wait-staff. Most of the girls see through his fake exterior and are disgusted that he regularly sleeps with minors. Plus he stupidly slept with the psycho waitress, low-hanging fruit and all. She didn’t forbid others from banging him, but she did air all his dirty laundry, the fact that he likes watching gay porn during sex, and that he has herpes.
I, on the other hand, treat the hostesses like Paris Hilton treats dicks: I blow them off. Validating their existence would just anger the predominately female servers, who hate the hostesses. The hostesses are young, vibrant, tight, not ravaged by years of drug use, drinking, and waiting tables; they are everything the female servers aren’t, so pandering to them would just upset my direct co-workers. That’s not to say I don’t want to fuck any of them. It’s just that my financial and collegial survival trumps dick-wetting.
And the key to survival, in my restaurant anyway, are the busboys. Winning their support leads directly to increased earnings.
Bussers are not servers because they have no personality, are horrible public speakers, and because they have no problem eating other people’s waste. Some servers make fun of their form of dumpster-diving but I use it to my advantage. I feed them and gain their allegiance. During service if a customer does not eat all eight pieces of a California roll or their whole filet, well then I stow the remnants away for the bussers. The speed that the bussers clean the tables determines how soon a server will be sat. The bussers oblige my request to avoid a prospective table or to make sure I am the next one sat. And they do it all for free food.
I turn on the vacuum cleaner, my opening duty is to vacuum, but I never vacuum, I just turn it on so that people assume that I’m vacuuming. I stand in front of the wait station keeping watch for the manager while the bussers eat and throw food into their aprons to pick at throughout the night. I shut my eyes as I sway from left to right momentarily squeezing the soak out of my socks. And then I hear Elizabeth’s voice and perk up. She turns the vacuum off and begins wrapping up the cord while making sure the busboys are pleased with the spread I provided. I like Elizabeth; she’s attractive and quite the enigma. She exclusively dates black guys and she’s a waitress, so she spends her days and nights getting stiffed by black people. Due to her sensually pleasant demeanor, a conversation with Liz always feels flirty even though it never is. Liz took me under her wing when I started at this job. Before I began working I came in to eat and she waited on me, and in an effort to endear myself to the wait staff I tipped her really well, and she liked me for it, and I like her for it. She was the one who taught me how to deal with the busboys and how to treat the hostesses. But more important than that, she got my mind off the chubby ladies from lunch, and rekindled feeling in my penis. Elizabeth’s company and four days’ worth of penis negligence has me walking pigeon-toed back to the bathroom.
With Elizabeth eradicating my mental cock block I stand over the toilet masturbating. The bussers are primed and ready to go. Elizabeth is closing the dinner service with me. And I am soon to be square with my dick. Waiting tables tonight may not be so bad.
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Best line of the whole piece:
I, on the other hand, treat the hostesses like Paris Hilton treats dicks: I blow them off.
Had to laugh at your story. Worked at a high end steakhouse back in the ’60s. Some things never change.