I had to work at three thirty but left an hour early for work. Today was the owners wife's birthday. If you ask her, she's the owner and her spouse is the owner's husband. Sounds a lot like me and Tim. Actually we have a lot in common. She is ten years older than me and her husband is two years younger than her. Tim is two years younger than me and I feel ten years older.
She's a hard one to buy for so I took the safe route. I bought her a nice card and included two tickets for tonight's Power Ball drawing, ten scratch off tickets and even a penny to help her get started. I addressed the envelope to "Margaret Drysdale." That's what I call her, especially when I need her to float me a loan, which I do quite often. Guess I should really call her "Milburn."
Her birthday celebration always starts a couple of days in advance. Customers and friends who can't be there on her birthday start dropping off presents days in advance. Barb keeps them all by her
Queen "B" bar stool. She had vases of flowers, gift bags with earrings, necklaces, balloons tied to her chair and cards galore, all propped up on the bar.
Here's the thing about Barb. She's a pretty tough cookie to say the least. She's very demonstrative when talking to you and her little head shakes like a bobble head doll. She can be telling you about a sale at Kohl's but to others it appears she's dogging you out. (which she is, sometimes)
She grew up very poor and has never forgotten her humble start. She could pinch a penny til it screamed, and does. She can't abide waste in any form and keeps tabs on all money coming in and going out of the restaurant.
She acts like a Big Bad Bear, and often is. She also has a heart as big as the Atlantic and always willing to help ones who help themselves. Oh she may give you some grief about it first but if you need something, all you have to do is ask. If you're a slacker you can forget about it but if you're a hard worker, she'll always help. Trust me, I know first hand. Since I have worked for her (and the owner's husband) they have helped us out time and time again. I will say I have always paid her back in a timely manner but has saved our butt many times. She jokes about what terrible luck we have, even commenting today "I don't know if YOU should be the one buying me lottery tickets, you have pretty horrible luck."
In her birthday card I wrote "Thanks for all your help, hope you have a great day and remember if you hit it big, take me with you!"
By seven the bar was overflowing with presents, flower arrangements, balloons and gift bags. I made this observation to my fellow co workers:
"Dang, the bar looks like a memorial on the side of a road when somebody gets hit by a car."
My night started out crappy. Had five ladies who obviously don't go out much. They ran me to death, talked down to me and demanded something every time I went to the table. I smiled and kow towed. When you're server you simply never know and HAVE to treat every table the same. Needless to say they stiffed me on an almost eighty dollar tab and even shorted me on one of the separate checks. As they walked out I bit the bullet and thanked them for coming in and told them it had been my pleasure.
Here's the way Karma happens. Every other table I had the rest of the shift took excellent care of me and walked out at ten thirty with Franklin and a couple of his buddies.
Thank goodness I told the crappy women to come back to see us and be sure to ask for me. "My name's Martha." (I didn't do that but have before)
My old head's feeling better and black eye is almost gone. It's kind of like being a server...sometimes you get a shiner but sometimes you get a crown. I shrugged off the crappy table, concentrated on making everyone ELSE happy and it all worked out for me.
So glad I survived my fall it's not even funny. Feeling better every day and know the harder I try, the more blessings we will receive.
You get what you give...I'm a firm believer in that.
Til next time...Conscious COTTON
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