Cinco de Drinko

It's not a good thing when you are a server on Cinco de Mayo and work at an Italian restaurant. The La Parilla across the street had a forty five minute wait at five thirty, and their food is borderline "Okay" at the most.

Screw them!!! We had a party of fifty at six thirty.  Everything ran smoothly and by ten was walking out the door.

Unfortunately my least favorite holiday of the year is quickly approaching.

How sad is it I have three kids and my least favorite day of the year is Mother's Day? My oldest is twenty seven and have never EVER had a Mother's Day off. That's just the way it goes when you are a server. It's a balls to the wall day and all hands need to be on deck, especially the good ones.

I've come to call the occasion "One Mother of a Day."

We're slammed from thirty minutes before we open until we close the doors that night. Disgruntled cheap husbands are forced to take their wives out if she birthed a youngun. A lot of them are peeps who would NEVER go out to eat, especially on a Sunday when SHE should be in the kitchen making Sunday dinner for HIM! If they gotta pay for dinner when they don't want to, they sure ain't tossing no stinking waitress more of their hard earned money! (We have a lot of red necks here in the south)

It's always a nightmare. They get ticked when they have to wait for a table when they didn't even bother to make a reservation so are automatically irritated before you even say hello to them.

They come in a noon with a party of ten and wonder why their food takes so long?

Let's see...we have one hundred of you in here all ordering at once and six cooks. You do the math, Idiot.

If you are short on patience, and / or hard to please, you ARE an idiot to go out to a restaurant on Mother's Day between the hours of  eleven AM and two PM. You have a tiny window at four PM and may still have to wait a bit but by five it starts again.

People are sometimes really rude to me, which ticks me off number one because I "AM" a mother and it's supposed to be MY day too...and number two because "Hello? I'm WORKING on Mother's Day for $2.13 an hour and whatever else you'll throw me, AND have three kids!"

It's not like I'm forced to be a server and actually enjoy being one. It's the idiots I can't stand, but they are out there EVERYWHERE, not just in restaurants...we just get a butt load of them when they're forced to do something nice for somebody else...plus it costs them money.

Most of the serving staff is all female (except four) and all young. Only two young severs have little ones and unless they switch professions, best get used to detesting the day as much as I do. Trust me, after this Sunday they will.

So Cinco de Mayo (the made up holiday for Gringos) turned out pretty good for me. Let's just hope Sunday goes as smoothly. I'm not counting on it...but a server / mom can always dream!

Til next time...COTTON