The Country Breakfast

            “I’m vegan and gluten free,” a woman ordering the country breakfast says. The breakfast has meat, eggs, and a biscuit. I don’t understand. I’m standing with my notepad and a coffee stain on my left breast. I’m not sure how it got there, and I don’t have time to do anything about it. I’ve got a man waiting too long for peach pie, a table waiting for a check split six ways, another for a fork, and a manager who wants to see me in the kitchen. (I’ve rung an order into the computer wrong for the second time that morning). I’m hungry, and I’ve had to pee for three hours.

            “The country breakfast has meat, eggs, and a biscuit,” I say, exhaling. “Do you want fruit and vegetables instead?”

            “What kind of fruit and vegetables?”

            “It’s sort of a mix of everything,” I say, making eye contact with the pie–hungry man so he knows I haven’t forgotten. He’s puckering his lips and reading the Horoscopes, which is the section of the newspaper that serious people resort to when they’ve read everything else there is to read. Guests at restaurants like to be left waiting as much as babies like to be left crying in their cribs.  Whenever we stop doing things for ourselves and start waiting for others to do them for us, we regress. But if it weren’t for regression, I wouldn’t have a job I suppose.

            “Fine.” The Vegan cedes her menu. “But no peppers. I’m allergic.”

            Now I really have to pee.  “I have to pee,” I tell one of the managers back in the   kitchen. Her name’s Susan. Susan has a lisp and looks like Shrek. She’s stocky with graying teeth and knee rolls. I know that’s mean. Later, I’ll explain why I don’t care.

            “Is it an emergency?” she asks.

            I nod. It’s not. Working in the food service industry has trained me to hold my pee really well, and I could go another twenty minutes if I tried. But I like “emergencies” because I like the bathroom. The bathroom is where I sneak cookies, text, and turn on the faucet and cry. Sometimes all in one sitting. But the medley’s gotta be quick, because bathroom mini-vacations longer than a few minutes have repercussions. Like guests tipping you 13% because you weren’t around to refill their fourth cups of coffee instantly. Going to the bathroom can cost you as much as three dollars a minute. 

            “Fine,” Susan says. “Go to the bathroom. But I want to say this: next time you ring in an order wrong you’re gonna have to pay for it. And next time you place menus on a table before guests have sat down, I’m gonna send you home. Do you understand?”

            I nod. “Okay.”

            “Don’t ‘okay’ me. Say. ‘yes ma’m.’”

            “Ok,” I say. “Shoot. I mean, ‘yes ma’m.”

            As I jog downstairs, Susan calls after me: “Peach pie is 86’ed on the white board, so I don’t know why you sent that ticket.”  People can wait for split checks and eat with spoons instead of forks. If I fall down the stairs and crack my head open now, I won’t have to tell the pie-hungry man that there’s actually no more peach pie, and I’m sorry.

              I need to pee and cry at the same time.

            Welcome to The Country Breakfast.

                                                *                    *               *

            The Kids’ Mickey breakfast needs whipped cream, and sometimes we run out of whipped cream. We run out because we’re not Santa’s little elves making whipped cream back-ups through the night for the many pancake–eating children of the world.

            In the kitchen, Carol’s struggling to get something other than a drizzle of white liquid to come from the nozzle of the whipped–cream canister. Carol’s on “Expo” this morning, which means she keeps the cooks from screwing up (impossible), garnishes the food, and gets yelled at when caught eating a grape from the fruit bucket. She’s the one “expediting” the food delivery process, which is more of an ordeal than a process. No server likes being on Expo. Here’s an example why:

            Server to Expo: “I asked for eggs over-medium!”

            Expo to Cook: “She asked for eggs over-medium!”

            Cook to Expo: “The ticket says over-easy!”
            Expo to Server:  “Your ticket says over-easy.”

            Server to Expo: “But I meant over-medium.”

            Today, Bill –– the General Manager–– hovers over Carol.  “We’ve got hot food on the line getting cold! You’re not moving fast enough. Move faster!”

            “But there’s no whipped cream left!”

            Bill opens the mini expo fridge. Somebody seemed to think it was a good idea to place the fridge so low we have to get on our hands and knees to see inside. “No back-ups? Are you fucking kidding me?”  He rises and sprinkles powdered sugar over the Mickey Mouse shaped pancake.

            “Oh for the love of God,” Carol says as Bill hustles back into the dining room.

Carol often brings God into her commentary. I don’t think she’s religious, but I’m not sure because I know nothing about my co-workers’ personal lives. I don’t know how they’d order their eggs and meat, if they have children, or what they’re saving up to buy. Actually, I do know that another server Kate is working fifty hours a week to save money to buy a car so she can drive to work. By the way, if my life ever looks like it’s becoming so lame that I’m working hard to buy a car to drive to work, please let me know. Also, please tell me if I have something like Kale in my teeth, because once I waited on a table like this.

            In the dining room, guests eat hearty breakfasts while talking about business and baby showers. In the background cycle the same ten Christmas songs, which complete an orbit in the time it takes an average party to come and go. Working for nine hours, on the other hand, you get to hear songs like “you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I’m telling you why” at least six times. And it makes you want to cry and pout, but you better watch out that you only do such things in the bathroom. Otherwise people will think you can’t take the heat.

*             *          *

            “Everybody listen up! I’ve got a solution,” Susan says. Sunday morning before show-time (brunch), and we’re standing in the kitchen at attention like it’s the Military. This is serious shit. No joking.  She continues: “I had a dream about it, and I’ve decided that instead of making whipped–cream in half-gallon jugs, we’re gonna make them in gallon jugs so we’ve got more ready to pour into canisters for back–ups!”

            You’d think she’d discovered the cure for cancer. She’s smiling and holding up a milk–jug full of cream for all to admire. So we do that thing third graders do when a kid throws a spitball at the teacher’s back. We try not to look at each other, because if we look at each other we’ll laugh. And if we laugh, we’re in trouble.

           

*           *           *

            “Everybody listen up!” Susan again. This time, it’s a dinner shift. The “pasta of the night” is Bacon Fettuccini with a mushroom cream sauce. And it’s a scam, because the “pasta of the night” only changes about once a month. It’s the only pasta on the menu, and it’s so boring that calling it the “pasta of the night” is the only way to make it sound special. But God forbid you call it special.

            “I’ve been hearing people calling our ‘pasta of the night’ the ‘pasta special,’” Susan starts. “It’s not the ‘pasta special.’ It’s the ‘pasta of the night.’ And if I hear any of you calling it the ‘pasta special,’ I’m gonna send you home and suspend you for your next shift.”

            I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I laugh. Wouldn’t you?

            “Do you have something you want to share with the group?”

            “Well,” I say, “The pasta has been Bacon Fettuccini since October. It’s neither the pasta of the night nor is it special.”

            “Are you saying Alejandro isn’t a good cook?”
            Carol opens her Altoids tin and offers me one so I’ve got something to do with my mouth other than talk.

*        *         *

            One of the hardest parts of working in the food service industry is no breaks. You can eat a snack in the bathroom I guess. I’m not really sure if anyone other than me does this because most people don’t talk about what they do in the bathroom. Once, in the bathroom at work, I ate an entire huevos rancheros, which doesn’t seem right in hindsight. It took me four minutes. I might as well have stayed in the bathroom after finishing because I came back ten minutes later to throw up from having eaten too fast. 

            Anyways, when all you’ve eaten for eight hours is one cookie in the bathroom, you get resentful. And this leads to why I said I don’t feel sorry for mentioning Susan’s knee rolls. Picture this: you’re an athlete. You run about six miles a day, do yoga, and climb. You need fuel. You also describe the garden burger to guests, smell their food while delivering it, and describe decadent cakes and pies. You get so hungry you catch yourself sneaking leftover fries from plates you’ve cleared. And at this point, the only difference between you and an alley rat is that you know this is no way to live.

            And just when you feel like your head is gonna detach from your body and float towards the heavens like a runaway balloon, your very overweight manager announces she’s starving and plunks herself down at the bar.

            “I’m starving,” Susan says. “I’ve gotta take a break. What am I gonna order?”
            And she sits with the confidence of a brooding chicken who’s not gonna budge or share until she’s good and ready. Once, before delivering her cheese steak, I dump half her fries into the trash when no one is looking. I tell myself I’m doing her a favor because she has knee rolls. Really though, it just pisses me off that she gets to feast when we get threatened with “termination” for sneaking grapes. And it pisses me off how, while I make her fancy vanilla latté with my back turned to her, she says with her mouth full: “You need to get a black belt. It’s part of the uniform. I’ve told you fifteen times already. If you come without a belt again, I’ll send you home.”

            “Please,” I want to say, “Don’t wait. Send me home now.” But I need to find a new job before I can quit of course. So instead, I say, “Yes ma’m. Here’s your latté.” I make it with decaf espresso because she’s a panic button and an extra hazard to our mental –– even physical –– wellbeing when super caffeinated. Once, after four shots of espresso, she saw me pour too much powdered sugar into a canister for a whipped cream backup. She’d lunged at me, pulled the canister from my grip, and flung my hand to the side. Another time on espresso, she’d yelled across the restaurant at a busser yelling to another hostess. “Stop yelling!” she’d yelled.  Guests turned their heads.

            Today, when she comments on my belt while I make her latté, I dare tell her that her harassment of me is making the Country Breakfast a hostile work environment.

            “I could fire you for saying that,” she says.   

            This is what I want to say in response: “You’re a glutton who eats away at our spirits and who’s so unhappy with her knee rolls that she delights in making everybody who doesn’t have knee rolls miserable. ”

            Instead, I say, “Here’s your latté. No whipped cream. We’re out.” 

*      *        *

            I know what one of my co-workers does in the bathroom: cocaine. I’ve watched him pull a small canister from his backpack, enter the bathroom, and emerge sniffling ––nose and eyes red. Tim’s bouts of sniffling coincide with his sling shotting stories about his dog and ex-wife around the kitchen. One of his other favorite activities during these bouts is accusing me of not making lemonade back-ups. Making lemonade is part of my side work, and Tim gets a rush out of policing servers about their side work. He’ll call his co-workers late at night to tell them things like, “you didn’t restock the to go cups before you left today.” It’s sad.

            I always make lemonade back-ups. And Tim always makes more because he’s on cocaine. So the restaurant has more lemonade than it can handle, and it doesn’t go as fast as whipped cream. Once, he loses it:

            “You fucking bitch! You didn’t fucking make lemonade yesterday!”

            “I did.”

            “You think everybody’s gonna do your work for you? What’s wrong with you?”

            I’m shaking.

            “Shake it off sweet pea,” Carol says. Thank goodness for Carol. And for Kate, who’d hugged me twice. And for Marianne who teaches me things like it’s okay not to answer questions you don’t want to. 

*   *    *

            I haven’t shared much about the General Manager Bill because he’s almost never around. Sometimes he’ll disappear for hours. I thought he’d left for good the time he walked through the kitchen saying, “I hate this job. I’m quitting.” Went straight out the backdoor where we stash the “recycling” that doesn’t actually get recycled.

            Bill’s expression of hatred for his job becomes ironic on my last day at The Country Breakfast, when I come to work and see my name crossed off on the schedule for all my shifts. He summons me to his office.

            “A guest told me she heard you telling another employee that you hated The Country Breakfast. And the policy is that speaking negatively about The Country Breakfast is grounds for termination.”

            I close my eyes and see myself unemployed and spending everyday in a coffee shop to which I bring my own teabag because I can’t afford to buy a drink. Sifting through the scams on craiglists in search of a job that doesn’t involve something like posing nude for an old man painter in the woods.  Like a yoga teacher taught me to do, I draw upon my breath slow and deep as if drawing water from a well. Exhaling, I remind myself to be the lotus that grows pure and radiant even in the mud.  “It’s true,” I say, “I do hate The Country Breakfast.”

            “Then you shouldn’t work here anyway,” he says. 

            “I’ve been treated unjustly here,” I say and proceed to recount every incident of intimidation and harassment by Susan and Tim. I finish with: “And those are some of the reasons why I hate it here. This incident of unlawful termination included.”

            “You never formally reported your interactions with Susan and Tim,” he says.

            “I would have,” I say, “But Susan warned me that claiming she harasses me is grounds for termination. And I needed to find another job before leaving here on whatever terms.”

            “Take some responsibility for not standing up for yourself,” he says.

            I’m no longer a lotus nor am I somber. I cross my arms. “Well let me tell you this: I will not go gently into this good night. That’s a line from a poem by Robert Browning. In other words, what I’ve told anybody about The Country Breakfast up until this point will pale in comparison to what I’m going to report to the Department of Labor. And to what I’m going to write.”

            I rise. “Excuse me, but I’m hungry.”