The Verbal Tip

I have an embarrassing admission: I really like waiting tables. I have the feeling that when the time comes, a year from now to give it up and start teaching full time, I’m really going to miss it. Waiting tables gives me the rush I used to get selling cars, without so much time commitment. I get to sell, talk to people, make them laugh on a good night and hopefully send them out the door grinning ear to ear in less than two hours.

And just like selling cars, my income is dependent on how well I do my job. If I sell a more expensive bottle of wine, appetizers, salads and entrees; force feed them dessert and convince them that no Italian meal is complete without grappa, I make a larger tip. In theory that is. Some nights, it’s just not the case.

It’s the nightmare of any server. The table is happy, they’re laughing, telling you how great you are. It might be a little more work than you really want; it’s not always easy to keep the charm on when I’ve been up and down a flight of stairs for the thirtieth time. Underneath the vest and bowtie, I’m probably a sweaty mess, and hungry. So hungry. The smile sticks though, and soon we’re sharing stories about college or kids or whatever their hearts desire. I may tell them I’m a student, or a teacher, sometimes I tell them both. I offer a white lie here and there to join in conversation; mention non existent boyfriends, cats I don’t actually own anymore, and dating horror stories. Mostly those are true.

I sang the “Miss Suzy had a steamboat…” rhyme to David Schwimmers assistant one night; she was desperate to remember it and I just couldn’t resist. Explained why “Paranormal Activity” was terrible for the first hour and then great for the last half hour to Wonder Woman and a Congressman, after she said “Ask Liz, she’ll probably know and have a good story about it too!” I did.

It’s all worthwhile, usually. I see my effort reflected in the wad of cash in my pocket at the end of the night. But then, there’s always that one table that thinks somehow the good time THEY gave ME is enough, and drop ten percent on their bill. They do it with a smile, saying sweetly “We’ll be back and we’ll ask for you!” I return the smile, tell them I appreciate it and look forward to seeing them again.

Then I open that folder, and see what they have done.

They left me a verbal tip.

I want to follow them down the street, tap them on the shoulder and tell them that their good time does not in fact pay my bills. I can’t pay rent on my charm; my leasing company is pretty intent on actual money. My car doesn’t run on giggles, and all the compliments in the world will not keep me warm in the winter.

I can’t do that (and keep my job), so I do the next best thing. I slink over to the computers where there are always at least one or two co-workers who will sympathize with me. It’s happened to all of us at one time or another. I open that folder, and place it in front of them.

“Ouch, that really sucks.”

“Damn Verbal Tips. They better not ask for me next time they come in.”

Not a poet.

“It’s nice that you got in, Liz, but it’s just a small local contest. Not that big of a deal. And besides, you’re not really a poet.”

Not really a poet. That’s what the “real poet” I knew told me the day I got accepted to a local poetry contest. I was overwhelmed with excitement, I told everyone I knew. I had finally worked up the courage to submit a poem, and it had won an award. I was going to read it in front of people.

Gulp.

I was going to read it in front of people.

I had written more poems than I could count, starting in ninth grade when I hadn’t completed an assignment. We were supposed to write a two page reaction to the film “Schindlers List”, which we had gone to the theater to see a few days before. All I could manage were random words, bits and pieces of sentences, images that wouldn’t leave my head. I was distraught over the film, somewhat embarrassed that I began crying within the first half hour and didn’t stop until we left the theater. I sat in fifth hour Algebra while Mr. Dorking (yes, his real name) urged us to solve for x and tried to organize the words and phrases I had written on my paper. I found a poem in there, not that I knew what a poem what since poetry was never a part of English instruction, but I liked the way it sounded in my head, the way it looked on the page. Mostly I liked that I’d at least have something to hand in sixth hour. The poem came back to me two days later, with a note from the teacher: “Liz, this was not the assignment you were given, but it is a wonderful poem. Keep up the good work.” I had fooled her. My poem was fifteen lines. I got an A for writing fifteen lines when everyone else had to write two pages.

I loved poetry.

I kept writing, through college in fact. Took poetry workshops where undergrads dressed in black held their noses as they waded through my poems. I wasn’t “dark” enough for them; they said my poetry lacked depth.

I agreed.

And kept writing.

Which brought me to that local contest.

I was about to share a poem with people I didn’t know.

Never having felt shy before, I didn’t know what to do with the emotion when it hit me that day.

Leaning over to my Mom I whispered in her ear, “Please don’t be mad at me. It’s just a poem.”

I swallowed hard, breathed through my nose and didn’t trip as I walked onto the stage.

I’ve written dozens of poems since then. I participated in a workshop with poets that I now call friends and yet still intimidate me with their talent.

That night I became a poet.

It happened because of this poem:

Absolut Holiness

She stopped believing

in wine as her savior

instead

she turned to Vodka.

Depending on her

consistently fluxuating bank account

its flavor wavered

from smooth lemon twist of Citron

straight from the freezer

to the gallon of Five O’clock

stashed in the trunk of her ’87 Golf.

Vodka was a prayer

for moral sanctuary

emotional exile

physical release.

With each drink

her mother’s voice echoed

“Are you going to Mass this week?”

And her reply

“Only if that chalice is filled with

Absolut Holiness

instead of table wine.”

I’ll never be famous for my poetry.

There may always be people that tell me I’m not a poet.

I might even agree with them.

I’ll just keep writing

At least I can still see my feet.

Most people I know, if they make resolutions, do so on New Years Eve. They promise to change something, do something or be something other than what they are at that moment. Maybe they think something magical will happen as that clock strikes midnight and they receive the first kiss of the New Year. I sometimes think that way too, and I’ve been known to jump on the magical bus here and there. I certainly did this year.

But that magic wears off. Sometimes it only takes a week.

Sometimes it takes six.

Inevitably though they seem to fade.

The promises I made on Freemont Street or those I professed under the fireworks don’t seem to stand the test of time.

I prefer to use my birthday as a time for change.

I turned thirty-one today.

As I do every year, I looked backwards.

Five years. Skip that. Nothing good happened that year.

Ten years.

Ten years ago I thought I had the whole world figured out. I was twenty-one. Just one year left in obtaining my bachelors degree in unemployment, only three months from getting married.

I had a five year plan. I had a ten year plan.

None of it came true. It was a good plan. But life got in the way.

In one way I’m in exactly the same place.

A year from finishing school. However nowhere near being married. In fact I wonder if that’s something I’ll ever be willing to do again.

And a plan?

Nothing like it.

Instead I see my next year as nothing but transitions.

My life is one of those pictures they used to sell at the mall. The ones that you were supposed to stare at, but not at one fixed point, until an image appeared in the indistinguishable pattern. The sales people would tell us to look at our reflections in the glass, not at the pattern.

My friends could see them.

They would stand there, exclaim “It’s a dolphin!” or “I can see three clowns with pointy teeth waiting to eat you!”

All I ever got from them was a massive migraine.

Same thing happens now when I look past April 2011.

Massive Migraine.

Only now, there’s no one standing next to me telling me what that picture really shows.

Someone should say “It’s Austin!” or “Look, I can see Madison in your future”.

I think I’ll just stop looking and stare at my feet like I did back then.

No headache and they always seemed to know where to take me next.