Thursday, November 4, 2010

It's Not You, It's Us

: This is a very difficult decision for us, but we think it's time for you to move on.

Me: What? Why me?

: You have a bad attitude. And you're arrogant.

Me: Wait, is this because of the blog?

: What blog?

Me: Nothing.

: Lots of people complain about you.

Me: Customers? But they're always coming up to you and saying what a great server I was. The other night, a little girl and her parents waited for me to finish at another table so they could say thanks.

: No, not customers.

Me: Who then? My coworkers? We get along great.

: Just people. You've been awful for about a year. I keep thinking it's because of the wedding, but now that's over and you still suck.

Me: Is this because I don't go out drinking with you guys after work? Look, I get tired and want to go home. It doesn't mean I don't get along with you all. What about the lake? All summer by the pool? Was I "awful" then?

: Maybe we just don't get you. Maybe we're just not the right group of people for you.

Me: Is it because I never 1)screamed at you in a parking lot in full view of customers? 2)insulted your taste in wine to the owners? 3)gave my husband free drinks at the bar? 4)got drunk on the job? 5)no-showed? 6)threatened, while drunk, our female sous chef with violence...twice? 7)stood in the middle of our crowded bar area and loudly, grumpily declared brunch a chaotic mess that I would never work again?* (see editor's note)

: ...

Me: Look, I'm no stranger to criticizing myself, often to a deluded and scary point. But let's get real here: All my friends, new and old, all the acquaintances I make daily who seem to like me just fine, all the colleagues and associates I work with...none of these people have had the acute intuition and ability to judge character that you guys have? Which is why no one has delivered such a strangely impassioned personal attack on me since I was in the sixth grade?

***RE-ENACTMENT**


: I guess so.

Me: And this has nothing to do with my other job as a restaurant critic? You said "a year," and that's about when I started writing for them full time. Do you think I'm a defector or something?

: Nope.


And just then, the dark lord Cthulu swept down and annihilated the restaurant, the increasingly boring wine list, the fragile egos and hypocrisies, and made me his queen. And because it's my fucking fantasy and I can do what I want, he let my husband and dog come, too. And we all live in Denmark and get free health care and no one minds a smart president.


THE END


*: True story! All things other servers did and did not get fired for...except for the threatening the chef, but that had to happen twice before any action was taken.