mainsqueeze's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- senior tuesdays My least favorite day of the week is Tuesday. Why, you ask? Tuesdays are "Senior Discount" days at my restaurant- All of the oxygen-masked, wheel-chaired, cane-using gamblers limp away from the nickel slots and keno machines toward the cafe for that twenty-percent discount (and friends, if you don't give it to them, you've got hell to pay.) My job, as a hostess, is to get these folks to their tables, or, if there are no tables available, to take their names down, give them an approximate wait length, et cetera. So I stand behind my faux-cherry podium, pen poised over paper, wearing a (hopefully authentic looking) grin, and I greet them. And, O, do they come in droves. Most of them, I think, have reached that point in their lives where they really don't care if they look all right or smell okay- Last week, after noticing several exceptionally aromatic customers, I turned to Linda, the other hostess, and asked, "Is it just me, or does everybody-" and she finished, "Smell like shit today? It isn't you." Summertime in Las Vegas plus bathing apathy. You do the math. They aren't all that bad, of course. Mr.D, a sweet old guy with Cerebral Palsy, is one of the nicest people I've ever met. When I push his wheelchair to his table, I always ask if he's ready, and he always responds, in a somewhat hard to understand voice, "I was born ready." For every nice customer, though, you've got a whole handful of mean ones standing at the ready to rip you a new asshole should you make any mistakes whatsoever. Mrs.L, for example, requests the same server (one who can barely stand her, by the way) every time, regardless of how long the waiting list is. If she has to wait for any amount of time over ten minutes, she will stand several feet away from the table she wants and glare at the people seated at it until I politely ask her to go back out to the waiting area. And the mailers, O God, the mailers! Marketing sends out batches of 2for1 coupons every month or so, and the wording on those coupons has caused me endless grief. They say, "Recieve one free meal with the purchase of one of equal or greater value." The majority of our customers are very, very old, with thick bifocals or cataracts or other age-related vision impairments, and they only see the "equal or greater value" portion. They'll order a $15 porterhouse steak and a $3 burger, and they become IRATE when I remove the $3 item versus the $16 item. I'm talking truly P.O'ed, flying spittle and cursing and cane-waving mad. I worry, sometimes, that they're going to give themselves heart attacks or seizures. Actually, I don't worry that much- I just hope it doesn't happen in front of the register and hold up the line. 9:38 p.m. - 2003-08-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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