There’s a girl named Emily at our work. My friend Marybeth works with her quite often. This girl, Emily, will quite literally talk about herself all day long.

For instance, after hours of working, she walked up to Marybeth and said “I really don’t know my hair stays so silky smooth all. day. long.” This is while stroking her black head of hair like a horse’s mane or something. Marybeth, on the other hand, is red in the face from (get this) running around and earning her money.

All the guys in the house: Who would you rather date? Really? I rest my case, Emily.

And that’s not the half of it. This is the same girl that asked me THE DAY I CAME INTO TOWN FROM SIX WEEKS ON THE ROAD PLAYING DRUMS IF I WOULD PICK UP HER SHIFT THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON. This is the same girl that will literally get pissed at you when you won’t give her your Friday night shift. This is the same girl that, when given a shift out of the goodness of someone’s (i.e. mine) heart will try and get out of work a few hours early because she’s bored.

Oh, is all that hair not exciting enough?

I’ve been a server for a little over a year now. Sadly, my last day wasn’t much different from the other couple of hundred I’ve worked.

Except for the fact that I started taking a shot every twenty minutes starting on my first table at 4:34pm, mind you (thanks Jessica L. from California). Oh, and thanks Marybeth for driving me to and from work in the event that I blacked out on my last day and needed a ride home.

Because of the alcohol in my system, around 6pm (six shots in) I feigned gay at my fifth table (thank you, FulMinty…I also tried your “jazz hands” and “spirit fingers” suggestions).

It was right around this time that my boss April saw what I was doing with the vodka and used phrases like “oh, hell no” and “put that back in your fucking car”. What are you gonna do, fire me, April?

Before my buzz wore off, (thanks to Katrina Troy) I sad the word “meow” a good forty-nine times at a table before I gave them their check. (Number fifty was “Have a great night meow.”)

After that, things got a little busy and my head started to hurt. A lot. I suppose that’s what happens after a dozen shots over the course of three or so hours. A big thanks goes out to an unnamed co-worker who got me shots to keep me a little buzzed and stave off the headache until I was off work.

From there on out, I stopped taking shots and started just taking in the whole night. This was gonna be my last night at the only job I’ve ever looked forward to going to some nights. For the most part there are some very decent people that work there and I have incredibly fond memories of that place.

These are the people that have Volleyball Mondays on the beach. These are the managers that will understand when you’re not “feeling well” on a Sunday morning. They are also the managers that will understand if you’re truly sick, get over-stressed on finals week or have an unexpected date with a girl you’ve been fawning over for months and just now worked up the courage to ask out and she unexpectedly said yes.

These are also the people that will hold special places in my heart. Each and every one of them. I could write stories for days about each of them and every single one would be a riot.

Maybe I’ll write a book some day. Hopefully it’ll be better than this garbage.

See y’all in a month. I’ve got plenty of stories on the backburner. And with more time to write them, they’ll be better than ever.

If you’re ever in St. Augustine, Florida, drop me an email and I’ll take you for sushi. It’s the place between Hooters and Johnny Carinos on 312.

P.S. While I’m in North Carolina with my band, you’re more than welcome to share your stories and experiences in the restaurant industry on my Myspace or Facebook.

Have a nice rest of the night. Meow.

Our head cook, an immigrant from Mexico named Jorge (pronounced “whore-hey”), is a good man in many senses of the word. He works six days a week to send money back to his family in Mexico. He could work four days and keep it all for himself and live comfortably, he says, but that’s not how he was raised. Some call it “the struggle”. I guess there’s no better way to describe it.

Because he relies on the money so much and taking care of his family back in Mexico is so important to him, he doesn’t have the time to take a few days and visit them every once in a while. He said it’s been two years since he saw his family. From the way he carries himself, you’d think it was less. When you hear him speak of them, you’d think it was more.

Since I started working there over a year ago, he and I would talk about his family back there, especially his girlfriend. Whenever he’d speak her name, his eyes would light up and for just a few moments, he was back on the Mexican beach with his lady of four years by his side.

I was one of two guys at the restaurant to have a long-term girlfriend (”long-term” being a year or so). All the other guys either had a new girlfriend every six months or just enjoyed being single. He and I would trade stories about our respective ladies. He’d tell me how she was “a wonderful dancer” and “beautiful to the touch”. He’d ask me how my “nuvia” (Spanish for girlfriend, thank you Rachel) was doing and my eyes would light up just as his did when he talked of his lady. I suppose that’s how we related so well. He truly loved that woman in Mexico and I truly loved mine and we got along wonderfully through that common bond.

It’s funny how things like, emotions so basic as love, can translate so effectively over different cultures, languages and backgrounds. I can speak very little Spanish and he could only speak a little more English. But there’s no boundaries when speaking of love and ladies. He would call her his “mamasita”.

She was perfect to him and so was mine. I guess things like that are universal.

Yesterday, I walked in and wasn’t greeted by his daily greeting of “Que pasa, mi amigo?”. I knew something was up. He informed me that he and his girlfriend back in Mexico had broken up.

He looked the same if you didn’t know him, but that light in his eyes was gone. I began to think if I could do what he did. He had gone years without seeing her. He told me he talked on the phone with her a few times a week and that that was enough.

Was I strong enough to love someone so deeply that miles of desert and stretches of mountains couldn’t shake my heart? Maybe I could, maybe I couldn’t. I’ve had feelings for girls miles and miles away. And yes, I have had to do the long-distance thing before. But only for a few months. And even then I wasn’t strong enough to not drive the five or six hours to see her at least once every two weeks.

She was his sun and moon and without her he was cast in shadow. I asked him if he was alright and he hesitated for just a moment before smiling a half-smile and pointing to his head and saying “Up here, meh.” He then pointed to his heart and said “Malo. Muy muy malo.”

“Bad. Very very bad.” I feel you, brother.

We are a small restaurant (when compared to giants such as Applebee’s, Chili’s and Outback). Our maximum occupancy is somewhere just above 100. (Go and count how many people are at Red Lobster next time you’re there.)

That said, we remember a lot of faces. It’s easy when you only see 150 of them any given night. And regulars are even easier to remember. We have a limited menu and they usually order the same thing. It’s hell remembering John Smith for his name but if you ask me how many helpings of shrimp sauce that dude wants, I won’t even blink before I tell you “three”.

My co-worker, Sami, had a gentleman (and I use that term loosely) sitting all alone at one of our hibachi tables. He had applied to be a chef six months prior but had been rejected for two reasons:

1. He couldn’t cook to save his life.
2. He couldn’t do knife tricks to save his life.

He thought is was because:

1. He was black.

We’ve got three chefs: one guy from Ohio, one from Florida and a guy from Indonesia. I don’t think race had much to do with it.

Anyway, he came in with a chip on his shoulder and proceeded to order some of the most expensive stuff on the menu. When he was done, he ordered not one but two desserts. As Sami went into the back to prepare his desserts, he walked out of the restaurant without saying a word to anyone.

Let’s back up a minute. We have this dude’s current address on file, social security number, phone number and whatever it is interviewers collect from applicants.

Not only that, but he works as a cook at the restaurant right across the street.

So the next day, we call the police, tell them he skipped out on a sixty dollar bill and we get a check from him that week.

Of course there was no tip.