If you ever find that you need a huge dose of reality (perhaps you have been living in a happy stupor or happen to think that the world is a pretty decent place) and want to see all of your illusions crumble in mere seconds, then I have just the thing. Wait tables on Mother’s Day.

Waiting tables on Mother’s Day can cure a variety of maladies. Love your fellow man? Ha! Wait tables on Mother’s Day! Want to spend your life helping the less fortunate? Wait tables on Mother’s Day and you’ll be ready to hang the less fortunate with their linen napkins! Think people are generally pretty decent? Wait tables on Mother’s Day and you’ll want them all to burn in a hell of your very specific and detailed creation!

My favorite moment from the glory that is Mother’s Day? Well gee, that would have to be the party of fifteen who squatted in my entire section, some playing spades, others undoubtedly plotting ways to make my life hell every time I walked away from the table on yet another trip to get one of their rude and demanding children another side of ranch dressing or Shirley Temple refill, who told me (oh, I just LOVE this) that I “had a lot of nerve” adding the gratuity (a measly 18% is all I could add, by the by) to their separate checks.

Editor’s Note: When you go out to eat with fourteen of your closest friends for Mother’s Day and really require separate checks, then sit by the people that you are paying for. Otherwise, get one check and deal with it. Don’t point to four people all sitting at various tables that you want on your check and expect that, after your demon spawn have changed seats a dozen times, I will know who the heck you are paying for, dumb ass. Also, it’s Mother’s Day, ok? The busiest day of the year for the restaurant business. If you wait until your food comes out and decide that you don’t want the entrée that you ordered and would prefer the same thing that your Aunt Matilda ordered, don’t complain that your entrée doesn’t come until Aunt Matilda and Uncle Silas are already done eating. Fuckwit.

Anyway, the people that told me that I “had a lot of nerve” also went on to tell me that it was rude to expect more than the $15 dollars that they believed I deserved on their $300 check, explained how a tip was not required but was a courtesy, etc. I don’t believe that anyone can really understand the fortitude it required for me to keep my mouth shut. By the end of the night I was commended for my patience. I don’t believe that anyone realized how close I was to snapping.

Holiday diners are the worst. There is usually at least one casualty by the end of the night, and sure enough a server walked out yesterday. “Special occasion diners” are the ones willing to wait three hours to eat on days like Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day, complain about everything, treat their servers like crap, and leave five percent tips. By the time I tip out the bartenders, food runners, and bussers (we usually have more than one of each to tip as the volume of business is so high that we really need the extra staff), all of who get a percentage of our sales no matter how shitty the tips were, I’m usually lucky if I clear $50 for one hellish nine hour shift. Last night my sales were $800. I walked with $60.

Saturday night, if you can believe it, was just as shitty. I was a busser and felt like I’d been thrown in burlap and beaten for hours with telephone books by the time the night was over.

Friday night A and I went to see My Chemical Romance and Green Day. I’m too embittered by work to even get into details. We had fun. That’s the best I can do.

Last week I was feeling altruistic and volunteered to drive to the ghetto to teach one of those Junior Achievement classes. Wednesday I’m supposed to be lecturing children about world economics and personal finance. I must now try to weasel out of it as I’m not sure I’ll be able to get through the class without explaining how to calculate a 20% tip when you go out and that nobody on the planet needs six containers of ranch dressing for their salad. I guess I’ll see how I feel at lunchtime.