I’m not sure how I came to that conclusion as a little girl when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up that the logical answer was “a cocktail waitress at Caesar’s Casino in Vegas.” Now, at thirty-two, I’d just received my uniform for the hotel cocktail waitress position I once thought would be elegant and glamorous.
As an adult, I’d been in marketing positions with various corporate companies since I was out of high school. After being chained to a desk and departing on airplanes to arrive and pitch an idea (be it what it may) I had no desire to become a cocktail waitress. Until of course, I moved to Kansas City and my delusions of corporate America were destroyed after being assaulted by my former employer. I had no desire to jet set anymore. Serving alcohol to the occasional convention attendee or business man killing laptop time increments was fine with me.
Lana had been with the hotel for over 20 years. I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t have a gold watch. She’d been in the service industry for over 25 years and even had the pleasure of being a pit waitress in some Vegas casinos for two to three years while she tried to ditch her husband, but much to her disagreement, he had shown up on her doorstep. Lana was old school at the young age of forty-two. She was still pretty but you could tell she’d played a hard game her entire life.
She once told me she knew she’d be an alcoholic at the age of seven because her dad was into softball. He’d always bring a cooler of beer and she and her brothers and sisters would get a can of beer to share. She knew that her brother wasn’t going to be an alcoholic because when the can was passed to him, he’d take a light sip and never went for seconds but she and her sister Rena would grab at the can as much as they could.
“I don’t wanna train you too much, but I’ll teach you what you need to know. If you stick around, I’ll even learn your name new girl.” She told me.
She taught me important things like “SBVRGT”. Slow bartenders very rarely get tipped.” Meaning that one orders their drinks to a bartender in the order they should be made. A practice that only true old school bartenders and servers know and has been long lost. Scotch, bourbon, vodka, rum, gin, tequila.”
Lana knew the psychology of drinkers when it came to tipping. She suggested that I always carry a wrinkled, ripped up dollar with me to work among my change because people hated to take a decrepit dollar bill, more than likely, I’d end up with that dollar bill as long as she’d had the one she showed me.
“This dollar has lasted me about fifteen years.” She said. “Another trick, if you have to give back some decent change, don’t fuck yourself, if there’s a five and some 1’s turn the ones the opposite direction so that they are visually different than the five. This makes those idiots feel guilt and generally if you have eight bucks in change, they’ll leave you three and take the five, but you gotta leave the five up and the threes down…got it?” She was right, most of the time, it worked.
“When you’re a cocktail waitress, your section is your green. It doesn’t do you any good when someone goes to the bar and then sits in your section because you’re the lucky one with the big TV they want to watch. And I’m tellin’ you nine times out of ten, Kid, when they see some other table with pretzels they’ll flag you down and ask you for a bowl. That’s when I say, where’d you get your drink?” Then she imitates the stupid customer who always sounds like a hick. “At the bar.” She makes her growl look and continues, “So I tells ‘em, then go to the bar and get your pretzels.”
She asks me all important questions like, “Are you a Coke or Pepsi drinker?” I tell her the only right answer. “Coke.”
“Good. There are only two places to get a coke around here, inside the restaurant and upstairs in the lunch box cafeteria. The coke in the bar is flat because lazy ass here,” she points to the female bartender, “doesn’t put ice on her plate.” I don’t know what that means, but I appreciate a carbonated coke and miss the days of coca-cola in a glass bottle, it was its best then. I tell her this and she agrees.
I try to impress her with my latest coca-cola knowledge. “You know, I was at a bar the other night, and someone had a coke n wine. It has a special name but I can’t remember.”
Lana doesn’t miss a beat in the choreography of life and drinking. “Yeah, you know if that was any good, I would have thought of it by now.” She’s right too, she probably would have and it would be named after her.
Lana does crossword puzzles to kill time. She’ll pause every now and then and hand it over to the bartender to finish up the loose ends, but all in all she’s pretty efficient.
“Come over here.” I follow her to the entrance of the bar. “Stand here.” I stand there. A huge gust of wind seems to suck me into the bar. She says, “Feel that? That’s the vortex that sucks out people’s brains whenever they come in.” She walks away and I get a fit of giggles. She is so quick with most of what she replies and says in the first place, that I imagine most people have a hard time keeping up with her and/or taking her seriously.
It turns out my first week is when the Walmart convention takes place. All the managers across the country come and stay at the Marriott. “…And it’s a real bitch because they insist that they have their alcohol on one bill and their food on another for their expense reports, and then they don’t tip ya for both.” Lana says in between fixing drinks she carries from the bar pass to her tray. At that point she says, “you didn’t see this.” She licks a swizzle stick and drops it on the floor, she picks it up and drops it into a bourbon and coke. “It’s the little things that make ya smile after a while, Kid.” I can’t imagine I’d ever do that to someone’s drink. She sees through my mind and on her way out of the waitress station she says, “You think you’d never do it, but just you wait, Kid.”
In between turret sessions under her breath with Walmart in between every fuck, mother and shit she tells me more interesting points to the service industry. She sets up trays with various glasses with different increments of water and has me teeter around to get the hang of carrying a tray to a table. In her infinite wisdom she tells me, “…and if you’re going to spill, spill it on them. You’d think it would be better to spill it on yourself but you’re tip ain’t gonna be any better for staining your uniform, so just spill it on the jerk who probably grabbed a drink off yer tray and ruined your carrying balance in the first place because Joe Schmoe thought he was helpful.” If Lana was the type to snort, this would be the point in which she did, but it’s more like a scoffing sound of “yeah right.”
It is very soon into my employment that I learn that I absolutely hate serving water to a customer. Why it matters I don’t know. In fact, I waitress at a Chinese restaurant in the day time where I constantly rush to ensure the glass is full, but here, at the bar, it drives me nuts when someone says “I’ll just have a water for now.”
Lana rationalizes this with me, thank God. “Water ain’t gonna get you any tips. And usually, it means they’re gonna order food, which means you gotta truck a mile over to the kitchen and pick up a hamburger and an $8 bill isn’t gonna get you much either. The worst part about that too, is they’ll want pretzels too, so you might as well get use to it and give them free bread and water.” I carry a tray full of waters to a table.
When someone else asks me for water, she fills me in on another important tidbit by grabbing the glass out of my hand and adding more ice, “Fill the glasses to the brim with ice, that way when those fuckers don’t drink it, the ice melts and gets all over the tables ruining the sleeves of their blouses or blazers.”
She reminds me to place the napkin down with the bar’s logo facing the customer. A napkin alerts the other servers to stay away and the logo bit is cooked up by management, somehow it’s suppose to help marketing. My fourth night, the bartender is the night time manager because the other one of the three other bartenders has called in sick. Michael and Lana are good friends and around ten o’clock she tells him to serve us sangria.
“You never did this, you never saw this, this would get you fired in a heart beat. Okay Kid?” I nod fervently and think I’ve found a dream job. We drink sangria and there’s only one customer in the bar who has the hots for me and announces whenever anyone else walks in so that we can serve them, but otherwise, it’s just the four of us and we start buying him Miller Lites for his services and continue to hide our drinks on the dish washing tray or under our coats or under the glassware in a dark corner. I listen to nightmare stories that are really funny.
Like the time Michael was a banquet server for a Father Daughter Dance. “I kept thinking I wish someone would just die so I could go home.” He flicks his wrist around, “and wouldn’t you know it, one of the dad’s dropped to the floor of cardiac arrest.”
Lana dryly adds, “Well, at least you got to go home early, I’m there Saturday and what are the chances of history repeating itself?” We laugh, drink some more.
By the fifth night, a dance contest is being hosted at the convention and the bar fills with mother’s and their Jon Benet look alike daughters. I am serving the ghosts Shirley Temples and White Zinfandels to the mothers as rigorously as I can.
One mother snaps at Lana, “What do you mean you don’t have chocolate milk, you’re going to make my daughter cry!” Lana snaps back, “Lady, you brought your daughter to a bar.” The lady shuts up and the girl has a shirley temple, the mother, a white zinfandel. This evening in particular was overwhelming and we couldn’t keep up with the personal pan pizza orders , water, and Shirley temples so Michael bailed us out and literally removed the menu from the tables and hands of anxious mother’s announcing the kitchen was closed. We were nice enough to offer them pretzels.
By my fourth week, I’m drinking at Ginger’s house (one of the bartenders) because Lana said if I didn’t go, she wouldn’t go and it no longer became an option. In the morning, I wake up lying on a dog bed, sick as a dog (I'm allergic to them). I can hear Lana and Ginger speaking in the living room.
I creep down the hall into the bathroom and throw up.
From the living room, Lana shouts out, “Amateur!”
As an adult, I’d been in marketing positions with various corporate companies since I was out of high school. After being chained to a desk and departing on airplanes to arrive and pitch an idea (be it what it may) I had no desire to become a cocktail waitress. Until of course, I moved to Kansas City and my delusions of corporate America were destroyed after being assaulted by my former employer. I had no desire to jet set anymore. Serving alcohol to the occasional convention attendee or business man killing laptop time increments was fine with me.
Lana had been with the hotel for over 20 years. I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t have a gold watch. She’d been in the service industry for over 25 years and even had the pleasure of being a pit waitress in some Vegas casinos for two to three years while she tried to ditch her husband, but much to her disagreement, he had shown up on her doorstep. Lana was old school at the young age of forty-two. She was still pretty but you could tell she’d played a hard game her entire life.
She once told me she knew she’d be an alcoholic at the age of seven because her dad was into softball. He’d always bring a cooler of beer and she and her brothers and sisters would get a can of beer to share. She knew that her brother wasn’t going to be an alcoholic because when the can was passed to him, he’d take a light sip and never went for seconds but she and her sister Rena would grab at the can as much as they could.
“I don’t wanna train you too much, but I’ll teach you what you need to know. If you stick around, I’ll even learn your name new girl.” She told me.
She taught me important things like “SBVRGT”. Slow bartenders very rarely get tipped.” Meaning that one orders their drinks to a bartender in the order they should be made. A practice that only true old school bartenders and servers know and has been long lost. Scotch, bourbon, vodka, rum, gin, tequila.”
Lana knew the psychology of drinkers when it came to tipping. She suggested that I always carry a wrinkled, ripped up dollar with me to work among my change because people hated to take a decrepit dollar bill, more than likely, I’d end up with that dollar bill as long as she’d had the one she showed me.
“This dollar has lasted me about fifteen years.” She said. “Another trick, if you have to give back some decent change, don’t fuck yourself, if there’s a five and some 1’s turn the ones the opposite direction so that they are visually different than the five. This makes those idiots feel guilt and generally if you have eight bucks in change, they’ll leave you three and take the five, but you gotta leave the five up and the threes down…got it?” She was right, most of the time, it worked.
“When you’re a cocktail waitress, your section is your green. It doesn’t do you any good when someone goes to the bar and then sits in your section because you’re the lucky one with the big TV they want to watch. And I’m tellin’ you nine times out of ten, Kid, when they see some other table with pretzels they’ll flag you down and ask you for a bowl. That’s when I say, where’d you get your drink?” Then she imitates the stupid customer who always sounds like a hick. “At the bar.” She makes her growl look and continues, “So I tells ‘em, then go to the bar and get your pretzels.”
She asks me all important questions like, “Are you a Coke or Pepsi drinker?” I tell her the only right answer. “Coke.”
“Good. There are only two places to get a coke around here, inside the restaurant and upstairs in the lunch box cafeteria. The coke in the bar is flat because lazy ass here,” she points to the female bartender, “doesn’t put ice on her plate.” I don’t know what that means, but I appreciate a carbonated coke and miss the days of coca-cola in a glass bottle, it was its best then. I tell her this and she agrees.
I try to impress her with my latest coca-cola knowledge. “You know, I was at a bar the other night, and someone had a coke n wine. It has a special name but I can’t remember.”
Lana doesn’t miss a beat in the choreography of life and drinking. “Yeah, you know if that was any good, I would have thought of it by now.” She’s right too, she probably would have and it would be named after her.
Lana does crossword puzzles to kill time. She’ll pause every now and then and hand it over to the bartender to finish up the loose ends, but all in all she’s pretty efficient.
“Come over here.” I follow her to the entrance of the bar. “Stand here.” I stand there. A huge gust of wind seems to suck me into the bar. She says, “Feel that? That’s the vortex that sucks out people’s brains whenever they come in.” She walks away and I get a fit of giggles. She is so quick with most of what she replies and says in the first place, that I imagine most people have a hard time keeping up with her and/or taking her seriously.
It turns out my first week is when the Walmart convention takes place. All the managers across the country come and stay at the Marriott. “…And it’s a real bitch because they insist that they have their alcohol on one bill and their food on another for their expense reports, and then they don’t tip ya for both.” Lana says in between fixing drinks she carries from the bar pass to her tray. At that point she says, “you didn’t see this.” She licks a swizzle stick and drops it on the floor, she picks it up and drops it into a bourbon and coke. “It’s the little things that make ya smile after a while, Kid.” I can’t imagine I’d ever do that to someone’s drink. She sees through my mind and on her way out of the waitress station she says, “You think you’d never do it, but just you wait, Kid.”
In between turret sessions under her breath with Walmart in between every fuck, mother and shit she tells me more interesting points to the service industry. She sets up trays with various glasses with different increments of water and has me teeter around to get the hang of carrying a tray to a table. In her infinite wisdom she tells me, “…and if you’re going to spill, spill it on them. You’d think it would be better to spill it on yourself but you’re tip ain’t gonna be any better for staining your uniform, so just spill it on the jerk who probably grabbed a drink off yer tray and ruined your carrying balance in the first place because Joe Schmoe thought he was helpful.” If Lana was the type to snort, this would be the point in which she did, but it’s more like a scoffing sound of “yeah right.”
It is very soon into my employment that I learn that I absolutely hate serving water to a customer. Why it matters I don’t know. In fact, I waitress at a Chinese restaurant in the day time where I constantly rush to ensure the glass is full, but here, at the bar, it drives me nuts when someone says “I’ll just have a water for now.”
Lana rationalizes this with me, thank God. “Water ain’t gonna get you any tips. And usually, it means they’re gonna order food, which means you gotta truck a mile over to the kitchen and pick up a hamburger and an $8 bill isn’t gonna get you much either. The worst part about that too, is they’ll want pretzels too, so you might as well get use to it and give them free bread and water.” I carry a tray full of waters to a table.
When someone else asks me for water, she fills me in on another important tidbit by grabbing the glass out of my hand and adding more ice, “Fill the glasses to the brim with ice, that way when those fuckers don’t drink it, the ice melts and gets all over the tables ruining the sleeves of their blouses or blazers.”
She reminds me to place the napkin down with the bar’s logo facing the customer. A napkin alerts the other servers to stay away and the logo bit is cooked up by management, somehow it’s suppose to help marketing. My fourth night, the bartender is the night time manager because the other one of the three other bartenders has called in sick. Michael and Lana are good friends and around ten o’clock she tells him to serve us sangria.
“You never did this, you never saw this, this would get you fired in a heart beat. Okay Kid?” I nod fervently and think I’ve found a dream job. We drink sangria and there’s only one customer in the bar who has the hots for me and announces whenever anyone else walks in so that we can serve them, but otherwise, it’s just the four of us and we start buying him Miller Lites for his services and continue to hide our drinks on the dish washing tray or under our coats or under the glassware in a dark corner. I listen to nightmare stories that are really funny.
Like the time Michael was a banquet server for a Father Daughter Dance. “I kept thinking I wish someone would just die so I could go home.” He flicks his wrist around, “and wouldn’t you know it, one of the dad’s dropped to the floor of cardiac arrest.”
Lana dryly adds, “Well, at least you got to go home early, I’m there Saturday and what are the chances of history repeating itself?” We laugh, drink some more.
By the fifth night, a dance contest is being hosted at the convention and the bar fills with mother’s and their Jon Benet look alike daughters. I am serving the ghosts Shirley Temples and White Zinfandels to the mothers as rigorously as I can.
One mother snaps at Lana, “What do you mean you don’t have chocolate milk, you’re going to make my daughter cry!” Lana snaps back, “Lady, you brought your daughter to a bar.” The lady shuts up and the girl has a shirley temple, the mother, a white zinfandel. This evening in particular was overwhelming and we couldn’t keep up with the personal pan pizza orders , water, and Shirley temples so Michael bailed us out and literally removed the menu from the tables and hands of anxious mother’s announcing the kitchen was closed. We were nice enough to offer them pretzels.
By my fourth week, I’m drinking at Ginger’s house (one of the bartenders) because Lana said if I didn’t go, she wouldn’t go and it no longer became an option. In the morning, I wake up lying on a dog bed, sick as a dog (I'm allergic to them). I can hear Lana and Ginger speaking in the living room.
I creep down the hall into the bathroom and throw up.
From the living room, Lana shouts out, “Amateur!”
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