I wanted to poke my eyeballs out...

Yesterday, upon my arrival to work, my manager informed me I was going to be serving a party of 26. "Sweet", I thought, money, money, money....wrong. I just happened to look out the window at the same time two large buses pulled up with a sign on the side that said, "Sun City Retirement Center." I wanted to poke my eyeballs out. If only I knew what was to come I probably really would have and put myself out of such misery. It only took them fifteen minutes to actually get out of the bus and into the restaurant. Collecting twenty-six walkers, canes and wheelchairs takes a little time I guess.

Before I could even introduce myself I started hearing old women screaming "coffee with cream, hot tea and it's freezing in here." As I was taking their drink order I noticed they all had name tags on. "What a friendly retirement home", I thought. Come to find out they all have Alzheimers and have to wear name tags so they can remember who they are.

One man ordered eggs bendict and I told him, "oh I am so sorry sir, that is only offered on Sunday mornings." His reply, "oh, well what day is it anyways?" After fifteen minutes I was done taking their order and ready to refill 26 coffees. It gets better. We have an item called the Renee's Special, as some of you may know it includes soup, salad and a half sandwich. As the food came out to the table one of the servers called out "Renee's Special" hoping to find out who it belonged to. Instead, a lady turned and said, "Renee, that's my name, and I am special, thank you." One of the couples disappeared only to find out they were visiting with another one of the tables across the restaurant.

As it came time for the check the lady in charge asked me if they could have seperate checks. At that point I started considering the worst possible scenario if I were to just quit and walk out. Unfortunately, the image of Zac and I homeless didn't sit too well in my head. I proceeded to seperate the checks (FYI: if you are getting seperate checks when you go to eat out, it is polite to tell your waitress before hand.) I only had to get change for about fifteen of them, so that was good. One of the ladies thought she gave me a twenty dollar bill, but instead she gave me ten. I caught it before the bus drove away, luckily. The whole cane and walker ordeal worked to my advantage for that part of their visit. I was able to get the lady to pay her other ten dollars out on the bus. It was a lot of fun, let me tell you.

So you are probably wondering why I am still doing this serving thing. I ask myself this question all the time. The reason is because shortly after this party left a party of 13 pulled up in a limo and made everything all better.

This is just a glimpse of what I go through everyday at work. Yeah, I guess you could say it's an emotional rollercoaster. You have to be resilient, brave and bold....oh yeah and really, really poor.