Amy wins the posting suggestion for now, as she has the coolest blog title of "Rants in my Pants". Don't worry though...the waiting on tables bit does bleed into the rest of the paying my rent stories (including the public masturbation)...so they'll all get told here soon.

Servicing His Needs

Shortly after I moved to NYC in 1987, I found an apartment and began looking desperately for a job. I had no experience, no education, and no skills. So I became a waiter. Now has anyone else noticed that all the waitstaff of NYC is gay? I worked in a place called Chi-Chi's (which I'm glad to say closed in NYC). Chi-Chi is tits in Spanish. That being said I guess I should find it Ironic that I was a gay man working at a place named after a woman's breasts. Talk about a marketing campaign! Our gay waiters will serve you the best breast milk!

Of course I was fired a week later when I forgot to show up for a shift. No big deal, as I smelled like onions all the time. Being the resourceful (i.e. broke) homo, I applied and was hired at another restaurant, called Maggie Mae's. I stayed at this place for 2 years and left it upon leaving for college. It was while working at this place I learned exactly how to be a "practicing homosexual".

I love saying practicing homosexual as it just flies in the face of the religious zealots. I am a Practicing homosexual...I haven't been able to do it right. But I'm drinking milk, working out, and someday I know if I really try....I can be a fully functioning homosexual! I will learn how to decorate, cut hair, pick out the right outfits, cook, and will tell the difference between pearl white, egg shell, and winter white.

Well while working at Maggie Mae's I was allowed to order a meal before my shift on the house. I quickly learned their were certain things you never, ever ordered off the menu, as lord knows what was being served. For example, the other waitstaff told me of the infamous Pork BBQ sandwich.

The Pork BBQ sandwich was actually a processed pork mixture that came from the distributor. It was microwaved warm, then a piece of cheese was placed on top and it was put on a bun. One customer while eating it, complained that she had found a bone in it while biting it. She just pushed the bone aside and continued to finish the sandwich, telling the waiter that she had found the bone, and we should be more careful. The waiter, being intrigued, took a long look at the bone in the kitchen. It was a human tooth. It must have come from the plant as nobody in the kitchen was missing any teeth and I'm sure the customer would have realized if her own tooth went missing.

Now I had my own horror stories while working there. Of course the food was fairly decent, and the restaurant would get really busy on certain nights. This was always a problem as the kitchen was too small for the space. When the restaurant got busy, it took forever to get food out. I learned to slow down the pace of bringing my customers their salads, and bring rolls whenever the basket was empty. However, sometimes the food would take so long that I would get blamed. One particular customer really pissed me off that his 4 well done steaks weren't ready yet and his was angry. I got to the kitchen, and grabbed the steaks off the grill and threw them in the microwave, and cooked the suckers until they were well done. However the plate was hot when I pulled them out of the microwave and I dropped them on the floor. Using a steak knife, I picked them all back up, put them on a plates and walked them out to table #104.

My worst kitchen story by far has to be the BBQ bacon cheeseburger disaster(what is the deal with BBQ anyway?). This sandwich was a burger, with cheese, BBQ sauce and Canadian bacon. What do you Canooks call that stuff anyway? Ham? Bacon? What do you call American Bacon? (Besides a heart attack waiting to happen?) Not to mention...American Bacon? Who thought...mmmm...Fried pig fat....yum! But I digress again.

My customer, a businessman on a working lunch ordered a BBQ bacon cheese burger which I brought out when ready. Now it had been very busy in the kitchen that day, but the cooks were working very quickly. He got his sandwich very quickly and I came back in a few moments to check to see how everything was. My customer's complaint was that although the burger was very good, he was having difficulty biting through the Canadian bacon. I took it back and notified the manager that the customer was not satisfied with the food. My manager Thane (can you get a name gayer than that?) poked and prodded the sandwich, and turned a little green. The Canadian bacon had a used band-aid on it that had fallen off of the cooks finger. That poor customer had no idea that he was attempting to eat someone's bandages.

Needless to say...it wasn't long before I was laid off from that restaurant when they were losing their business. (yes...they are out of business now). Thus what led me down the path of degradation to exactly how far I would go to pay the rent.