When Bryn & Dave were here, they wanted Hollandaise sauce, so I’ve had extra lemons sitting in my fridge since they left. I finally cut them all up like you would do in a restaurant, and started using lemon slices in all my drinks. The lemons ran out, and today I got four limes, again prepping them all at once for drinks. Because I was FOH in college, I know how to cut drink garnish quickly. The bar is not responsible for everything. Generally, things like lemon in your iced tea come from waitstaff, not the kitchen. Also, all waitstaff are desperate for money. I got home early nearly every night by paying someone else to do all that shit.
When you are walking around in cash, you give it away freely. If someone says they’re going to do my side work for $15, and I have $300 in my hand, my brain does that math instantaneously. It is only now that I realize it was the autism tax. I wasn’t trying to get out of there to go party earlier. I was trying to get out of there earlier because I’d hit my limit on social interaction about seven hours ago.
I made really good money as a waitress because I’m a preacher’s kid. I knew how to charm every single table I ever had. Turnabout was fair play. A customer asked me if the coffee was leaded or unleaded. I said, “unleaded….. with Techron.” I was just trying to be funny and reference a commercial. He tipped me an extra $30 because he worked for Chevron.
My mouth has also gotten me in trouble with management, and could have gotten me fired had this not been the whole story. I told a table that a dessert was better than Viagra. The staff was apoplectic. He tipped me an extra $50 because he was a Pfizer rep. I did not know that the guy in the original story worked for Chevron, but I can damn sure pick a drug rep out of a lineup. It said “Pfizer” on his laptop bag….. and sex wasn’t the joke. The joke was the dessert was better than the cute little drug he was schilling.
I knew that he knew I was just flipping him shit, but that doesn’t mean my ADHD brain was right for being on the “think it, say it” plan, either….. especially when the other people on the staff had no frame of reference for that kind of humor. I had a medical background, they didn’t.
I know better than to say something like that now. I was 18. It’s just not worth the hassle, even if you were just trying to play inside baseball.
You would think that my foray into talking about being waitstaff would be the life hack- pay someone else. But no, I got off on a tangent while I was prepping my lemons and limes. The point is that we have gotten lazy with our drinks. Bottled beer, soda, and water is taking over the art of the cocktail, whether it has alcohol or not. It is absolutely amazing how much better a drink tastes with real fruit in it, elevating cheap to expensive. For instance, Tropical Punch Kool-Aid with a twist of lime actually tastes like something you’d serve to an adult…. and maybe that’s a life hack in and of itself. Instead of buying separate drinks for yourself and your kids, buy things to elevate kids’ drinks to your level.
Like buying huge vats of lemonade powder and keeping half of it unadulterated and adding lavender and fruit to the other.
Fruit is why sangria is one of my favorite drinks. You can take the shittiest table wine imaginable and turn it into something amazing by putting fruit in it and letting it sit overnight. Plus, fruit and ice add volume, so you can serve more people.
We tend not to get lazy with our morning coffee, going to great lengths to fix it exactly the way we like it. I’m going that direction with all my drinks, because they taste good straight out of the bottle. They taste amazing when I get out a cup, fill it with ice, squeeze the fruit (making sure to get all the pulp), and add whatever liquid of the gods I’m feeling that day.
I have energy drinks that taste like Gatorade, and this morning it was a lemon one. It felt great to be able to drink it leisurely, the acid of the lemon, the sweetness of the pulp, the saltiness of the sports drink….. It was a study in small perfection.
Happily ever after begins with baby steps.
Stories That Are All True 