Despite multiple attempts to overcome said form of employment, the Wending Waitress is, for the time being, a waitress. This is not to say that she is miserable in this position. On the contrary, responding to becks and calls has the uncanny effect of making one feel better than other people, or, should I rather say, making one want to be better than other people, humanity-wise. A waitress's well-being depends on the kindness of strangers, so she quickly learns that being kind to stranger's pays of in the eventual, cyclical, karmic life-long almanac.
She also learns that, whether she likes it or not, there is a world-wide sororal/fraternal order to which she is a member: the aproned class. A class of millions who know about demi glace and plum chutney and port wine and pomegranate reductions. The proper accouterments for a lobster, the proper way to shuck an oyster, to present and uncork a bottle of Asti, a bottle of Lambrusco, a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé.
Knowing the right way to do a thing results in a remarkable courage, a willingness to apply that knowledge to a barely similar event. Like a fighter pilot landing a jumbo jet in peril, or a vet applying sutures to an injured boy, smashing a giant crab with rusty pliers on a floor of rough planks over a stinking, South American bay is a task taken on with brief hesitation, then proud responsibility, then the disinterest of an expert. A raw cherrystone is a curiosity and immediately delicious. And the joys of organs and organs are replete once you've seen an ambitious line cook try and make his own sausage.
The releases of eating and seeing are blissfully doping on the waitress. How often does one have the opportunity to do the opposite of their job in their off hours? Does that fighter pilot ever get to fly for the other guys, or captain a Uboat? Can the vet ever be a put-down dog? But the waitress can indulge. She can have a bottle opened for her, have indigenous cuisine to which she is unfamiliar explained to her, watch as someone else shucks a dozen or so bivalves. And she will tip well.
