Restaurant Gal

At first, you have no clue who the person is who is standing in front of you with his hand extended.

“Hey, Bruce Carlton. We had so many classes together in 7th grade.”

You smile the dumb smile of one who has no clue, one that conveys that you pretend to have a clue, but not really.

“Oh sure! Great to see you.”

Then one your closest and best friends since second grade shrieks from across the way, and she rushes over to hug the one about whom you have no clue. As you stand and watch them laugh and hug some more, and you look more closely at his face, the lines around his eyes are once again smooth and his graying cropped hair is long and shaggy.

“Oh my God, BRUCE!” you interrupt, because now you are the one shrieking. Now you are smiling at him for real. Suddenly a group forms, and everyone is laughing at memories of teachers who tormented us and of all the rules we broke simply because they begged to be broken.

It felt good to be home again, where past and present blurred, and all seemed just right.

Sure, there were the archetypal moments that define every reunion:

–The guy who didn’t get why I wouldn’t go to his place and have sex with him, even as he regaled others with descriptions of the lovely new girlfriend he didn’t bring–a former model.

–The girl who clearly hasn’t gotten over feeling inferior in 8th grade, because when I told her she looked great and I’d recognize her anywhere, she grimaced, made a sound of disgust and turned away from me without so much as a hello.

–The boy who I remember as so shy and quiet, who made a huge effort show up–albeit late–turned out to be a brief but wonderful life of the party.

–The girl who I always viewed with awe and admiration, even as she intimidated me with her confident grace, showered me with present-day compliments.

Would that we could all page back through the decades–retaining every ounce of experience and wisdom we have now–and roam through the halls of our junior high and giggle again with girlfriends as we tell each other about the boys on whom we have crushes in hopes they will ask us to go steady at the teen-club dance later that night. No matter how angst-ridden the early teens may have been, on this night the memories were sweet and all of us were in the “cool” group.

I had no time to dwell on quick goodbyes as I rushed to the airport the next day. My Keys job has turned into a blur of 12-hour double shifts for the next several weeks, thanks to a former co-worker who suddenly quit in a rage while covering one of my shifts. That she is no longer speaking to me over another matter that shocked and appalled me, sadly means she is a former friend as well.

At first, when my D.C. reunion friends with professional jobs asked me what I was up to these days, I was embarrassed to admit that I was simply a bartender in a local spot located very much off the beaten tourist path in a locale that can hardly be viewed as anyone else’s real-life. But to a person, they congratulated me on striking out on my own two years ago, and starting over in such a unique way.

At first, I wasn’t sure how well I would be received when I returned to work in the wake of my former friend quitting in such a negative way. But when one of the owners offered to relieve me for a half hour during one of my doubles so that I could go home and tend to my dog, I figured all was okay. When I rushed back behind the bar at the end of those 30 minutes and the entire bar-full of customers cheered and applauded to have “our real bartender back,” I was stunned.

I despise the phrase, “You can’t go home again.” I have gone “home” twice in the past week to two very different homes. Both of these homes–in all their contrasts and ever-changing realities–feel very much like home, more than ever. It’s nice to be home again. I can’t wait to go home again.

“Do you think we can function in normal society after six months in the Keys?” asks my girlfriend who,like me, hails from big-city, civilized northern climes. We are lounging by a pool, sipping girlie drinks.

She is going home for a few weeks. I am going to D.C. for a long weekend and a Jr. High School reunion party. (Yes, Jr. High. More on that.)

“I honestly don’t know,” I laugh. Honestly, I don’t.

I live in a place that is small town at it’s best and worst. I live where drinking a mimosa at 8 a.m. is considered a nod to the nutritional value of vitamin C. I live where everyone smokes cigarettes everywhere, and no one judges it.

I live where water surrounds us, and everyone either works it or plays in it. I live where we have a love-hate relationship with tourists, even as we depend on them for our very livelihoods. I live where everyone considers it to be a paradise, and all hope someday they can be as lucky as I am to land here.

But what about when you leave here, if only for a long weekend? Sure, I go to Fort Lauderdale now and then, but even there the palm trees still sway and the party-hard world still rocks.

“I guess we’ll cut down on smoking,” my friend says.

“I guess we won’t drink so much,” I add.

“Maybe we’ll never want to come back,” my friend says.

“Oh, I will. My dog will be here,” I laugh.

“I’m kind of nervous about it, though,” she says.

“Me too,” I agree.

We lay back on our chaises and try to relax for more than 5 minutes before the intense sun and humidity will force us back into the pool that is thankfully chilled.

“I never go to a pool up north until August,” says my friend.

“One summer I never got in a pool because the weather was so crappy,” I tell her.

“I won’t wear close toed shoes no matter what,” she says.

“I’m only bringing my best flip flops,” I say.

“Do you think we’ll miss it here?” she asks,taking a sip of her pink drink.

Miss the scenery? Yes. Miss the laid-back-till-you-fall-over attitudes? Sort of. Miss the daily question of “How did I land here and what the hell am I doing with my life?” Whatever.

“You have to come back,” I say. “You have to.”

“I will,” she assures me, but I am not so sure. She has had a tough time of it. But through it all, we have laughed and laughed ’till we have cried–and sometimes we have just cried.

“Don’t make me track you down,” I laugh.

“Ha!” she laughs.

My friend will be seeing family and friends. I will be seeing friends I have known since the awkward ‘tweens, and many since grade school. My friend and I are spending one night in Fort Lauderdale to “transition” before early-morning flights on Friday. We have plans to visit our old haunts and gaze longingly at stores that sell something other than over-priced sundries or bait.

“Are you going to have a drink on the plane?” she smiles.

“If I can stay awake,” I laugh.

We agree to raise our airplane vodkas at approximately 7:30 a.m. and toast one another.

I know I will have fun. I hope she does, too.

I also know I am coming back to my pretty Keys house and quirky Keys job and all the Keys craziness in between. I so hope she comes back to her Keys life, too. But I don’t know. I don’t know that she knows.

Safe and sane travels to us both, my friend. xo

“One of the farm cats had kittens. So cute. Do you want the orange one?” asked my friend. We were petless at the time, and my kids were at good ages for a cat to come into the home–four and six–so what the hell? I’d grown up with cats. Cats are easy.

“There’s just one thing,” said my friend a week later when she arrived in town with our kitten. “He has been watching over of the runt, a little black-and-white female. I don’t know if I can separate them!”

Which was how we ended up with two kittens. And they were perfect.

RG Daughter named them–Koko and Lilly. I have no idea why she selected those names; she just did. Everyone loved the orange kitten Koko, with his wild fur and enormous paws. Lilly was much more skittish and hid from everyone except RG Daughter, who dressed her up in baby’s clothing and carried her around like a rag doll.

One evening, six months later, four-year-old RG Daughter came to me and said solemnly, “Lilly’s sick. She’s going to die.”

I looked at her in shock. “No, no, Lilly’s fine,” I said, glancing at the cat draped over her arm.

“No, she’s sick.” With that, RG Daughter placed Lilly on the floor at my feet. “See? She won’t run and hide from you.”

The cat was, indeed, laying calmly at my feet. I figured she was finally getting used to all of us.

“Look, she seems very content and happy, and it’s bedtime for you,” I said, convinced the cat was fine. “But I’ll check on her later tonight, okay?”

“Okay, but she’s going to die,” said RG Daughter in an eerie, matter-of-fact way, before she turned and sighed and walked down the hall to her bedroom.

I awoke quite suddenly at two in the morning. The cat. Check on the cat. And when I did, she didn’t run away, she lay quietly, purring. Koko was perched next to her, purring as well. “You’re a good brother,” I said to the enormous orange pumpkin he’d come to resemble.

The next morning, I found them–still next to each other, Koko still keeping watch over Lilly, and Lilly who had obviously died sometime after two in the morning. Of all days, it was RG Daughter’s birthday, and I cry every time I remember that horrible moment. I think we all do.

Koko continued to thrive, getting bigger and fatter and ever more lovable. We discovered he liked to fetch–especially crumpled up paper–and we would entertain him and ourselves for hours sending him after paper “mice.” Every time we moved over the years, we’d find his hidden stashes of mice all over the house.

Over the years, Koko peacefully tolerated the parade of new animals that joined our household, and he outlived them all. He calmly allowed himself to be the subject of unending school projects for both kids, including one which measured “How High Can Koko Jump?” I believe it was four feet, and when he sailed over the broomstick for this record-breaking leap, with his paws tucked under his fat belly, he resembled more a baby seal than a cat. I laugh every time I look at the photo we took of that exact moment.

Koko was there for RG Daughter as she navigated the awkward middle school years, always just a pat and a purr away after a particularly tough day. He was there for RG Son when he was in high school, happy to sit on the floor next to his desk and keep him company on a weekend night when plans had fallen through. He was there for all us if we were sick in bed, laying close to our feet to keep them warm.

Koko was a favorite subject of everyone’s camera. What was not to love about his fluffy fur and orange eyes and wise demeanor? Koko at Christmas when he allowed himself to be cajoled into wearing cat-sized antler ears or a Santa hat. Koko at Halloween next to the pumpkin he outweighed. Koko sporting his summer “Lion” cut. Koko in the background, Koko in the foreground, Koko always in the picture. I think Mr. RG still has the mug emblazoned with the cat’s sprawled, 22-pound heft.

Koko moved with us three times, always adapting just fine as long as he could start a new collection of paper mice. He watched one, then the other of his “litter mates” head off to college, which at first confused him, then delighted him, when they came home on breaks. When I moved to Florida two years ago, he attached himself to Mr. RG, which, I am sure, Mr. RG found both annoying and somewhat comforting.

Koko was the cat who bore witness to it all. He never judged nor took sides nor showed favorites. He never did anything but love us all.

Last week, after 18 years of faithful companionship, Mr. RG made the painful decision that Koko was sick and in pain and that his time had come. Rather than let him suffer, he took the cat to the vet who’d given him his first check-up on a similar summer’s day 18 years ago, and he stayed with him until the end. I am so sorry he had to do this on his own.

“Good cat,” said the vet on a sad day that quietly represented the end of an era for my family. “Good cat.”

Koko at age 16

Koko with Rouletta

She always compliments what I am wearing. She is from D.C. She always says she and I could be friends, and we should have a drink together sometime.

Except we are not friends. We likely never will be. A vodka tonic with extra lime will always be between us–the one I make, the one another one always buys for her.

“Hey sweetheart, what’s your name?” asked the alpha male of four teal-blue Columbia-shirted men with sunburned noses who’d just swaggered onto their bar stools in an almost successful attempt to appear cool and local and so very, very comfortable in my bar.

“RG,” I smiled. I was off in ten minutes. My replacement was already anxious for me to count my bank and get going. We were busy on this Tuesday.

“Mimi?” asked one.

“No, you jerk,” answered his friend, elbowing him in the ribs. “She said CiCi.”

“R. G.” I said to them both, smiling my I’m-almost-off-but-you’re cute-and-from-out-of-town-and-somehow-found-this-bar-so-you-might-possibly-be-a-great-last-tip smile.

“So, sweetheart,” asked the cutest and oldest of the crew. “How come we’ve never seen you before?”

I paused, because I knew they expected the pause, then said, “Because you’ve never been in here before?”

They laughed the laugh of guys who have left their wives behind for four days of fishing and four nights of doing “the Keys thing.” The laugh of those who want to hit on the tank-top wearing bartender because they figure she is their captive audience, even as she knows she will bid them farewell in less than five minutes and it’s really up to her how long this captivity will last.

My vodka-tonic non friend took an immediate and avid interest in this exchange. “Hey, where are you guys from?” she asked the tallest one.

All four answered various towns and cities from up north. All four sat a little straighter as she slid her bar stool closer to theirs. I mentally x-ed out her tab.

Within seconds, his-and-her arms were draped around his-and-her shoulders. Within minutes she was laughing the laugh of a girl who’s met the guys who will laugh with her as she glances at the bartender whom she no longer pretends to know and says, “I’ll have another,” because a teal-blue-shirted, out-of-town-wanna-be-sport-fisherman will always step up and say, “That’s on me.”

And as I sat and had my shift drink on the opposite side of the bar, I watched one of the teal-blue-shirted-men watch me, then her. I smiled at him, and he smiled at me, then her. I turned my attention to two regulars who were begging me to play darts, not because I am good at darts, but because they needed a body to round out the game and I was the closest body around.

My non friend giggled and leaned her head into the shoulder of the one still watching me. I raised my beer bottle ever so slightly toward him. Take her, buy her, be hers, I silently told him.

He paused, mid sip of his own beer, because he knew I expected at least a second’s pause, a second glance from him.

As my non friend whispered something she found incredibly funny because she giggled breathlessly in the one man’s ear, he watched me watching him be the bit player in the oldest bar saga ever told.

“You want another one of your beers, sweetie?” asked my replacement.

“Nah, gotta go home and walk the dog,” I laughed.

“Come back later,” she said. “It’ll be dead.”

“Yeah, I probably will,” I told her, collecting my phone and my lighter and my cigarettes and my keys, as well as an errant dollar tip that had fallen out of my purse.

Please, don’t ever make me that girl, I thought as I walked toward their end of the bar.

Please, don’t ever let me think I need to be that girl, I thought as I waved goodbye to the four out-of-town boys.

Please, let her find the guy, maybe even this guy, I thought as I walked out the door and into the still-sweltering evening.

Please let this bar always be between me and her.

“You talk a lot about your girlfriends, you know, how great friends they are and all. So, do you, um, you know, like them a whole lot? You know, like that?”

“I mean, so, I just want to be your friend. I like you and all, just not like that. So, can we be friends, you know, with benefits?”

“You are so adorable. You don’t have a daughter who dances at the strip club down the road, do you?”

“Do you still have a uterus?”

I wish I was kidding. I wish I was making this up.

I wish I could wish it all very, very far away.

I had only been open a few minutes when they walked in: a police officer, one of my regulars, and a friend of the regular.

“Good morning!” the officer said, broadly smiling.

“Hey, morning to you,” I said. “You working a new beat, now?” I was surprised to see him in my bar. This particular officer was memorable for two reasons–he is drop-dead handsome in an Erik Estrada, “CHiPs” kind of way (show your age if your remember that late’70s cop show); and he used to frequent my dive restaurant for breakfast, never able to make up his mind between a breakfast burrito and the huevos rancheros. My bar is nowhere near my former restaurant, however.

“Just filling in,” he said, staring me right in the eye. So cute.

“Hey Bobby,” I nodded to my regular, who I now noticed was hanging back from the bar staring down at the floor. Huh?

“So you work here now?” asked the officer. “I wondered why I hadn’t seen you in a while. You like it better?”

“It’s fun, different. The money is good,” I told him. “So what’s up? What brings you here? I can make you some wings, but no eggs,” I laughed.

“Already had breakfast, thanks,” he smiled, his dark eyes twinkling. Be still my heart. “Hoping you can help us. I met Bobby and his friend here outside the bar, and he says he doesn’t have an ID on him.”

Understand, in any other town, in any other geographic location on the planet for that matter, Bobby and his friend would ooze a pretty serious “scary bad guys” demeanor. Bobby, however, is as gentle as the fat feline that faithfully follows him everywhere around town like a pet dog. He does odd jobs to scrape together cash, and everyone knows they can find him through me or the other bartenders. He has never been in trouble, as far as I know, so I was shocked that this officer was concerned.

“But you know Bobby, right?” asked the officer, as if he were about to re-introduce me to a friend. “He says he’s in here all the time.”

“Sure, I know Bobby,” I smiled, not at the handsome officer this time, but at Bobby, trying to reassure him.

“Would you happen to know his last name, then?” my suave and gorgeous policeman asked, his smile still perfectly intact.

“Oh, well, um…his last name?” I stuttered. Last name? I don’t know anyone’s last name in my bar. Okay, I know this one lawyer’s last name because he gave me his card when I asked him to read over some legal documents, back when I thought my landlord’s house was in foreclosure. But that’s about it.

“Yes, his last name.”

“Bobby, I’m sorry. I’ve never gotten your full name,” I said directly to Bobby instead of the officer. Then I smiled back at my dreamboat man in uniform, saying, “But I know what he drinks!”

That’s how I know everyone in my bar: Vodka, soda, splash of cran no fruit; Bud draft in a mug that’s not too cold; rum and tonic and don’t throw away the used stirrers because he uses them to keep count of how many drinks he’s had. I may not even remember all my customers’ first names, but I always know their libation of choice.

“Okay, what does he drink?” asked my Prince Charming.

“Captain and Coke,” I said, smiling at Bobby once again.

“That’s exactly what he told me,” said the officer. “That’s good enough.”

Ha!

“Okay, next time, try to keep some ID on you, Bobby,” he said. “Why you’re not in the computer system is beyond me. Good thing she knew your drink!”

He then turned to me, extending his hand in a firm handshake. “Take care. I’ll try to stop in and say hello when I over this way again.”

“Great,” I said, swooning slightly, because I knew he must be used to swooning females.

My officer turned and walked out of my bar. Bobby and his scraggly friend perched on barstools, eyeing me like two hungry baby birds. I poured them both Bobby’s drink, figuring they just needed a drink, stat.

“To the Captain,” I toasted the two with my own mug of coffee.

“To the Captain,” they said in unison, raising their plastic cups.

And there we are, I thought, trying not to laugh. Only in the Keys is a man’s drink an acceptable form of ID in the very handsome eyes of the law. To the Captain, indeed.

Under its original owner, my previous restaurant gave a local discount to those customers who patronized the place on a regular basis. No one asked for the discount, because if they did, and those who had worked there the longest didn’t know them, the answer was, “Sorry.”

Under the new ownership, my previous restaurant gives a local discount to anyone who asks for it as well as to anyone they think will spend a lot of money on future meals there.

“But that table is a group of tourists flying home to Minnesota tomorrow morning,” I said to my co-worker one morning when I was directed to give the discount.

“Just do it, RG,” she sighed. “That’s what they want, now. I know it’s crazy.”

Don’t get me wrong. Local discounts for locals, “in the biz” discounts, “That’s on me” discounts are good for business. I applaud such discounts. I am always happily surprised when I leave my Key, travel north to another, and still receive a “local discount” at a couple of spots simply because I am a Keys gal.

Dollar for dollar, time after time, locals tip better than tourists. At my job tending a local bar, I routinely walk with 50 percent or more in tips each shift. No, not every local is an easy customer. No, not every local is someone I’d like to hang out with. And no, not every local customer tips well. But most do. And I appreciate it every single time.

Which is why, on a recent evening, when a party of four tourists came into my bar to experience “what you locals do,” I became very protective of the locals I knew these tourists would never know. Never get.

They were loud as they laughed at one man’s hat, trying to get him to take it off and sell it to them.

They were annoying as they enjoyed a second round and made fun of the music someone selected.

They were disgusting when they made no attempt to disguise their contempt for any of us as they snickered and giggled and whispered about all of us.

“Hey, they’re just having some fun,” said one of the elders at my bar when I turned to him and rolled my eyes. “Buy them a round on me.”

“But, why would you…” I started to ask him.

“RG, it’s the right thing to do when we have visitors in here,” he answered.

I did as instructed, and the tourists laughed and thanked him, but only in a sarcastic, “Can you believe we’re even in this place and that just happened?” kind of way. It made me sick.

Don’t you know he’s a decorated war hero? I wanted to scream at them. Oh, and that guy with the hat? He’s done more in his life than you would ever imagine. Leave him and his hat the hell alone. Her? She’s an incredible cook. And her? She’s worth more money than all of you combined and always thanks me beyond belief.

What’s my “story?” you ask. What kind of stupid small-town-cracker gal am I? is more likely what you are wondering. Have I always tended bar? Did I grow up here? Did I ever attempt to raise kids here? Did you put rumrunners in their bottles? ha ha ha?

No. No. None of your f—ing business.

“RG, they’re just having fun. They’re on vacation. Let it go,” said the war hero.

“I guess I am not that nice,” I told him. “They annoy the crap out of me.”

“Let them be. They’ll leave soon.”

And they did, leaving a pathetic tip behind them.

Local conversation continued without a pause. Music picks continued to be predictable. I continued to pour draft beer and vodka crans. My house was back in order.

“RG, here,” said the war hero as he was leaving. “A little extra for tonight.”

“No, no, you always thank me enough every day,” I said,trying to give the extra $10 back to him.

“It’s yours, for the trouble they gave you. I saw what they left you,” he laughed.

“But it’s not your responsibility…”

“RG, relax. You worry too much.”

He’s right. I do worry. I worry that, now and then–like the tourists I reviled–I, too, may still display vestiges of my big-city, self-important attitude. I worry that sometimes it is too easy to make fun of those who appear simple-minded and beneath a vague barometer of “cultured.” I worry because I know there is a little bit of the tourists’ attitude in all of us when we find ourselves outside of the comfort of our familiar elements.

Thankfully, my local customers seem to overlook my sometimes-superior, often naive attitude, and they grant me a local discount every day.

A former grade school teacher of mine and I reconnected what seems like a hundred years ago when she and I were substitute teaching in an elementary school. Turned out, she subbed in both my kids’ classes and loved regaling all the other students about how, “I taught sixth grade to their mother!”

It also turned out we were only 10 years apart in age, which seemed huge when I was 12 and hugely insignificant when I was working in the same school with her decades later.

“We should have lunch out sometime when we’re not working,” I told her one afternoon as we watched the urchins in our charge slurp warm milk from tiny cartons and dip fish sticks in ketchup.

“Oh, no. I never do lunch,” she said, almost angry and clearly appalled.

Ooooookay. Seemed like it might be fun….

“Nothing personal,” she added, now apologetic for her harsh response. “It’s just that after my husband died, that’s all everyone wanted to do–lunch. I don’t know why, I swore I’d never be one of those ladies–a young widow no less–who did lunch!”

Got it. Well, not really. But okay.

I never had lunch with her. I never had a drink with her. I never saw her again after my short subbing tenure. Happily, I was able to tell her she was the single most influential teacher I ever had in terms of my writing. So it wasn’t a total loss of re-connection.

“Lunch?” came the text last Monday from the boy who’d ditched me last month.

“Working,” I texted back. Didn’t he already know that?

Frowny faces and “Awwwww” popped up on my iPhone.

“Lunch?” came the text the next morning, Tuesday.

“Working,” I texted back. I knew he knew this. “How about a drink later after you get off work tonight?”

No response.

Much later that night, when I was asleep in bed, came this text: “Just got your text. Not feeling well. Lunch tomorrow?”

“Working the next two days,” I texted back, adding, “I’m sure we’ll catch up whenever.” No response. Oh please, I thought, you are the one who instigated this nifty little invitation thread. WTF?

“Lunch?” came the text on Friday, three days later. Brilliant.

“I have plans later this afternoon, but an early lunch, sure,” I texted back. Because now I was genuinely curious about his odd persistence to meet for lunch. Surely he had finally realized his mistake in ditching me! Haha.

He chatted about nothing much. He drank three vodka crans and I downed the same number of mimosas. Right, we were perfectly comfortable with one another. The bartender hung around, telling us how he and his girlfriend were leaving to go north for the summer. What were we up to, etc.? The boy responded in generic kind about staying put “even in hurricanes.”

As far as I could tell, there was absolutely no point to this lunch.

So I asked him, “Why are we having lunch?”

“I miss you,” he replied. “And we’re buds, right?”

“You don’t miss me,” I answered, shaking my head. “And buds? Oh, okay.”

“Look I know I hurt you. But you have to test the waters before you get your feet wet, right? At least I told you how I felt. I mean, hasn’t that ever happened to you when you didn’t feel it for someone?”

Yep, time to call it a lunch.

“You didn’t hurt me,” I said. “You confused the hell out of me. And yes, I remind myself every time I think I feel badly about you, about how I didn’t feel about a couple of guys.” He smiled like he’d won something.

Except I never asked them to be my guy, I never led them to think I was crazy about them, and I never asked them to stop seeing other people, I thought but didn’t say because I’d said it before and I was very much done.

“Thank God, I never slept with you,” I said, calmly. “You probably did me a favor, ditching me like you did.”

He was a little stunned–enough not to respond for a second. Then, “Ouch!” He paused, “But yeah, maybe I did.”

“Well, you’ve forced me back into the wild whacky world of dating,” I smiled, waving the screen of my cell phone in front of him that displayed two texts, one missed call, and a voice mail from said whacky dating world.

“We’ll take the check,” said the boy to the bartender. He turned to pat Rouletta’s head. Then he was oblivious when I paid the check with my credit card.

“No, no!” he feigned concern upon realizing.

“Yeah, you leave the tip,” I mumbled. And with that I untangled Rouletta’s leash and we walked to his car. I had walked to the restaurant, but he didn’t offer me a lift home. Which was fine, because I would have declined it, anyway.

I am becoming rather skilled at deleting numbers from my cell phone and blocking those whom I’d rather never know about again from Facebook news feeds and then deleting them from email lists. Bye and bye and bye.

There’s another world out there, as whacky as it is. It’s one in which people call me first, return my calls, make plans, and call again. It is a world in which I caught my first fish and had a blast with someone I’ve known but kept at arm’s length. It is a world through which I no longer feel the need to rush.

And no doing lunch unless it’s a first date. And never again, after the fact.

I do not feed stray cats, especially in the Keys. Billions of them lurk around every corner, and someone (many someones) is always putting food and water out for them. They amble between tables at all the bars and restaurants, they wander neighborhood streets like they own it all, and they sprawl across sidewalks daring anyone to urge them to move aside.

Don’t misunderstand, in general, I like cats. I only owned cats back in the day. But now I have Rouletta the pup, and frankly, Keys cats are kind of scary in all their bravado. In a word, I am over cats.

I do not want to “date” these days. But suddenly, there they are, lurking around every bar stool at work or re-connecting after hearing how the latest boy ditched me. They are seemingly sweet and genuine, like they all seem at first, and they almost dare me to accept an invitation for a day on a boat or drinks or dinner.

Don’t misunderstand, I am flattered. But this last one did me in, because I only followed his lead and never forced the issue about “a relationship.” Of course, in the Keys–at least for this gal–relationships pretty much consist of drinking lunch and smoking too many cigarettes. In a word, I am very much over dating.

“You will go out with them,” said my bartender girlfriend from Fort Lauderdale. “You will give the ones that you say bore you a second chance, and you will quit falling for the unavailable types.”

Yes, ma’am.

“No really. You never know. Another girlfriend of mine went through everything you have with men. And finally, finally, she allowed herself to like a ‘normal’ mature man. She is head over heels!”

Well, great!

“Don’t you dare humor me,” she laughed. “Please, give some of these guys at least a chance. You gotta stay out there and try to have fun. And I swear, you just don’t know!”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was worried I had made a mistake by quitting the dive, money being as tight as it is living the dream here in paradise. And I’ve never just walked out at the end of a shift and waved goodbye. But suddenly I have almost five full shifts at the local bar, my loyal daytime customers are back in full force, and all is looking pretty good for me there.

Sometimes, if you just wait a minute, you end up feeding a sad, scrawny kitten who wandered into your driveway. You smile and say you’d love to go out sometime soon to one and promise to go fishing on Sunday with another. You try your best to accept a kind compliment from a customer who says, “We love having you here, you know.”

You do your best to put the negative crap behind you as you vow to travel more than a few steps on this very unfamiliar road of giving everyone and everything a first and second chance.

“The money is good there,” said Upset Waitress a few weeks ago as we sat smoking cigarettes on my front porch. “As long as it’s good, use it. When the money stops being good, leave.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “But every day the new owners change something major, then the idiot manager doesn’t tell us, then chaos. It’s getting hard to hang in.”

“Use it for the money. That’s it,” UW said, then she burst out laughing. “Damn I’m glad I got the hell out of there when I did! No amount of money is worth it!”

So much for UW’s sage wisdom.

When I returned yesterday to the dive for my Sunday shift, I donned every karma bracelet I own: good luck, health, peace and prosperity, good fortune.

“Look at all those!” exclaimed a still-drunk girl clad only in a bikini as I examined her ID before I’d serve her a Bloody Mary. “You must really need some karma bad!” she giggled.

Do you want me to believe this ID is real or what, I thought.

Memorial Day Weekend in the Keys. Everyone warned me. But no one told me the complete sordid story of the horror that plays out on this holiday weekend. “You’ll see,” was all I heard over and over.

Oh yes, I saw.

I saw a woman so high on every drug ever invented that she stood in the middle of the main dining area and took off her shirt and bathing suit top while asking if she was in the ladies room.

I saw how no one paid attention to the trashed woman who bared her sagging breasts to all, because they preferred, instead, to scoop runny egg yokes onto pieces of toast and stuff the mess into their foul-smelling, stale-liquor-laden mouths.

I saw customers bring in their own beer in coolers and backpacks, hoisting each one without buying any alcohol from me–something the dumb manager tells us to do nothing about, despite how it takes away from our sales and is likely illegal as hell. God forbid we should scare off the cheapest asses on the planet from our restaurant.

Then I went on a binge of over reaction.

I yelled at the nighttime chef who comes in to prep for dinner way too early, who always gets in my way, who sells his dinner menu items to my lunch tables and then gives them a separate check for it, and to whom I finally told after he told me I was not to move or touch anything in the restaurant unless he gave me permission, “I don’t work for you. Ever.” Surprisingly, he backed off.

I yelled at a table whose idea of splitting a check was to literally toss three credit cards at me and rattle off dollar amounts with no connection to said tossed cards, then ask, “You do understand, right? Is it that difficult?”

I yelled at the same table when I returned with the three credit cards and one particularly arrogant member of the group asked, “Do you have a problem with the way we paid our bill?”

I explained that I could have put an automatic gratuity on the check and did not. I explained that I could have charged $3 per check to split up the bill, and did not.

“Really?” said Captain Arrogant. “I heard you talking trash about us to the cook, and I really don’t appreciate your attitude.”

“Really?” I said, with a not-so-subtle edge. “Well, I didn’t appreciate you bringing your own beer into my restaurant. You do that at restaurants back home or just here in the Keys?”

“This isn’t your restaurant!” the arrogant one shouted, louder. “And I spoke to your manager, too, by the way, and I don’t think you’ll be working here much longer!”

“Really?” I asked, feigning shock. “How did you know I’d already quit this job this morning?”

And with that they left, still shouting for all to hear how my attitude sucked and so did I as a waitress and as a human being. Oh no, not as a human being!!!

Imagine the reaction of the table of six sitting next to them, who’d witnessed it all, when I calmly turned to them and said, “You are my very last table, ever, in this place. May I suggest a round of drinks on me?”

They left me $50 on a $75 lunch tab.

And with that, I had indeed, slung my last egg, my last cheeseburger, and my last “what’s the best thing on this menu.”

I am now tending bar and cooking simple fare full time. I will miss what the dive started out to be, because it was incredibly fun. I will not miss what it became as the new owners and managers took a great little place that was running perfectly, and broke it.