My Christmas wishes to each and every one of you who made someone cry tonight (and you are far too many for comfort!) are as follows:

To the family of 10 assorted mid-30s adults whose very nice father and mother (yes, I know, to some of you they are in-laws) took you out to dinner tonight: Alcohol is a depressant. If you are prone to depression, and you don’t like this very nice father and mother, drink soda or water, not shots of Jack”and keep the rounds comin’.” Not only will you rage about the food then cry about your life, you will reduce the very nice mother and father to tears, and I can tell that this stoic dad doesn’t cry ever, except around the holidays when all of you are around. Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad. Next year, leave those surly, whiney boys and girls at home and enjoy the night out–just the two of you.

To the very handsome family of eight, whose oldest two children of the six are home from college because they have to be because you are paying more than six figures for their private institutions’ tuitions–let them eat! Let them eat the fries and have mayo on their burgers. Let them dip the shrimp in butter. Let them have dessert. They ordered club soda with lemon instead of a sugary cola. They dutifully dipped their salads’ lettuce in the dressings carefully placed on the side. They looked hopefully to you when the bread basket was placed in front of them, refusing to nibble a single piece because they knew you would disapprove. The holiday season is not the time to remind them how many calories they have consumed today prior to coming to my restaurant, and how an even longer run is in order tomorrow if, “You’re really going to finish that?” Your kids come in all shapes and sizes. Quit being a food coach out of fear for your own aging and girth-size growth, because I saw the one at the end of the table crying in the ladies room. Merry Christmas kids. Each of you is beautiful. ‘Tis the season to finally embrace that truth.

To the parents of the single male child out with you tonight. For just one night, talk to each other. Talk about the weather. Talk about the traffic. Talk about anything remotely mundane and utterly boring. Long silences punctuated with sighs and downcast eyes usually lead to tears, if not in public, then later while alone. Because this is how he feels–very alone. Merry Christmas my three solitary, very silent folk. I hope you find your voices very soon.

To the adult kids out with Mom. She doesn’t think your stinging sarcasm is funny. She doesn’t know where and how she went so wrong that you feel you can talk to her this way. I know, she ordered and drank three vodka rocks. I also know that this bothers you. I fully appreciate that those likely were not the only three vodka rocks she’s drunk this day, and now the sum total has led her to cry her tears in a most unattractive way. I don’t know much beyond that except this–she needs your help and support and guidance. That’s right, you might have to step up and parent your parent. Merry Christmas everyone. I’ve walked this walk. It’s brutal.

To the couple out with their one big dog and one tiny dog. Please do not let the holiday season prompt you to question all that you accept as just fine the rest of the year. Okay, you don’t have kids. Okay, the dogs are your kids, but this time of year…I get it, they are just dogs and there are no kids in your life at all. Merry Christmas. Really. It’s okay.

To the couple with the baby who pass him off to each other in shifts so one can gulp down dinner in three bites. Wow, has your life together changed this year. No one ever told you how much work it would be, how selfless you would have to be, how much of yourselves would have to be put on a back burner that seems forever without a pilot light. And how tonight you just feel like sobbing. Look around you and don’t worry. Keep the pure love in your hearts that you have for that baby, and all the parenting mistakes and missteps that you make and take will matter not. Merry first Christmas together to the three of you.

And so, another holiday season reaches its familty-gathering crescendo,exacerbating the seemingly bad and the ugly as it exacts its sad toll, despite how hard we work to imagine that all is perfectly hung by the chimney with care.

Come on now folks, shake it off. Do what I do on yet another emotional holiday that finds me wishing I were with my kids, wondering how it is I am working a thousand miles away from them and the life I once knew. Watch “Miracle on 34th Street” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the billionth time. Then track down and watch an ancient Saturday Night Live skit called “The Dysfunctional Family Christmas.” Merry Christmas to all who then discover how great it feels to laugh after you cry.

Both back doors of the cab opened almost before the cab came to its quick, complete stop. Two men emerged, one clutching a brown paper grocery-sized bag carefully folded down at the top. I couldn’t read the printed numbers and letters printed in black marker on the side of the bag.

“This is it, this is perfect!” exclaimed the taller, very fit of the two as he pushed his long, dark, wild curls off his forehead with enough care to not disturb the expensive sunglasses perched just so on the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, dude. Yeah!” exclaimed his far shorter but equally thin, muscularly built friend. “We’re here!”

It was an almost slow night, which was fine. I was battling my once-every-three-years-I-catch-one cold, and I don’t care what they say about DayQuil, it makes me feel loopy. I may not have been coughing, I may have been able to breathe, but I didn’t feel at all well. A slow night from which I might get cut first was the best medicine, at that point.

“Ma’am,” smiled the sunglassed one at me. “You sell cigarettes here?”

I regarded the paper bag that he clutched to his chest, his perfectly laundered baggy shorts and plain whit T-shirt. I wondered why he was wearing such expensive dark glasses after dark.

“Yeah, you know, cigarettes?” echoed his bloodshot, yet curiously bright-eyed pal who sported a fresh raspberry scrape on his left cheek. “You got change?” he asked, waving a twenty too close to my right cheek.

My get-these-guys-outta-here instincts immediately catapulted to high alert.

“Machine’s back there,” I nonchalantly waved toward the back of my restaurant. “You have to get change from that bartender, though,” I said gesturing toward my service bartender, who is the nicest of guys as much as he is always weeded and screaming at us for ordering anything more complicated than a draft beer. These guys asking for change could put him in the big weeds for good. Better order that second Long Beach Iced Tea for table 221 before they got his attention.

I watched the two for less than 20 seconds as they explained their need for change to my service bartender, and then I watched my manager watch them for 20 seconds more. Okay, I was off the alert hook.

For the next 15 minutes, I kept running into and sidestepping the tall sunglassed one. He must have made four trips to the men’s room in that time, never without his carefully folded brown paper grocery bag held tight to his chest, and always with a “Sorry, ma’am” or “Excuse me, ma’am” to me as I hoisted trays of food and drink around him. With luck, my manager was still keeping this guy and his buddy in his sights, because I was now too busy to think much more about either of them.

“Hey ma’am,” the shorter, scraped-up one called to me a half hour later, waving an empty Heineken bottle. What? They were still here? And being served?

Apparently yes and yes, and now they were very much seated at a deuce in my section.

“Do you already have a tab at the bar?” I asked him.

“No ma’am,” he grinned. “I pay cash each time.”

“One more for me, too,” smiled Mr. Sunglasses. “Corona.”

Huh.

Hmm.

Huh.

Oh, whatever.

“Sure,” I told them. “Be right back.”

As long as they were paying cash and not running tabs, as long as they were just hanging out….

“Yeah, man, our first night out!” the short one said to folks seated at an adjacent table when I returned with their beers.

“Good luck to you,” said one of the folks, raising his drink in a cheers gesture toward the two.

“Thank you,” nodded both men, both to the folks cheering them and to me as I handed them fresh beers.

As they had promised, both immediately offered me cash to pay their tab. I made their change, and each handed me a dollar tip.

Huh.

I served them three more rounds, each time collecting their cash, each time thanking them for thanking me with their dollars. I watched them engage with no other customers, now seemingly content to keep to themselves, smiling and talking only to each other.

Hmm.

“It’s the smallest I got,” smiled the bright-eyed, shorter man, handing me a ten dollar bill. He had been paying exact cash until now. I laughed to myself at the sight of my service bartender counting out so many ones to each of these characters while the printer continually spit out drink orders from a full staff of servers.

“Me too,” shrugged the taller one.

“Okay, no problem,” I said. “I’ll bring change.”

I was still busy with other tables beyond theirs, and felt rushed to make their change, knowing I had food to run and orders to take. I shoved their tens in the back of my book as I do with all cash given to me so I always know which are the most recent denominations handed to me, counted out ones and quarters for each of them, and pretty much returned their change to them on the fly to take care of customers three tables over.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” asked the shorter one as I dashed back by his table a few minutes later.

“Be right back, two seconds,” I told him, nodding to the stack of dirty plates I held in my hands, and not pretending to stop. He still had a full beer; he was fine.

“No problem, okay,” he said, his tone still very pleasant.

I promptly forgot about his latest “Excuse me” request, and tended to other tables.

“Ma’am? Please, ma’am?” he asked a third time when I finally had time to address whatever it was he needed now.

“Oh yeah, sorry. I got busy back in the kitchen. Another round for you?”

“No, ma’am. Actually, I think you owe me some more money.”

Ah ha. I knew it. I knew it!The change scam.

“I gave you a twenty,” continued Shorty. “You gave me change for a ten.”

“Really?” I asked like I meant I was surprised, not like I was about to prove him wrong. I dug out the bills from the back of my book. “Here’s the money you gave me–a ten and a…a…” Crap. A twenty.

“It’s okay,” smiled the bright-eyed man whose friend simply stared at the table. “We all make mistakes.”

“I am so sorry,” I said, pulling a 10 out of my front-of-the-book cash. “I thought you guys gave me two tens. I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’ve been great,” he laughed. “You’re not an idiot.”

And he handed me back the ten.

Two cabs pulled up. The tall, sunglassed one clutched his brown paper bag to his chest once again. He briefly hugged his shorter buddy the way guy friends do, barely making contact with him. “Later,” he said. And he was gone.

“Bye pretty lady,” smiled the scraped-up one. “You did okay.”

Not really, with my first impressions smugly based on knowing it all. Not really.

He gave me a last smile as he climbed into his cab.

Bye guys. Good luck. Glad I didn’t ruin your first night out.

Two weeks ago, the pleas from the various caterers I work with began in earnest:

“$25 bonus to the first three servers who will work a Thanksgiving dinner in Delray.”

“Extra $20 to anyone who can tend bar on Thanksgiving in Lighthouse Point.”

Tempting, but I had this turkey in the freezer….

A week ago, friends I’ve known for a quarter century announced they’d bought an RV and their first stop was my house for Thanksgiving, if that was okay. Okay? Hardly. Incredibly wonderful? Absolutely.

A week ago, the pleas from my caterers had dwindled to a handful of freaking-out-because-I-am-serving-30-for-dinner requests:

“Cash plus 20 percent gratuity to work Thanksgiving.”

“Gas money plus extra cash tips to serve Thanksgiving dinner north of West Palm.”

Again, tempting, but I had this turkey thawing in the fridge now, and my friends were coming….

Today, as I baked my third gluten-free pie and hoped for the best taste-wise, I got a call from one caterer:

“She’s willing to pay three servers $100 each on top of the gratuity to serve dinner tomorrow. Is there any way you can do it?”

Wow. Seriously tempting, but my turkey is thawed, my house is filled with the wafting scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. And a few more friends say they might stop by….

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I would, but I’m cooking at home.”

“I know, I understand,” he sighed. “It’s a day for family.”

This year, my Thanksgiving family consists of six good friends, my great guy, possibly a second cousin from Mr. RG’s side of his family and said cousin’s girlfriend because they just moved here and I’m it for their SoFla family ties, along with my two Boston Terriers, three Cavalier King Spaniels and one Springer Spaniel. A bartender from work might also show up.

I wouldn’t pass up the first Thanksgiving dinner that I’ve cooked in years to serve dinner to strangers, regardless of how high the ante is raised.

It’s a day for family, and although I will miss RG Daughter and RG Son this year, I am so very thankful for the family joining me in my home tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving.

“We’ll be 7 or 8 when everyone gets here at 6:30,” said the man struggling to pull two of my best tables together.

“No problem,” I smiled. Love a big party. “Let me help you.”

“I’ll take a glass of red while I’m waiting for them.”

All good.

After serving his wine, I asked the gentleman if he’d like to order an appetizer or his dinner.

“No, I’ll wait for the others,” he said.

A half hour passed. My guest still sat alone. Still, he did not order anything else. He almost got testy when I asked him a third time.

“I’m fine for now!”

Okay, okay. Just trying to check on you every ten minutes or so.

Finally, 45 minutes later, two other gentleman showed up.

“Hi folks, can I bring you something to drink while you look at the menu?” I asked.

“No, we’re not having anything,” one replied for both of them.

Wonderful.

A fourth gentleman appeared 15 minutes later and asked for a menu and a beer. By then I was busy with several other tables, but managed to get him his drink fairly quickly.

“Do you have any questions about the menu?” I asked the latest arrival.

“Give me a few minutes,” he almost growled. “I just got here!”

Geez, easy there pal. “I’ll check back in a few minutes,” I said.

Not 30 seconds later, the first gentleman and the just-got-off-work man flagged down my manager to complain saying, “We want to order food; where is she?”

Uh, I was just at your table every 5 to 10 minutes, trying to get orders out of your table for an hour, and now you complain to my manager? Nice.

No problem, said my manager. Just get their orders. Which I did. One sandwiche and one salad.

“Another round?” I asked those with beverages.

“No,” they all said.

A fifth man showed up and ordered, you guessed it, water. A sixth followed 10 minutes later and ordered a beer. Two others completed the group 15 minutes later–an hour and a half after the first guest had pulled my best tables together and been seated. The newly arrived ordered the night’s drink special–waters with lemon.

As I constantly refilled water glasses, ran the limited food orders that nevertheless constantly needed extra this or more of that at different times, I got the gist of this table’s conversation: how to effectively “occupy” a big city location. I couldn’t tell if they were actually planning to occupy a nearby city, or whether it was a discussion based upon conjecture.

“I’ll clear that for you,” I told the sandwich eater who’d placed a napkin and cutlery on his plate, a fairly universal way of indicating, “I’m done.”

“He’s not done! Don’t take that plate!” yelled (yes yelled) one of the water-with-lemon drinkers.

I looked at the plate: one balled up napkin, some smeared ketchup, and half a dozen cold fries remained.

“Leave it,” barked the lemon-water man.

Fine.

Again, I asked if anyone wanted another drink, dessert, etc.

“I don’t have money,” said this lemon-water man to the others, “So I’ll finish his,” he continued, nodding to the guest’s plate I’d tried to clear.

“No thanks, nothing more,” all the others agreed.

And so they remained for the duration of my shift, planning a real or imagined occupation to protest and lament all the financial ills and politicians of the world, but they couldn’t buy their moneyless pal a burger?

They needn’t have questioned their success, however. For on this night, they had effectively occupied my best section for three and a half hours, ordered virtually nothing, and protested about me to my manager.

When I finally managed to clear the final plate at the table, I was approached minutes later by the irate lemon-water man in another section of the restaurant.

“Miss, seems like you resent my being here because I’m only drinking water.”

Are you kidding?

“Sir,” I said, “You are not the only one who has been seated at two of my tables for three hours and ordered nothing to drink or eat.”

“Well, I don’t appreciate you throwing out my cigarettes! Why’d you put them on the dirty plate anyway? I think you really singled me out.”

No really, are you kidding? Just go away.

“Sir, I cleared a plate that had two dirty napkins, several used forks, and what I assumed was an empty cigarette pack left on it. I certainly did not place your cigarettes on that plate to take them on purpose.”

He blankly stared at me. “Oh, you didn’t? You didn’t? Oh. Uh, my mistake, I guess.” Then he extended his hand.

Oh for God’s sake.

I am sure you can predict the tip outcome at this table of know-it-all, protest-it-all, 1960s throw-back wannabes: the food eaters left just under 10 percent. So much for helping out one of your 99 percent brethren.

One man, however, the single beer drinker, appeared almost embarrassed by the rest of the group’s dining-out manners. “How much?” he asked, quickly fumbling with cash in his wallet.

“Just one beer,” I smiled as I handed him his check, because he, at least, seemed to get it.

He gave me two fives. “Keep it,” He said, slightly exasperated, somewhat frustrated. I hoped he wasn’t with me. I don’t think he was.

“Thank you very much, sir,” I said to him. He nodded back.

The group remained long after I had been cut, and they were still there when I clocked out–gesturing and making pounded-fist points to one another. “Don’t worry, I’ll clear their table before I leave,” said my great busser.

“Not much left on it,” I said. “Well, except the water glasses.”

“It’s okay. You go. They kind of a big pain, yes?” he laughed in his accented English.

They came, they occupied, they camped at my best tables, they ran me, and they pretty much stiffed me. Yeah, you could say they were a big pain–annoying representatives of the one percent of customers that ruin your shift. Happily, I get along just fine with the other 99 percent, 99 percent of the time.

To wit for this gal, a birthday reflection itinerary:

Night before birthday–Dinner out with my great guy at a Brazilian steakhouse, which I love because I can eat so much of the food at these places. We are in a food coma within an hour and must go home and recline on the couch to watch reruns of Cheers. Reflective birthday thoughts: Wow, am I full. Wow, am I glad I no longer have to wake up at 5 a.m. to go to work. Wow, Cheers is still very funny.

Birthday morning–RG Daughter calls, just to chat, and then realizes today, not tomorrow, is my birthday. RG Son and I had talked the night before, and I told him that counted as the birthday call. I call an old friend with whom I share a birthday and age, and laughingly tell her we need to agree on yet another new age, say 34; and then we seriously agree that we are simply thankful to be any age today. Reflective birthday thoughts: I will always be a “bratty kid” in the eyes and heart of my aunt, who is like my mother, as she reminds me every birthday.

Birthday Night–My great guy is working, so I insist that my former manager at “Eggs in Hell” join me to see Eric Burden of the Animals fame at Hard Rock. “You’re the only one old enough around here besides me to remember any of their hits,” I tell her. I have never had social time with my former manager, but we have unexpected fun on my birthday, singing and dancing to “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” and all the rest. Reflective birthday thoughts: My former manager is pretty cool now that she’s not my manager, and I hope a friendship continues to flourish.

Later on the Birthday Night–While killing time before my great guy gets off work, I win an $834.00 bonus on a 60-cent bet at a dumb slot machine I never play. I frantically press the “cash-out” button on the flashing thing so no one notices. “I played that machine right before you and didn’t win a damn thing,” says a woman sitting two machines down from me. Reflective birthday thoughts: Now, if I could just figure out a way to win even half that amount every week, I could supplement my income quite nicely. Right. That’s why I get weekly offers for free concert tickets and logo mugs and umbrellas.

Ever Since My Birthday–

Customers of my great October-birthday-too guy invite us on a 50th birthday dinner cruise aboard a beautiful private yacht, complete with live music and crazy colored flashing drink glasses. My great guy and I poach a few minutes of the extravaganza to quietly toast our own birthdays and just about everything else to each other on this fun, fun night off together.

Despite an ongoing learning curve, I continue to make more money in three days at my new evening job than I ever did in six (often 9 or 10 in a row) mornings at the fine-dining egg house. And I get to wear a cotton T-shirt as opposed to a polyester Nehru-jacket-like billowing mess that felt great when the August heat index topped 102 and I had $18 to show for a 7-hour shift. Although I have to pick up extra shifts and catering gigs to dig myself out of the financial hell hole I fell into slinging those expensive eggs for eight months, I am no longer exhausted 24/7 as a result of having to wake up at 5 a.m. every damn day.

Birthday reflective thoughts: I have been breathing a sigh of relief ever since my birthday. It feels decidedly good.

“Morning folks, how is everyone today?” I smiled at the handsome group of six, and not just because my gratuity was now guaranteed. They really were quite striking in all their college-clothing pride.

“Good morning, how are you?” asked Dad.

“Fine, and I hope all of you are, too. Coffee?” I replied as I offered a steaming pot of fresh-brewed java.

“Yes, thank you,” both Mom and Dad said in unison. “And do you have some skim milk?” asked Mom.

“I see all kinds of schools represented here,” I smiled at Mom after nodding “certainly” to her skim milk request. “A family divided?” I laughed.

“Oh, no. Not at all,” said Dad, smiling. Then he pointed to the logo-less ones: “Georgetown,” he said, referring to Daughter. “And Cornell,” he said, referring to the other two good-looking kids.

“Nice!” I smiled back. “But Ithaca, so cold in the winter,” I laughed. RG Son and I had visited that cute town when I took him on his college tour that did not include a stop at Cornell. “Go to a college that touts its tunnel system so you don’t have to go outside for six months, and you won’t see me until you graduate,” I told him more than once during the Upstate New York whirlwind look at 10 colleges, several of which accepted him but all of which he declined in favor of spending four years basking in the fine Ohio winters.

“It’s not that bad,” said a girl who must have been a friend of Son or Daughter.

“And Georgetown!” I said to Daughter, who smiled back at me.

I said what I said next without thinking; I just blurted it out and wished, as I did so, that I could have taken back every word and remained silent and smiling like any good server knows to do. But instead, I said, “I went there, too!”

Someone’s butter knife clattered on a B&B plate. The three seconds of silence that followed my thoughtless comment might as well have been three hours.

“Oh!” smiled Mom with just a hint of a question mark.

“Well, how about that,” said Dad, now gazing at his menu.

Daughter simply stared at me, uncertain what to say.

As I stood there before them in my crisply pressed, formal black and whites, my pen poised to take their orders for egg white omelets and turkey bacon and sides of fresh fruit–because these smart, handsome people had their healthy worlds in hand and futures that could never be anything but bright–I scolded myself for casting doubt on those bright hopes, if only momentarily.

I thought of what I could have, should have said:

“My daughter went there!”

“My son loved all four years he spent there!”

“Gotta love those Hoyas in March!”

But alas, it was too late. So I could only think to myself: Yes, boys and girls, moms and dads, sometimes we choose paths that lead us far, far away from our carefree college days. Sometimes we simply work hard for the money and try to get on in life. I may sling fine-dining eggs full-time and tend bar on-call for my living, but that’s okay on most days, even on those days when it seems like a never-ending, insane challenge.

Mom and Dad, your beautiful, clearly smart kids will be okay, too. Daughter, you’ll be fine wherever life takes you after Georgetown. Work, you see, is just work. The rest is all you.

Thus, I took the slow time at work today to reflect upon the bad, the unbelievable and the good of Season 2011.

The Bad: It Takes A Thief

I never suspected, for a second, I was being conned. It didn’t cross my mind that anything was out of the ordinary–not the first time, not the second, not even when it happened a third time. I could beat myself senseless for having had no sense each time a thief took advantage of their perfect moment to commit their perfect crime.

Papa Thief

He was young and handsome and as well spoken as he was dressed. His two children were adorable, as are most kids in holiday mode at my daytime eatery. This great dad gave the hostess as well as me a bona fide room number. Unfortunately, we were so busy on this particular weekend day, I didn’t look him up before he loaded up his plates and those of his kids with every breakfast buffet morsel to be had. You know the end of this story–name doesn’t match the room. Name doesn’t match any room. Name is that of no one. “Would you know him again if he comes in tomorrow?” asked my manager. “In a heartbeat,” I told her. She voided the sale, “Just this once.” Papa Thief knew better than to return a second time.

Charge-the-Card-and-Bolt Thief

Order the most expensive items on the menu. Charge it to your heavy black granite or whatever material it is credit card. Leave the pen and check presenter just so on the table. Thank me profusely for a wonderful lunch. Then laugh all the way to the beach thinking about me having to cover the paperwork you should have left in the check presenter. Oh, you are a clever one, my pathetic little thief.

Teach Your Children Well Thief

Right, you ate earlier and you want your kids to enjoy a “kids buffet.” Right, the pubescent 14-year-old girl is under ten years old. Right, you’re only drinking coffee as you eat a plate of pastries the younger of your two kids brought you from the buffet, because who would question a cute kid at the buffet? Right, say your kids have to go to the restroom as you leave cash that is two dollars and change short of the actual bill in the check presenter. Don’t bother saving for college for your two wide-eyed urchins who couldn’t look me in the eye. Save it for the bail bondsman.

The Unbelievable: Tipsy

Every French-speaking guest I served tipped me at least 15 percent. Every single one. Every German guest tipped $0.00 to $1.00 on $65.00-plus tabs. Every Dane pretended not to speak English and misunderstand the “suggested gratuity” chart and tip nothing. Every Brit tipped more than 20 percent so as not to be lumped in with the Danes and Germans. Every Scot and Irish lad and lassie asked if the tip was included, and tipped appropriately when I told them it was not. Hispanic men demanded the most service and tipped the least. Hispanic women tipped very well as long as their men weren’t around. Americans still confused the hell out of me with their profuse thanks and lousy tips, just as much as they did with their $20 bills on top of an auto grat for a large party. Just goes to show–you can’t believe anything you hear about who tips what.

The Good: Cheers to the Unsung, Even if They Were a Pain

Cheers to the needy business travelers who actually filled out positive comment cards on my behalf. Cheers to the picky food critic who ran me to death while whining every second who then wrote a note on her check that said the food was lousy but her server was a “10.” Cheers to every surly, miserable guest who surprised the hell out of me with a generous tip–even when I was likely just as miserable and surly toward them.

But RG, what about the guest who stirred your heart and fanned the muse flames? What about…I don’t know…your being above all that, you know, for the sake of the moral of the story? What about…?

I hope the stories and guests and all the rest who inspire my writing return soon. A certain flock does make it a point to roost in our midst during these rainy-season dog days, and I am quite certain they never, ever visit during season. But they are ever so subtle, so quiet, that they are easy to miss, to overlook, to almost ignore.

May my season’s fog lift for once and for all, or at least until October, so that I don’t miss seeing and hopefully appreciating the tiny bit of quiet humanity that they bring to SoFla summertime.

Before anyone feels sorry for a Restaurant Gal who was left home alone on one of the crucial archetypal moments of passage in a teenage gal’s almost grown-up world, understand that I spent my senior year of high school at a then-groundbreaking alternative program once known as “The Early College.” And, being at the end of the hippie era, holding such a prom was never even considered at such a groundbreaking-ly alternative school.

Last night, however, I unexpectedly and unwittingly attended my first prom. I styled my hair myself, tying its fly-away untrimmed length into a tight ponytail while pinning my layered bangs off my forehead with gold clips. I hadn’t seen the inside of a nail salon in weeks, but, oh well. Who could see my nails, anyway, my toes enclosed as they were in clunky black non-skids, and my exposed hands a wreck as they always are from serving and tending bar.

I wore an all-black ensemble identical to at that of least 20 others wearing the same. But in a crowd of 600, no one noticed this prom faux pas.

“Okay, listen up!” our captain shouted at the Darth Vader-esque-clad army of which I had been recruited to be a part at the last minute.

“Remember your prom?” he smiled when we had all quieted down. “All the things you did and didn’t do, and all the things you did that you weren’t supposed to?” The band of soldiers laughed, as I did, even though I had no prom memories of any sort. “Well, it’s all about to happen here tonight, and we’re here to make sure it goes smoothly and that everyone has fun.”

With that, I was assigned to a team of two in charge of placing bread-and-butter plates next to forks, and polishing and precisely placing fancy butter knives on said plates.

My first prom had begun.

“Spring rolls?” I asked impossibly thin, beautiful girls clad in floor-length, jewel-tone gowns trimmed in sparking rhinestones as I passed hors d’oeuvres.

“No thank you,” most shyly smiled into their laps.

“I’ll take one,” most of the guys said, flagging me down every time I passed by.

“Chef doesn’t want to see any leftovers!” barked the captain at one point.

Don’t give me a sales challenge, because I’ll win every time. I made sure to revisit every handsome young man who had eaten more than one of my spring rolls, encouraging them to “take as many as you want.” By the end of the “mocktail” hour, I had them grabbing the tiny rolls by the dozens off my tiny tray. Chef was pleased with my first prom’s first memory–winning the spring-roll maven crown.

Dinner was a somewhat rushed affair, but only by formal banquet standards. To the all-dressed-up-wth-every-place-to-go teenagers longly ready to dance and romance and launch themselves into one of final events of their youth, the pre-set salads and dessert, along with a plated chicken dish, amounted to nothing more than a final hurdle to cross into young adulthood–the sooner the better.

“Are you ready to dance at your prom?” shouted the DJ.

Screams.

“Are you really ready” shouted the DJ.

Louder screams.

“Let’s dance!” shouted the DJ.

It took roughly 4.5 seconds for the dance floor to fill with all 600-plus attendees.

“Clear, clear, clear!” shouted our captain behind the scenes. “Everything! We’re outta here by 11:30!”

Don’t tell me to make quick work of a last-minute on-call job. I’ll clear my station and the one next to mine–teetering stacked plates laden with stripped chicken bones slathered in uneaten bites of mashed potatoes be damned.

“Hey RG!” shouted the captain in my ear as I cleared my last water glass and privately worried that the pulsating and bouncing over-crowded dance floor was about to cave in and bury us all in the basement four levels down.

“Yes?” I shouted back.

“You’re cut! Go home! Thank you!” shouted the captain.

Really? Before the prom queen is crowned? Before the group of misfits at one table finally doesn’t care and dances anyway? Before the cool sports guy finally notices the never-before-noticed cool drama-club president? Before passionate kisses are stolen and after-party plans include rules to be broken?

Don’t ask me twice to go home after a double day, when I have to do it all again at 5 a.m. tomorrow.

Good luck to the beautiful and the awkward, to the brazen and the bashful, to those sporting overly inflated confidence and those about to forget they ever lacked it. Dance the night away, store it away forever, and remember that one night–no matter how perfect or perfectly horrible it is–is but one night. Even prom night.

“I don’t know why I still take a vacation in March,” she said on day two of her stay. I had served her breakfast two mornings in a row, and now, on the third, I considered her my regular. “It’s not like I’m on anyone’s schedule at my age,” she laughed.

I don’t have regulars much anymore–not the kind of regulars I used to see day upon day in the Keys, knowing them well enough to mix their drinks when I saw their car pull in to the parking lot, and knowing just by the way they walked through the front door whether or not to cajole or let be.

Working in a hotel as a server means fleeting good mornings during an always harried breakfast service. If I am lucky enough to make any kind of connection with my guests, they may or may not request my section the next day, because it is, after all, simply breakfast–a meal that at most is a means to an end of sleepiness, and at the least, a necessary hurdle in order to spend the rest of the day at the beach.

And, let’s face it, no one lives at my hotel. I have an average of three to five days to remember cream or no cream with the coffee and scrambled eggs with a side of crisp bacon. Which wouldn’t be difficult to remember, except I serve so many people in a given morning, and there’s only so many derivations of eggs and creamer.

“I guess it’s like a summer vacation,” my new regular continued. “Hard to shake the idea of summers off when your school days are over and you have a real job,” she continued as I poured her a second cup of coffee. “For me, it’s spring break. Can’t not take it,” she shrugged.

“What are you up to today?”I asked my new regular. She was traveling alone, I knew, but that was about all I knew.

“Oh, I’m not sure,” she replied, almost absently, and a sudden silence ensued, during which she pushed back an imaginary stray strand of her cropped gray hair and stirred a second sugar into her steaming coffee. “What would you do?” she asked, suddenly looking right up at me.

With free time? An actual full day off to do anything I wanted to do and not include laundry and grocery shopping and cleaning toilets in the mix? Haven’t experienced that since I moved back from the Keys. And while I am not complaining about this–because season is season, and money has to be made in season to cover the dry spells that always slither their way into your bank account come August and September–I found myself unable to answer my new regular, because I honestly couldn’t remember what it was like to have an entire day stretch freely for hours with only fun choices to consider to fill the time.

“I, um, well, I…” I stammered like the village idiot.

“Oh come on now,” she scolded me. “What do you like to do the most in your free time?”

“Oh well, I mean I like to write and take photographs…”

“I’m not interviewing you about your hobbies young lady,” she laughed–at me. “I’m asking you what would you do if you were me and had the day off to do exactly what you would like to do.”

I knew I had food up in the kitchen for one of my three other tables. I knew table 121 needed more hot water for their tea. I also knew, for the moment, they’d have to wait another moment.

“I’d go to Gulfstream Park and stand at the rail and watch the ponies,” I smiled. “I’d watch a pre-race parade, see which jockey looked tense, and then I might–might–toss a two-dollar bet on a horse whose name was something impossibly girlie, like Diamonds Desire or Rose’s Dream or something.”

Because a wonderful regular of mine in the Keys loved the ponies, and he promised he would take me to Gulfstream Park some time,”When we can do it up right, get dressed up, and go out to a nice dinner after the races.” He had been a wheeler and dealer in something in his day, a day long ago enough to make him old enough to be my father, and he always said as I poured him his CC Manhattan, “If I were 20 years younger…”

The first time my great guy and I went to Gulstream after we moved back from the Keys, we called him, much to his shock and surprise, and told him where we were and asked him for a hot tip.

“Oh, sweetie,” he said, “I’m not watching the races much these days. But I cannot thank you enough for calling me. For thinking of me. Have fun.”

“Do they have a casino there, too?” asked my new regular.

What? I thought, remembering my beloved horsehead, as we called him and his buddies.

“Casino? Lots of tracks have them attached,” said my new regular.

“Oh, yes. Yes,” I laughed, thinking about how my great guy had to drag me out of the casino when I was up $25. “It’s not huge, but it’s so much fun. Less crazy than the Hard Rock.” Where I might have been known to play Love Bug and Sex in the City more than a few times after a tasty mojito at Murphy’s Law and a show at the Improv.

“Good!” she exclaimed. “Tell me how to get there. I like to play the slots, and I’ll bet a horse for you.”

Well, okay then.

On day four of her stay, my regular arrived a half hour before sunrise and 10 minutes before we opened–a full two hours earlier than she normally ate breakfast. I was still setting up my section when she stood in front of me, the hostess gesturing “Sorry!” toward me from behind her.

“I know I’m early, but I didn’t want to miss sunrise,” she said a little breathlessly.

“No problem,” I told her, gesturing toward a front row seat for sunrise in my half-set section. “Sit here and I’ll bring you some coffee. Just give us a few minutes before I can take your order.”

My new regular sat quietly sipping her coffee while I polished knives and steamed juice glasses at the tables adjacent to her.

“I was going to bring my grandson here next year for spring break,” she suddenly said.

“Oh, that would be great!” I said a tad absently. I was behind in my sidework and we opened in 15 minutes. “I’d love to meet him.”

“But I got some bad news yesterday about a medical test I had before I left home,” she said, gazing out at the ocean and the pink clouds that hinted at the imminent arrival of the the orange disk on the watery horizon. “So maybe not.”

I paused in my mindless setting up.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling as inane as that phrase is in such circumstances.

She looked down at her coffee, then up at me.

“I’m not, so you shouldn’t be,” she said, stirring her coffee long after the sugar had dissolved.

Okay.

“I got up this morning to see the sun rise over the ocean. How many people get to do that?” she asked.

I do, six mornings out of seven, and I appreciate it as much as I resent the fatigue that makes it all mine to watch day after day.

“The way I figure it,” she continued, “If I am up before sunrise, I have that much longer of a day. So it’s sunrise for me from now on.”

Oh geez. Okay to that,too.

“And before I forget,” my new regular with a new appreciation for sunrise smiled at me, “This is for you.”

She handed me a thick wad of fives and ones.

“I won this on a high odds loser who turned out to be a winner,” she laughed. “It’s all yours.”

“Thank you,” I said, awkwardly shoving the bills in my apron pocket. “Did you have fun, I mean, you know…”

“My dear, I had a wonderful day. I did exactly as you would do. And now I want to enjoy sunrise over the ocean on my last vacation day.” With that, she turned her back to me and toward the ocean.

I can only wish my new regular many more spring breaks and to hell with the tests. I hope she enjoys next year’s spring break with her grandson. I hope I remember to watch my six sunrises a week over the ocean for what they are worth–a longer day to live it all.

On a day when I heard my beloved horsehead had passed away before I could call him one more time, I will toast each and every sunrise that I hope never to take for granted again, and remember the rare regular who, for such a brief time, transcends the everyday server/bartender-guest relationship and suddenly seems like a friend too precious to lose.

“They’re so cute!” someone or 20 says every day. Then one of the someones gets splattered with the cute little scrawny birds’ droppings, and suddenly the scrawny black birds are not so cute anymore. I liken them to city pigeons up north–rats with wings. But that’s just me.

Because once they get done with the cute act of fluttering about and nibbling on the cleared leavings piled high on a tray everyone is too busy to hoist on a shoulder and carry inside, they dive bomb live tables where people are still eating, and in some cases, attack the food as I carry it to a table.

“Sorry, sir,” I smile and shrug several times a shift, and always when it is the busiest. “I’ll bring you fresh [toast, hash browns, eggs, waffles, pancakes, bacon, whatever] right away.”

And then I want to swat the stupid feathered things for putting me in the weeds and crashing the kitchen at always the worst possible moment during the breakfast rush. I love my lead cook. And I am certain he at least tolerates me because I don’t let my food sit on the line. But he is a man who prefers never to deviate out of his zone, and to have to ask him for another plate of eggs he just made, while 15 other orders hang on the line, well…it’s not pretty.

“What the hell?” he’ll shout. “Didn’t I just watch you take that order outta here?”

“Uh, yes. Yes, you did,” I will say. “But, well, the birds…”

What he has to say about the birds isn’t so pretty, either.

I assumed most, if not all, of my coworkers shared the cook’s and my view of the breakfast birds. Until one angled itself right into the blades of a slow-spinning ceiling fan and landed in a heap next to a couple enjoying eggs benedict and pancakes.

“Oh my God!” cried the women.

“Oh no!” echoed the man.

Oh crap, I thought, watching the poor pain-in-the-ass bird lay there, stunned. Or dead. Or dying. Whatever its condition, it was a now a breakfast stopper.

For a few seconds, the other servers continued to bustle about, pouring juice and balancing trays. The busboys seemed nonplussed as well. Tables needed to be cleared and reset.

Leave it to a scrawny black bird to bring everything to a complete and total standstill.

“We have to get him out of here,” I said to no one, because no one was really listening to me.

“He could be suffering,” said a woman sitting at another table adjacent to the fallen bird.

“Mommy, is he okay?” asked a little boy, turning his face into his stricken mother’s shoulder.

“Yes, sweetie,” she said, hugging him close. “He’s just resting.”

And for another moment that felt like an hour, the three tables, the bussers, the other servers and myself stopped and just stared at the unmoving black feathered heap on the ground.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” suddenly grumbled a man sitting four tables away from the immobile bird.

With that, he grabbed his cloth napkin, which would need to be replaced, and walked over to fallen feathered one and gently scooped it up. My manager seemed to appear out of nowhere then, and she urged the man to allow her to tend to the bird.

“Fine,” he said. “Just take it away from here.”

Yes, please.

And as she did, the breakfast shift energy slowly returned to its normal harried pace.

“Just in case anyone is wondering,” my manager said the following morning at our pre-shift meeting, “The bird is drinking water and eating a little.”

What?

“He’s a survivor, that one,”she continued. “You know the one–only has one leg. Been around here for months.”

“Oh, ‘Hoppy’” said one of the servers.

Hoppy?

“Yep, him,” said my manager.

They named the flock?

“Wow. Glad to hear that!” said a busser.

Oh, come on now.

“I put him in a corner of the alley, left him water and some hash browns, and he drank some water and ate a few potatoes,” smiled my manager, which I was sure was the first time I have seen her smile in the month I’ve worked for her.

“Really?” I asked.

“I have a thing about birds,” she said, her stern don’t-mess-with-me attitude firmly back in place.

“Well, great!” I said. “Glad he’s okay.”

Once upon a long time ago, a flock of noisy D.C. crows decided to roost in my yard. Day after day, they drove me insane with their constant shrieking and cawing. Until one day, when RG Daughter came inside to plead with me to save a too-young-to-be-out-of-the-nest juvenile bird that lay stunned and barely moving at the base of a backyard tree.

“Oh, geez,” I said, when she showed me where he was. Now the incessant cawing above sounded like a family calling out to a lost loved one–a kid, at that.

I wrapped the poor thing in a dirty towel and placed him in an empty drywall bucket. With a sad and very concerned RG Daughter in tow, I drove an hour and a half through rush hour traffic from upper Northwest D.C. to some outer P.G. County wild bird rescue place, just to give the young bird half a chance.

I have no idea if the D.C. bird survived, but I told RG Daughter he did.

To hear my manager tell it, “Hoppy” will soon be back to graze for seconds. In a way, that would actually be fine.