Sydney: A "Wonder"-ful Waitress

Working in the food service industry is no walk in the park. Having done brief stints at fast food restaurants along with a memorable experience doling out purple slushies across from "The Big Wheel" when I wasn't busy chucking chicken by "The Boomerang," I wasn't too altogether thrilled when Sydney's winter employment turned out to be waitressing. This is a girl who is confused by the complexities of a bread tie. Her secret recipe for making chocolate milk is equal parts chocolate syrup to milk. Her life motto is "My way or the microwave." On a plus note, no one is cuter in an apron than my kid. So off she went, to learn the trade that will keep her from the brink of poverty in between archaeological digs.

 After letting her settle in for a few weeks, Brad and I finally decided to go out for lunch at Sydney's place of employment. First of all, and with absolutely no prejudice on my part, Sydney looked adorable. My baseline of waitressing begins and ends with "Flo" from the 80's sitcom Alice so the first thing I noticed was that Sydney was going to have to start working on her one-liner wise-cracks. She'll also have to start chewing gum like a cow. I proudly watched as she seamlessly wove her way through tables to get to us. "Mom," she whispered urgently, apparently in the midst of a waitressing crisis. I made a discreet nod to my husband, acknowledging that, of course, Sydney would seek council from me with my vast food service background. "Yeah," Brad interjected, ".remember how you were reprimanded for filling up sundae container lids with hot fudge and dipped cookies in it in between customers?" I frowned, remembering how I lost my lucrative drive-in window position with the cool spy-wear head-set for that little exploit. Back to Syd. "Mom, do you have a hair-band?" I didn't even have to think about it. Sacrificially, I ripped my carefully-coiffed ponytail free to save Sydney from the brink of disaster. Smiling gratefully, she immediately turned and handed it to the woman at the table behind us who was horrified that her waitress had plucked a hair-band from a stranger to accommodate a customer request. "Oh no, it's okay," Sydney reassured her, "That's my mom." Now it was my turn to be horrified as the woman tried not to look disgusted as she plucked my hair strands from the tie.

Syd wrestling with the idea that the customer is always right.

I admired Syd's shorthand as she wrote down our order, noticing her little "w/" to indicate "with lemon." Peering over her shoulder, I wondered why she didn't abbreviate water as h2o. When the water arrived, I wondered why the straw was significantly shorter than the glass. When I almost flipped backwards from my stool about a thousand times, I wondered why there weren't the required-by-law four rubber stoppers protecting the bottom of each leg. As she flawlessly carried my dirty dishes away, I wondered why she couldn't apply that same technique to our household. I complimented her chic Vera Wang boots and then wondered why she wasn't wearing orthopedic shoes with proper arch support. Shuffling through his wallet, Brad weighed his options, wondering if he should tip her the pile of available ones or the fifty. Watching her parents leave the restaurant, Sydney smoothed out the crumpled ones and wondered why she hadn't bothered to invite them to work before.