McCool's Speakeasy

At McCool's Speakeasy, she's offering up the 2001 virtual version of the speakeasies of Prohibition. Open 24 hours, no prohibition here. Always entertaining, not always coherent, this after hours joint is your number 1 spot for pop-cultural speculation. Tonight at McCool's Speakeasy she's serving up the waitress rant in 6 juicy parts. From Quentin Tarrantino Tipping Theory to Waitress Fantasies, join in and don't forget to tell her that avivalasvegas sent you.

Check out the archives for Part I and II of the Waitress Rant!

McCool's Speakeasy

PART III of The Waitress Rant.

Quantin Tarrantino Tipping Theory explained. Where do you fit in?

Some 'Mr. Pinks' simply don't leave a tip. Like the one in Reservoir Dogs. Usually, these ‘Mr. Pinks’ avoid any friendly exchange and/or eye contact with the waitress in order to justify their behaviour. If this describes you, you're not fooling anyone, you know.

Others succumb to leaving the 'tip', or a small percentage of it. They compensate for their bitterness about it by adopting the attitude that leaving the 'tip' entitles them to be assholes. These people feel that they should 'get their money's worth', so to say.

Another 'Mr. Pink' strategy is to look REALLY HARD for a reason not to leave the proper 'tip' and inevitably, find one. After a while, life's 'Mr. Pinks' with their obvious attachment to money and abuse of power comes as no surprise to a waitress. In the movie this plays out in Mr. Pink making his living as a bank robber.

In order to survive in waitress land, you must be able to identify the 'Mr. Pinks', and believe me, it's not hard. These are the customers you keep superficially happy, and thereby off your back. How? One such strategy is to keep their coffee cups full, but it is rare that you will ever change a Mr. Pink.

PART IV: WAITRESS FANTASIES:

However, it doesn't hurt to fantasize.

My favorite waitress fantasy is to imagine a waitress nude-no just joking!-imagine a waitress revolution where we, waitresses, could enter the occupation of our most loathsome 'Mr. Pink' and exhibit the same behavior to the figurative Mr.Pink as he or she does to us.

Let's go a little further with this and imagine that this particular loathsome 'Mr. Pink’ works, as a bank teller (how's that for karma). So we, waitresses, would enter the bank and while in line, wave at the teller for service. If not wave, then glare at him/her to hurry up.

We might even stop the bank manager walking by and say: "could you tell the teller to hurry up?" Or maybe, we would interrupt the teller by tugging on his/her sleeve while he/she is busy with another client, and demand service in the most condescending way.

Last but not least, we would definitely refuse outright to pay any service charge in question.

But like most fantasies, this one's better left that way because reality just screws it all up. First of all, in the real world, the waitress fantasy would not be tolerated in a bank.

The bank would not have it because banks are not 'free for all' zones (Remember? "No 'tip', no chaos," :see my last column for this theory.) Second of all, in reality, there's always the aftermath to consider.

If I played out this fantasy in reality, I'd only feel terrible afterwards. I would realize that my behavior was ultimately a reflection upon myself and my own self-respect and self-dignity.

And day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, (whoops! skipping again!), I tell myself that same type of punishment will reach and haunt my 'Mr. Pinks' just as it would me and I try to leave it at that...but I can't, I just can't! (After all, I'm a Scorpio!).

PART V

Soo, I see writing this as a compromise: a rant written, in solidarity with all my waitress brothahs and sistahs out there sharin' my woes and dare I be idealistic, to teach something (one lit'l thing) to the lost souls that inspired it. I leave you with my very own top ten list (a la David Letterman):

TOP 10 WAITRESS 'TIPS' TO ANYONE WHO'S WILLING TO LISTEN

10.	If you don't like tipping, don't eat out. Tipping is fun!!!, part of restaurant etiquette and it's the reason for the high standard of service in Canada (among other countries). Not to mention, it's fairly inexpensive to eat out here, even with the tip. If you go to England, to give one example, you'll end up paying twice what you pay here and sure, you don't have to leave a tip but the service sucks!!!
9.	The menu is there for a reason.
8.	If a waitress has 10 tables, each table takes approximately 3 minutes to order and wants their coffee pronto...Look around asshole! You're not the only one in the restaurant (or the universe for that matter).
7.	Water with no ice is not an option.
6.	Poached eggs come either soft, medium or hard. There is no in between.
5.	If you are in a rush to get to the airport, for god's sake, don't stop at a busy restaurant. Hit a Starbucks (they spinelessly cater to people like you).
4.	If you're hungover, we're probably hungover too.
3.	There is beauty in simplicity.
2.	KARMA

and drumroll please, the #1 waitress tip to anyone who's willing to listen is:

1.	'Coffee' is NOT a socially acceptable homosapien response to 'Hi! How are you?'

And that about sums it up folks! My first active attempt to revolt and make the world a better place. And while I'm at it, I thought I'd revise the Ten Commandments (hell! go big or go home, I say) adding in the eleventh (which consequently, you can sing if you so desire)

COMMANDMENT #11:
RESPECT THY WAITRESS, R-E-S-P-E-C-T...EVEN 'JUST A LIT'L BIT!' (IF NOT FOR THEM, FOR THYSELF!)

Ciao Babies! Until next time. It's been a virtual, verbal delight!

Check out the archives for Part I and II of the Waitress Rant!