Chardonnay lifestyle, champagne budget

When I waited tables, my strategy was simple: get the least busy section, actively resent any customers that found their way to the third floor balcony, demonstrate that resentment with not so subtle implications that their dress was ridiculous and their children insufferable, and finally to hide in the kitchen eating as much blue cheese dressing on crackers as possible.

On the other hand.

Her: I can’t talk, I’m going into work.
Me: Liar! It’s only 4.
Her: I know. I decided to start going in earlier now that I can.
Me: Oh dude, did someone find out you don’t have to teach so late?
Her: No. I just feel like I should go in earlier now that I can.

You, like me, are annoyed, incredulous, miffed. Go. In. Earlier. It’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard. I try to make excuses for her. Figure it must be the money, even if they do only make a buck fifty an hour without tips. But I figure it must be that, especially since when I talked to Mamie in the middle of the afternoon the other day and asked what she was doing, she said: “Putting money in my piggy bank.” If it’s money for that damn piggy bank, then I’m worried.

But it’s not. “Are you being, like, responsible?” I try dubiously. This is a topic that makes me supremely uncomfortable.

Her, exasperated: God. No. It’s just I’m a real bitch to everyone. And I don’t want them to be able to say, Yeah, but Mamie comes in thirty minutes later.

Me: So, you just want to feel justified in being mean as hell to everyone?

Her: YES! Gotta go.

Me: You’re crazy. I bet you’re the one, at the end of the night, that has to find out what everyone else has made.

And here, she sort of loses it. Partly, I think, because I’ve slowed her down, cost her three precious minutes of her life which must be lived atfullspeed. And partly because she’s sick. Some sort of weird competitive disorder which extends to EVERYTHING.

Her—a series of seeming nonsequiters at top volume: Of course!!! ALWAYS win! If not, I throw a tantrum!! And then, I make excuses!! Get the hundred dollar bottle of wine!!!

Okay, so this type of thing still throws me for a loop, even though it shouldn’t. Before I knew her better, I generally thought of Mamie as a high-roller who was mortified by the mere insinuation that money had to be made, who shied away from any aspect of the dollar except the spending of it.

The other night, she asked a sommelier to serve her a glass of his preference. His preference turned out to be a twenty dollar chard. Despite the fact that she hates chardonnay, it was a TWENTY DOLLAR GLASS. She tipped him eight, while recoiling inside.

See, but I almost forgive him. There was a time, I would have thought Mamie, upon receiving the bill, would have looked at the charge and nodded to herself: yes, that is adequate.

Her, still screaming: Out of the last twenty nights—STOP LAUGHING! LISTEN TO ME—out of the last twenty nights, my sales were higher NINETEEN times out of the TWENTY!! I HAVE TO GO!!