Please Don't Fire Me!

Chicken, pepper, feta sammies, water. Later bowl of LIFE cereal.

I'm starting my new job at a restaurant, which is rather like Lucky Boy, but with table service, maybe some ref to the old Jubilation Deli. The inside is a creamy yellow, the tables small (geez, Spoletto?) Marta and Claire both work there and got me hired on. It's my first dinner service, and I feel like I don't quite have a handle, but I'm a good server and I can wing it, and the girls will be there to give me some guidance and help if I land in the weeds. We serve the first, late afternoon rush. After that I have to just pop home to change or something, I think I wore the wrong thing.

I go home (to my parents' house) to change, and everything is chaos. We have unexpected company that's come to stay the night, there's people everywhere, I get trapped into one conversation and situation after another. I can't stand this. I have to go, don't you people understand? But I simply can't get away. My 15 minute break to change has certainly moved past an hour now. I'm so fucked. I finally finally finally get away and (run? on all fours? I think so.) go back.

I knock at the back door of the restaurant. The wife of the owner pair opens and looks down at me. I literally drop to my knees and begin begging for them not to fire me. She asks me something about it all being "totally retarded," and I agree, I think she realizes that obviously something beyond my control happened. I head in and down some stairs. But then I realize that maybe she asked if I was totally retarded, and I said yes, and now she thinks she's employing a person with special needs. And come to think of it, my speech does seem very halting through this whole experience. I don't think I'm retarded, though.