(e) bitter waitress

sunday dinner bore. after i wowed them all w/ wit/charm, stephenwolf’s magic carpet ride came on when i was cleaning up my last table. was lifting an empty plate at the time when those first rifts played. it stood frozen in my hand. i imagined breaking out into an uncontrollable dance sequence. flailed my arms, legs--rocked out to that oldie. i couldn’t help but go to the other end of the pub, sarah’s section. grabbed someone’s wrist just as they were about to put fork to mouth. his perogy flying, i sang into his hand w/ all the passion i could muster. dropped it, and continued to perform for my sparse audience, mainly couples. wait wait wait i said to myself. dancing wildy on a slow sunday night is no recompense for this pathetic place. the lyrics finally broke in:

I like to dream yes, yes, right between my sound machine On a cloud of sound I drift in the night Any place it goes is right Goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here.

My inward dancer flicked the glass plate onto the ground. I picked up the left over sides of salad dressing and whipped the congealed liquid all over the place. I grabbed the ketchup bottle, sang into that as a mic, walked towards sarah’s section, swung the bottle to move to the music, and finally, triumphantly, threw it to the ground. the regular smash and burn of that fucking thing had no effect on me–there’s really nothing more irritating than cleaning up a broken ketchup bottle—till i went up to a random couple, with their one glass of wine each, swilled two in one go, stood up on the last table, and let my hips go wild. then walked outta that fucking place. i looked thro the window of the door, half filled with regret, as sarah stood clapping.