NANOWRIMO Day 7- 20K BABY!

Click here to start at day 1 if you haven't read it

((Just a quick note. At the end of this post you'll have read 20k of what is on it's way to becoming a 50k novel! as 11k is on track right now, I'm HIGHLY proud of this. also, I've decided that the official working title is... "Stuck in the Funhouse of Estrogen" .... and on with what this is all about!))

“I don’t see how that is possible.” Crystal replied.

“O, there you are Marti! Can you watch over my tables, I wanna go smoke one for five.”

“Sorry Sean, I’m checked out.”

“Dang. You are the only one I trust to watch my tables. Everyone else like to go smoke too… Crystal?”

“I’m on a double. I’m outta here so soon as I get these folded.”

“Crap! Thanks a lot girls.”

“You can always wait till they leave.”

“Man, I need a cigarette now.” He said, before leaving us to be.

“I thought you’d be closing tonight.” Crystal told me after he left.

“Yea, but Sage let me go cause’ I’m not feeling too good. I had a dizzy spell earlier.”

“That’s not good.”

“No, and it’s no fun either. My parents are worried about me. Mom is convinced that I got drunk last night.”

“Did you?” Crystal asked. “I know you like your Bicardi drinks.”

“No. I was out like a nightlight that burned out by 4:30. I was only awake then cause Spencer made lasagna. The kind with a lot of meat and cheese.”

Crystal laughed. “Sounds like a baked heart attack.”

“It’s delicious. But right after that I went straight back to sleep and slept plum through till 1pm this afternoon. Apparently I slept though Spencer coming to bed and getting up. It’s insane. And then today I’ve been burping or feeling gas bubbles crawl up my throat. I swear, it’s insane.”

Crystal just laughed again. “That time of the month already?”

“I don’t think so. I’m only a week late from getting the shot. It’s supposed to take several months for your body to go back on automatic.”

“Well you sound sane enough. Maybe it’s a virus of some sort. Can you get dizzy from viruses?”

“I don’t know.” I said. “We almost done?”

“Yea, about twenty more.”

“Good. I want to go home and sleep.”

“Really? You must really have caught a flu bug or something. You’ve only been up for seven hours.”

“I know, but I could sleep for two days without surfacing to wake once.”

“That’s bad.”

“Yea, so are you good for your bills yet?”

“I did pretty good. About 200 total for yesterday and today.”

That’s not too bad. 50 a shift. I’m assuming that you didn’t make so much last night?”

“I did ok. I had 3 sets of twosie tables, so it’s not like I could have made more if I was better, I got 25% at each table. That’s about as good as one can expect.”

“True.” I said rolling the last set of silverware. “That should be 300. Let’s go see Sage.”

We both gathered our check out receipt and began calculating our tip out and collecting the money. Sage got us out of there quickly and I left with 95 dollars. Not quite 100, but still pretty good. I dropped it all off at the bank before heading home.

Home Again

Spencer was up, as it was still early and not even ten o’clock.

“You’re early.”

“Sage let me go after I got dizzy about two hours in.”

“I’m sorry love. Any fun stories?”

“Well… you know how you said to know them dead? Nobody died, but an old lady did get hit upside the head. With a ceramic popcorn bowl. It was the kind of day that is only brought on by kid’s night.”I said. “Also, there was a guy who seemed normal enough though he ordered shrimp with baby poop.” I said, referring to the lovely code that we servers called guacamole because of the disgusting-looking trail it leaves on anything it touches. “He went through his pockets to see if he could find a gift card and he had this in there.” I said, holding up my five dollar tip I got from that table. It was still folded to show Abraham Lincoln wearing a baseball cap.

My husband sat towards me and grabbed Abe out of my hand. “Now that,” he said, placing a huge emphasis on that, “is cool.”

“Well it was a 45 dollar table. Technically I should have been tipped more than just five dollars. Still, it is pretty cool-looking. Anyways, then a teenaged boy brought in a saxophone so that he could play happy birthday on it to his grandpa. It was a rather weird day.”

“Was the old lady OK?”

“I assume so. She was conscious about ten minutes after the popcorn bowl attack.”

“She get a free dinner out of it?”

“And a gift card I think. Crys had that table tonight, not me.

“How did a popcorn bowl make it to Applebee’s?”

“Kid was allergic to potatoes. Popcorn was his mother’s solution to that problem.”

“You’re kidding me. Popcorn as a substitute for potatoes? That sounds disgusting.”

“Apparently not to kids.” I said, taking off my second Applebee’s polo and throwing it in the dirty clothes.

“You mind doing the laundry for me so I’ll have that shirt cleaned by tomorrow?” I asked, walking around the room in my bra and black slacks. “And can I also talk you out of a back massage?”

“No foot massage tonight?” He asked, with a hint of relief in his voice.

“Well if you really want I’ll let you give me the works. I’m just in dire need of a good back rub”

“Let me put the clothes in first.” He said, taking the shirts to the laundry room. I cleared the bed of blankets and sheets, piling them up next to the bed. I only kept one firm pillow for my head which I placed at the top. I then took my pants off and laid down on the bed on my stomach. I laid there breathing deeply for another few minutes before Spencer came in and started in on my back.

“Where’s it hurt the most?” He asked me, choosing to start with my shoulders this time.

“Right were you are. It’s mainly my shoulders and neck.” I said, relaxing my body completely. “And feet.”

“Always the feet.”

“Always. As long as I work at Applebee’s anyways.”

“Well I’m going to focus on this back problem for a while.”

“Sounds fabulous to me. Thanks Spence.” I said as he began to knead into my left shoulder.

“You know, this would be easier without your bra on.”

“You just want me to take it off.”

“I won’t deny that I think you don’t need it at the moment, but I’m working on your shoulders and your straps are in the way Dear.”

“Well then unhook it. Like you said, I don’t really need it to get a massage.” I said. By the time I finished speaking I felt the sides of my bra drop to my sides and my boobs fall to the surface of the bed. That was fine with me. I lifted my body up from the bed high enough to slide my arms out of the bra straps and laid back down.

Spencer had my left shoulder feeling relaxed and painless after about five minutes of concentrating on it. We had a system worked out so that for the most part I could zone off and daydream while he worked on me, but when the pain was gone and I felt all relaxed and free of the pain I was supposed to form a thumbs up sign with my hand. I often saved the thumbs up for a few minutes after the pain disappeared. I enjoyed the feeling of the superfluous massage a little too much. Still, minus the possibility of causing his hands to ache, there was no harm to my letting it go on a little bit longer than was strictly necessary. A few moments after I gave my thumbs-up he moved onto my neck, making sure to massage the few muscles that were in between my shoulder and neck. He kneaded my lower neck and I sighed with pleasure.The nook of my neck had hurt so much. I gave him a thumbs up after another five minutes, at which time he switched to kneading and rubbing my right shoulder.

I lay there and closed my eyes, feeling the pain bubble up in my consciousness and slowly evaporate away until my muscles felt like brand new. This time when I gave the thumbs up he reached for my right foot and began stroking it, the pressure increasing every time he completed a stroke. “No more thumbs up for you. You relax. I want you to be practically asleep. I’m just going to go back and forth on each foot.” And that’s what he did. He got done with a stroke that had a lot of pressure applied to it and switched over to my left foot.

Starting over with the soft caressing strokes on my left foot, he raised it to his mouth and kissed the bottom of my foot causing me to at once feel the chill of unrestricted desire rush to every part of my body, and to giggle like a school girl. He then steadily increased the pressure of each stroke as he had done with the first foot. He then switched back to the right foot and began to use his thumb and forefinger to press deep circles into my foot following the line of each toe several times. The pressure often made my tows curl but it felt so good when he dropped that foot and went to repeat the motions on my left foot.

The next time he switched back to my right foot made me fight not to kick him. He used his finger tips to tap on the sole of my foot, again increasing in pressure as he went. The problem was that the first few seconds felt like tickling. I had the same problem when he switched to my left foot.

Finally he took my right foot back and kneaded it deeply before soothing my very relaxed feet with strokes that, unlike the first set, went from being firm to feather-soft. Then he put his palm around my toes and stretched them back, and made sure that any toe holding pressure in it was popped before going onto the left foot and repeating the entire closing sequence. While he kneaded my left toe I was experimentally flexing and relaxing my right foot. It once again felt brand new without any trace of pain.

 I never really got to sleep during the whole process, I was too tuned into the feel of his hands caressing and pressing and kneading and stroking my feet. At the end of the left foot’s message he did the same stretch to my toes as he had done with the right foot, only he ended that one by slowly sucking on each of my toes that were not my big toe. He’d learned from experience that my big toe just felt weird to me.
“How was that?” He asked, and just as I turned towards him to reach for a cover he began chopping at my middle and lower back area with his wrists and the side of his hands. I re-situated myself and let my back surrender to the same fate as my feet. Spencer chopped at my back, kneaded it, stroked it, and did a few of the pressure points with his forefinger and thumb that he had done with my feet.

“Excellent.” Was all I said as I let his hands work their magic. I actually did fall asleep as he was working on my back, and when I woke up in the morning we were spooned together, him holding me tightly against himself. And I did actually wake up in the morning the next morning, which made me feel much better about myself.

The first thing I thought when I woke up was how amazing my body felt physically. Not a single bone or muscle was causing me pain. It was then that I remembered the amazing massage I’d talked my husband into giving me. I sighed at the memory. And at the memory of the little extras he threw in even knowing that I’d be asleep when he finished. The second thought I had the next morning was that I needed to go to the bathroom. Immediately. So I wiggled out of Spencer’s embrace, or tried to anyways. He wasn’t anxious to let me go. “Spence,” I hissed at him, “let me go, I have to go to the bathroom. Badly.” He reluctantly let me go, moaning to consciousness as he did so. I rolled out of the bed and half-skipped, half-ran to the bathroom.

For all the dramatics it took to get me into the bathroom, it took me no time to get back out. I was back in bed, nuzzled up to Spencer within three minutes time. He kissed the back of my neck and together we drifted back off to sleep.

Octopus Pancakes

Spencer woke up next, about three hours later, and his rousing caused me to come back into consciousness. “Thanks for the massage last night.” I murmured, still half asleep.

“It was no problem. I enjoy seeing the look of calm relaxation on your face after all the kinks are worked out of you. It even shows when you are passed out.” He said, kissing the back of my neck.
“I feel relaxed.” I said stretching my legs out and flexing my toes like I had done last night.”
“Hey, you took my covers!” Spencer said, overcompensating the small crime by stealing all of my covers and wrapping them around himself.

“Spencer!” I squealed, grabbing for the covers. “It’s cold!”

He undid a little of the covers he had stolen from me and pulled me in close to him so that the small amount he allowed me covered me up. I pulled the cover up to my chin and nestled closer to Spencer. We stayed cuddled up like that for about thirty minutes. I drifted in and out of sleep, and Spencer alternated between kissing the side of my neck and tracing my curves with his fingers and hand. After thirty minutes I turned to face him, taking some of the cover with me.

“Know what I want?” I asked, grinning widely as I looked into his eyes.

“To not have to work tonight?”

“Actually, no. After last night, I need a normal night shift.”

“To sleep more?”

“Not at the moment… maybe after breakfast.”

“What do you want, Marti?”

“I want octopus pancakes!”

“Can’t they be regular pancakes?”

“No! They have to be octopi! With eight tentacles each.”

“What will you do to me if I make one with seven tentacles?”

I didn’t have a reply to that. “Please Spence. For me?”

“You know how much you sound like a little kid. Octopus pancakes. Seriously.”

“Seriously.” I confirmed. “I’ll love you for the rest of forever.”

“All for octopus pancakes?” He asked, surrendering to my whim and getting out of bed.

“All for octopus pancakes. That’s why I married you after all.”

“I thought you married me because of my Valentine’s day heart-shaped pancakes.”

“That was a factor too.” I admitted, following his lead out of bed. I looked over to the mirror before searching for my jeans. “Yuck. My hair is the worst right now.”

“You’re cute.” Spencer said, heading to the kitchen, hopefully to make my pancakes. I threw on a plain black t-shirt and pulled out my purple octopus hat that my mom bought me when I was a senior for mismatch day. Any excuse to wear hats in school. I thought it’d go well on my head while I ate the octopus pancakes. Yea, maybe I was a bit juvenile for a 27 year old woman, but at least I knew how to have fun. I then got out my crazy purple polka-dotted socks and padded after Spencer to the kitchen.

“How many of these things do you want?” He asked me.

“Three sounds good.” I replied. He turned around to look at me and laughed.

“Nice coordination.”

“I thought so.” I said, moving one of the tentacles of my hat out of my eyes.

“You want to wait and eat them all at once or have them one after another?”

“Gimme the first one, stack they other two.”

“You sure are bossy today. You are going to eat these, right. Not like the pizza.”

“I wasn’t hungry then. As all I’ve had since then is a plate of fries, I’m good and hungry and ready for the pancakes.” I said, after about a three second pause I added, ‘Crap. Gotta go to the bathroom.” And ran to the bathroom.

When I got back, my first pancake was all ready for me, smothered in peanut butter and syrup. Spencer was working on the second pancake. I counted the tentacles. “Thanks Spencer. This looks great. Eight tentacles and everything!” I took my fork and began cutting the tentacle closest to me. I soon discovered that a single piece of tentacle was too small so I started stacking them up on my fork, eating half to three-quarters of a tentacle at a time. When I had nothing but the body of the octopus left Spencer handed the plate with my stacked pancakes over to me and set to making himself some. I made up the stacked pancakes with my peanut butter and syrup toppings and moved my half-of-an-octopus to sit on top of the others, then I began eating the tentacles of the other two octopi.

“This is delicious.” I said to Spencer, cutting anther tentacle up before eating it.

“Thanks, my wife is a demanding woman, making me perfect the art of octopus pancakes.”

I laughed. “Well it’s good that you are so attentive to your wife. I’m a very lucky girl.”

“You said it, not me.” Spencer said sitting beside me and beginning to eat his normal, circle-shaped pancake. “So what’s the plan for the day?”

“I work tonight at 4:30. Unless some unforeseen circumstance comes up that will be a closing shift. I should probably eat something before going to work.” I walked over to the fridge and opened a fresh can of Pepsi, then went back to my octopus pancakes which were starting to lose the warmness that makes fresh baked pancakes the best breakfast food in the world. I sipped from my Pepsi and ate another bite, now eating through all three layers of octopi bodies. “Other than work I’m blank. Can do anything. You got anything in mind?”

“I was thinking we might go down to the gym and work out a little bit.” Spencer said. We had won a year’s pass to the small local gym located not far from Applebee’s. We didn’t use it a lot, but every now and then we’d drive over to the gym and work out for an hour or so.

“That’s random. Ok, just let me change into work out clothes.” I said, as I finished up my pancakes.
I went to the bedroom and traded my jeans for a pair of black sport-shorts and my usual bra for my red sports bra. I put my black t-shirt back on and discarded the purple octopus hat. At first I thought it might be fun to keep on my head while doing the treadmill, but at the possibility of having it fall off my head while running, I decided it was best left at home. I then joined Spencer in the main room and began lacing up my converse hi-tops. In less than five minutes we were running down the stairs of the apartment, and climbing into the car. I thought for a moment of the irony of driving to a place to work out, when we could have ran around the block or something instead. Oh well, I didn’t dwell on it for long because I remembered that as insane as that sounded, we were not paying for the membership to the gym, so it’s not like we were choosing to pay for something that we could have gotten for free. The only way we’d go broke exercising at the gym was if we used too much gas getting there and back.

When we got to the gym I again had to use the bathroom, so I did that, stashing my purse in a locker, and then both Spencer and I headed to the treadmills. That was my exercise of choice. I especially liked how if, when running on the treadmills, you threw your head back so that you were standing straight and could see the ceiling, it looked like a beautiful sunny day with a small covering of clouds. The artists designing the room had done an amazing job, it wasn’t just a bunch of plumbing hanging there like you find in most gyms.

I stayed on the treadmill for about thirty minutes, running a total of about two and a half miles. I made a note to myself that I’d do well to come here more often. As my job is waitressing, which often requires you to be quick on your feet, I’d benefit from some serious time on the treadmills. Spencer stayed on the treadmill for about ten minutes before leaving my side and going to the weight room. I decided to go see how he was doing and stepped off of my treadmill.

I walked down the hall past the bakery counter where the gym sold healthy food to snack on while you were there. Since it was still morning, I could smell freshly baked muffins sitting in the window display as I passed it on my way to the weight room. From the smell of it, they were serving blueberry muffins. I continued my way to the weight room, and when I did I thought I was delusional. My husband is at maximum 250 pounds, and he was bench pressing the equivalent of 500 pounds. I’d never actually caught him lifting weights or bench pressing. I knew from life that he was highly beneficial to have around when moving things from one room to another, but he didn’t look like someone who could lift double his own weight. He had just finished a repetition set when I entered the room and remain laying on the bench letting his arms rest.

“I sure do hope that you start carrying me around the apartment more.” I said, walking over to him.

He sat up when he heard my voice. “You already done with the treadmill?” He asked, not commenting on my request.

“No, I’ll jump back on them in a bit, I was just curious as to if you would want to play a little one on one basketball with me now that I’m warmed up.”

“Sure.” He said, standing up from the bench. My head went dizzy with chaotic thoughts about how much I took my husband for granted. Also, I wondered why I didn’t get him out here more often. Being able to rush around was good on my waitressing job, and he looked good with a little sweat on him.

We both walked back to the gym and grabbed a basketball from the big bin full of mostly flat basketballs. I picked one up and bounced it on the hard wooden floor. I grabbed another and Spencer did the same. After a few trials we finally found one that was aired up enough to play with. We bounced it back and forth a few times before heading out to the court and starting our game.

Spencer had the ball when we started, and enjoyed keeping the ball just barely out of my reach.

I ran after him, which was a hilarious notion because being taller than I was, he was able to cover more ground in a single stride than I could. He slowed down for me when he noticed just how far behind I really was.

“We need to get you out here more often!” Spencer shouted to me from the free throw line. “How do you expect to play ball against me if you can’t even keep up with me?”

“I expect you to be a gentleman and give me a fair chance.”

“By which you mean not a fair chance at all but instead going easy on you?”

I panted as I caught up to him. “Well… yea.”

Spencer laughed at me again. “Tough luck my love, if you wanted that we should still be dating. I’m not a gentleman anymore, I’m your husband. And if a wife wants to beat her husband, she’ll have to be able to keep up with him.” Spencer said, casually throwing the ball toward the basket. It bounced off the rim and back to the ground. I ran up and caught the ball on it’s second bounce and shot it into the basket, without having even skimmed the rim.

“And that,” I said, with righteous pride in my voice, “Is how wives make up for being smaller and possibly slower than their husbands in basketball. I caught the ball as it sailed through the net and dribbled it back to the free throw line. “I call H.”

“What’s that?” Spencer asked.

“I decided we are playing H.O.R.S.E instead. I got a basket, so I get an H. Your turn.” I threw the ball to his chest.

“You can’t change the game. You wanted one on one.”

“Really Spence? Are you going to complain because I want to play H.O.R.S.E and not one on one?”
Spencer bounced the ball twice and threw the ball to the basket. The way he did it reminded me exactly of how they do it in the slow-motion scenes in movies. The stance, with his hands placed beneath the ball and supporting it in the back. The jump, starting with bending at the knees and jumping in place. The toss of the back supporting hand pushing the ball up and out of the hand toward the goal. Even the follow through of his wrist coming down towards the basket and the ground as he landed on both feet at the same time. It was beautiful, in a sporty way. And, he actually made the shot. “H.” He said, running to get the ball and throwing it back at me. “You know, we would both be getting more exercise if we were playing one on one.”

“Yea, but I enjoy this more.” I said, catching the ball and making my own shot for the basket. It bounced off the backboard, and into the hoop. I exhaled in relief before proudly claiming my O. Then I bounced the ball over to Spencer.

He decided to get a big head and race around dribbling the ball before stoping at the free throw line and shooting without aiming. The ball hit the backboard, bounced around the rim and fell outside of the basket. He bounced the ball back to me and I shot the ball too hard, bouncing it right off of the backboard and right back into my hands at the free throw line. I passed him the ball and stepped back.
Spencer made the next shot, almost identical to the previous one, only instead of falling outside of the rim, it fell into the hoop and through the net. “O.” Spencer called out as he chased the ball down.

I missed the next shot, having shot too far to the left. Spencer got the R by concentrating really hard on the hoop before throwing the ball. I got the nest shot, after skimming the rim for a few seconds. That was the end of my streak. Spencer won the game, though I think he should have had to start back at H since instead of shooting from the free-throw line as the game normally goes, Spencer decided to dribble the ball up to the hoop, narrating his play like it was for an NBA game, and jumped, placing a slam dunk and calling out his winning “E”. If you ask me that’s cheating.

“We should head back to cool off. I’ve got to shower, I brought all my stuff for that, but then we need to get home so I can get ready for work tonight.” I said, tossing the basketball back into it’s bin full of other basketballs.

“I can’t believe we came to a gym to play a game as juvenile as H.O.R.S.E.” Spencer said.

I sighed, reminiscing back on the days of elementary, when you got snack time and recess. I remembered playing H.O.R.S.E with my friends in a funky colorful ball-catcher thing that you threw the ball into, and it randomly came out of one of three different directional pipes. We allowed that if you correctly guessed where it came out at, then you got an additional letter for that turn. “I miss those ball-catcher things.” I said out loud, but not loudly.

“Huh?” Spencer asked me. “What ball-catcher thingy?”

“You know, the basketball hoop that wasn’t really a hoop but instead had a tunnel leading to three or four smaller tubes and the ball would shoot out of one of those at random after being thrown. You know, from elementary school?” I tried to explain. Nobody had ever actually called it anything.

“You mean the funhoops?”

“Is that what they were called? All I know is that they were the best thing on the playground and the teachers would try and make sure that everyone got a chance, but really the kids that were destined to be jocks always got to use it. The rest of us had to settle for the tether ball.”

“Yea, that’s them. They were called funhoops.”

“Well I miss them. They were pretty awesome.”

“I always preferred Four Square.”

“Urgh! Really, I hated that game. It seemed so meticulous what with if the ball bounces here then go to that square or whatnot. I didn’t even ever bother learning the rules.” I said. After a short pause I added. “But you know, I can really see you playing Four Square. You’re a Four Square kind of guy. That and kickball.”

“Man, kickball was it. Like, at my school we only had kickball available as an option for recess on Fridays. The nurse wouldn’t allow it to be played regularly because of all the injuries it caused. I remember hearing how the kickball area of the blacktop was supposed to be replaced with rubber-top the year I left for middle school. I was so jealous cause Jack would get to play kickball any day he wanted.”

“You were always jealous of Jack for one reason or another.” I laughed. Jack was Spencer’s younger brother. They were only nine months apart but thanks to stupid law and cut off dates Jack was still two grades behind his older brother. For the record, Jack’s real name was Jackson but anyone qualifying as family called him Jack.

“Yea… well you were an only child. You know how jacked up parents are when it comes to raising a first kid. The problem is, the second kid has ‘experienced’ parents so anything you unfairly suffered through, is worked out by the time a second kid comes around. Even if that second kid is only nine months younger.

“Well my parents never tried again, so there’s no one to be jealous of.”

“True, go get your shower. I’ll shower when we get home.” Spencer said, heading into the cardio room again. I went to the girl’s locker room and got my purse out, where I had stashed anything I’d need for a shower, along with a bag for when I was done showering. When I was done I went to the bathroom again, thinking that I’d been on the toilet a lot today, and then to the treadmills to collect my husband.

He teased me relentlessly about having beat me at H.O.R.S.E. I said that it’s all a game of luck and physics and I couldn’t make that ball go into the hoop once it was out of my hands anymore than I’d have control over a bowling ball after it was released. Which was true. Once the ball is in the air, or in the case of bowling on the ground, it can only continue on in the path set when you released it.

“Which,” I continued my rant about bowling balls and basketballs, “is why I say your “E” was invalid. The point of the game is to get your ball on a path so that when you release it, the ball travels the path you want it to follow. By not ever releasing the ball, you are not giving it the chance to stray from it’s path and therefore a slam dunk should not conclude you as a winner for H.O.R.S.E.”

“I released the ball. I just released it right above the net, which greatly increased my chances of the ball dropping through the net.”

“Greatly increased? Is that what you are calling it? I’m sure that it is possible, thinking that if your force quits guiding the ball then the ball could go any number of ways. That is flawed however because there are other forces at work. Like, say for example gravity. Thanks to gravity there isn’t a chance that when you release that ball above the net the ball will say, fall up to the ceiling. It is inevitable that the second you let go of the ball, that ball is going to take a one way trip down to the ground until something stops it. So it is in fact cheating.”

“It’s not my fault gravity exist. I’d love for the world to be ran by chaos and for there to be a million different directions the ball could go after I release it above the net, but that’s not how it works. Besides, you were only on R. You would have had to score twice with me missing the basket two times in a row to win. I might as well take advantage of my height and have a little bit of fun getting my last point to victory.”

“I still say it’s cheating.” I said stubbornly.

When we got home, I went to the laundry room and pulled out my outfit, then went to my bedroom to put it on. I spent most of the rest of my time blow drying my hair and getting it to pull back into a ponytail. When I finished I had thirty minutes before I had to leave and I went in and warmed up the leftover lasagna. “Spencer, do you want some of this lasagna?” I asked as I took half of the lasagna and piled it on my plate. I then went to the side of the counter with barstools and sat down to eat. The meatloaf was still fabulous, even if it did have that slightly used texture that leftovers always seemed to have. I was used to it though, since I grew up as an only child, that meant that when dinner was cooked it was just me, mom, and dad that ate it. As most recipes are for a four-person family (or more), that meant almost anything Mom or Dad cooked resulted in our having left overs. The only ones that really bothered me was the macaroni and cheese leftovers. Most pastas dry out once they are refrigerated. Especially if you try to reheat them my nuking them in the microwave. If you want pasta reheated, the best way is to stick the pasta back in the item that made it. For spaghetti, that usually means the stove, for lasagna it’s the oven. But there’s no way to reheat macaroni and cheese without it becoming watery (if you try to fight the dryness by adding water) or too dry so that the taste is lost almost completely.

“I’ll eat any if you have some left after you eat. But don’t save any for me. You need to have the energy more than I do. I can snack on peanut butter or something else while studying. You could be gone until after midnight for all you know.” He said, walking over to the table and watching me eat the lasagna.

“It’ll be so weird when you don’t have classes anymore. We’ve been dealing with that for the past two years.” I mused.

“It’s still a full semester away.”

“True, but semesters can go by quickly.” I chewed up another section of lasagna. “Remember when we were dating and your professor had told you what your big assignment was for the semester but you wanted to spend more time with me instead of working on the project. You’d always say that it’s not due till the end of the semester and you could start it the nest day or week. Then you said the same line to me. ‘Don’t worry about it Marti, I’ll get it done next week.’ And I replied that you’d better get it done next week because that’s when it was due.”

Spencer laughed at the memory. “Yea, I remember.” He said, somewhat sheepishly. “I canceled our date and barricaded myself in my dorm room trying to finish that sucker on time. Those were the days.”

“Yea, I agree.” I said sarcastically. “It’s so much better to cram the stuff together last minute than to give up one weekend a month to be with your girlfriend.”

“That’s the point of college. It’s why they don’t have you take year-long classed. College is all about shoving as much in your head as fast as you can. Even if that means doing a project in a week that should take you a full semester to do.”

“That is some messed up logic.” I said, shoveling the last bit of lasagna into my mouth and getting up to put the dish in the sink. “Time for me to get going.” I said, chugging a glass of tea before going into the bedroom to retrieve my name tag and apron. “Crap!” I yelled as I searched through my apron.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you have any cash?” I asked.

“No. Sorry Marti.”

I raised the corners of my lips to show that I heard, but I was too distracted to actually laugh. “We’re supposed to have a little bit of starting cash so that we are able to make change for the customers at the beginning of the night.” I explained, holding out an empty plastic baggie. True, we were allowed to ask other servers to trade out for lower cash to give back as change, and we are allowed to ask the bartender to give us change for higher denominations of bills. But it was looked down upon, and several of the bartenders got annoyed when you asked them for change less than ten dollars. Because I was one of the best servers employed by Applebee’s, I almost always had start up cash on me. But last night I was so out of it I went and deposited all of my cash into the bank. I sighed. Hopefully the bartender tonight was one of the nice ones, and would give me a break since I usually didn’t bother them for change.

“Really? Huh. I guess that makes sense.” Spencer said. “Will you make it without it?”

I explained about the bartender, adding the fact that most people did pay with credit or debit cards instead of cash, but it was always the shift where you forgot to keep a little bit of start up cash on you that everyone decides to pay in cash.

“Well, you should be ok for the night. It’s only Thursday night. Just remember to keep some money for tomorrow’s shift when you go to the bank tonight. I don’t think it would be a good thing to not have start up money on a Friday night.”

“That’s true. Too many dates. Somehow, dates fall into two categories. There’s the guys that like to whip out the big bucks, giving us two twenties to cover a 25 dollar meal. And then there’s the American Express guy. We call him the American Express guy just because that card seems to be the flashiest. He doesn’t even look at the total until it’s time to calculate tips. He just slides his credit, or possibly debit, card into the check book and waits until the receipt is returned to actually look at the numbers. The good news about both Mr. Big Cash and Mr. American Express, it’s all to impress the girl they are dating. And the follow up to flashing how much money they have or how great of a card they have, is to leave a tip of at least 15%. Most men err on the side of generosity and we get to see tips anywhere from 20-30% on Friday nights.” O, how I love date nights.

“Anyways, I gotta get out of here.” I said, throwing on my black shoes and kissing Spencer good night. “Have a good night. Good luck on the college stuff.”

“Bye Marti. Stay healthy tonight.”

“I’ll do my best.” I said, laughing as I closed the door.

Work was actually mellow when I got there. The restaurant was only about half full and, compared to yesterday, it was quiet. I was kinda sad that Crystal wasn’t working this shift. But I was sure that I’d see her sometime this weekend. Especially since she said that she is working doubles this weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday. I really do hope that works out for her. When I checked the seating chart I found out that I had the easiest tables in the house. They were located right in front of the front counter, meaning I could watch them easily while tending to mid-shift silverware folding, which would help the number of silverware needing to be folded at the end of the night be lower. The tables were also twosie, with one four-top. So my maximum number of guests would be low. Still, with the fatigue I felt lately… come to think of it going to the gym before shift really wasn’t that great of an idea… maybe it was best for me to have an easy section. Still, I couldn’t fight the feeling of being demoted. I hadn’t had this section for a good year or so. The good news is that since I didn’t have a key section, the section was closed until I got there to run it, so I didn’t have to tag anyone from the day crew out.

I told the hostess that I was here, and walked over to do silverware while I waited to be sat. An advantage to not tagging anyone out, was that you got seated as soon as a party of the right size came into the restaurant, in an attempt to not have the day-shifters take yet another table before they got tagged out. Sure enough, after I had folded only five pairs of silverware my four-top was seated. I grabbed the coasters, smiled big, and the show was once again on. “Hi, welcome to Applebee’s, My name is Marti and I’ll be your server today.” I said, passing out the coaters as I talked. “Can I get any of you a Fruit Fizzer? It’s one of our bestselling non-alcoholic drinks. It’s Sierra Mist, with a twist of either raspberry, mango, strawberry or kiwi. I absolutely love the Strawberry Fizzer.” I said, still grinning widely.

“Hello Marti.” One of the women said. “That Fruit Fizzer sounds fun, can I have two flavors?”

“That will cost a little bit more than the normal one, but we can definently do it.”

“That sounds delightful. I’ll take a Strawberry Kiwi Fruit Fizzer.” Said the enthusiastic old lady.



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