NANOWRIMO Day 10

And before we gets on with the story, major announcment- 1- I switched the title to the shorter "Stuck in Estrogen's Funhouse." and.... *drum rolls by* *audience groans at lame joke* It's got it's own coverart now!

YAYAY!! (ok, that was unprofessional.) *does happy dance*

Click here to Read Day 1 if you haven't done so already

And now, on with the story. 

Stuck in Estrogen's Funhouse

Bad Business

I kept folding silverware, still watching the three with fascination. At least, I did until one of my two-tops was seated. He was a young business guy with his client. I know that because he carried a briefcase, which he opened as soon as he sat down, taking out a laptop and turning it to face the other guy. He was an older businessman, with no hair on the top of his head. They were both dressed in black suits.

“Welcome to Applebee’s.” I said, smiling as I greeted the two men. “My name is Marti and I’ll be your server today. Can I get you gentleman some barbeque wings?”

“Yes please.” Said the younger man with the laptop.

“Ok, and how about drinks?”

“I’ll take a tea.” Said the older man.

“And a tea for me as well please.” Said the younger.

“Two ice teas and some barbecue wings?”

“Correct.”

“Ok, I’ll be right back with those.” I said, leaving the table and going to ring in the drnks and wings. I noticed, as I passed by that the elderly ladies’s drinks were getting low, so while I was at the POS station, I placed a refill order to the bar, as well as a birthday sunday.

“Here’s some refills for you ladies. Can I take your old cups and get them out of the way for you?”

“Here you go dear.” Said the lady with the strawberry Fizzer. I took the cups and headed back to the dishwasher to drop them off.

“Marti! Your food is up!” The expo guy called as I just finished washing my hands.

“Right here.” I said, taking the tray from him. I returned to the ladies with their food. “Ok, Shrimp Diavolo?” I asked, looking to the birthday lady questionably.

“That’ll be for me!” she said, taking the dish from my hand. Ohhh, that looks good.” She exclaimed, drawing out the oh for about three seconds. “Can you get me a water, I might need it if these are as spicy as they claim.”

“Yes ma’am. I’ll get that after I drop off this food.”

“Baby back ribs for you.” I said, more confident in my memory. Not like I needed my memory to tell me she ordered. She was a very memorable person.

“Yum! That looks delicious!” She exclaimed. “Put those babies right here.”She said, hitting the spot of the table in front of her alternating which hand was on the table and which was off. I did as she told me.
  

“So this Sizzling Asian Shrimp goes to you then.” I said, handing the last of the dishes off to the lady with the Strawberry Fizzer. I then took the tray back to the expo line and grabbed a glass to fill with ice and water. I then took that back to the old ladies, carrying the wings that my other table ordered next to it.

“Here’s your water.” I handed it to NormaJean and then walked over to the business table. “And I have some barbecue wings.” I said, setting the wings down in between the men in front of the computer and giving them each a small plate.

“Thank you.” The younger guy said.

“No problem. Are you gentlemen ready to order?”

“I think so.” The older guy said, nodding to his younger partner. “I’ll take the 12 ounce New York Strip.”

“Would you like mashed potatoes with that or a baked potato.” I hated when customers ordered the steaks. It was a high-ticket item for Applebee’s, true, but at the same time it meant I had to asked if they wanted mashed potatoes or a baked potato. I’ve tried to make that question as fluid as I could. It’s not like the choice between fries or onion rings. Both of those are plural. But ‘Do you want your potato mashed or baked?’ sounds weird because it sounds like if you choose mashed than the cook is going to take a single potato and mash it. The mashed potatoes was a side dish, the baked potato was a different side dish. There was no elegant way of presenting the two options.

“And I’ll take Crispy orange chicken without almonds.” The younger man said. I took both of their menus and headed to key in their order. When I had that done I checked in with the older ladies.

“How’s everything.”

“It’s all very good dear.” Said the strawberry fizzer lady.

“Are you enjoying those ribs?” I asked the enthusiastic one.

“Heck yes I am. These here are some gorgeous ribs. Nice and tender.” She said, attacking the ribs once more. She had already ate most of her ribs. “In fact, I think you best be orderin’ up me another half rack.” She said, laughing gleefully.

“I’ll get that in right away.” I said. I didn’t suspect that she would be able to eat another half rack of ribs, but it would push the check up by another 11 dollars. There is a reason that deserts are always around five dollars, it’s because not many people will order anything more than that after having consumed a full entree.

When I was at the POS station, entering the extra ribs, I also placed in an order for a birthday ice cream. I decided, instead of going back to silverware folding, to satisfy my mind by talking to the old ladies, assuming they wouldn’t get annoyed at me for it.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking,” I said after one of them saw me approaching the table. “But how do you all know each other? I was watching from the back counter and it looked like you’ve known each other a long while.”

“Well NormaJean’s known me for about seventy-six years.” Offered the lady with the Strawberry Fizzer.

“And how old are you now?” I asked, amazed that she knew the year that precisely.

“Seventy-six. I know, I look a bit older. But I’m the youngest one here, oddly enough.”

“She is the baby.” NormaJean said fondly. “My little baby sister.” She huffed in amusement.

“You’d think she’d quit calling me that once we were both on social security.”

“Sorry Mira, I told you when you graduated, you’ll always be my baby sissy.” Laughed NormaJean. “I just can’t stop calling you my baby sister when I used to change your diaper. No matter how old you are.”

“And you’re a sister too?” I asked, tuning to the enthusiastic one.”

“Nope, fraid not. Always wanted to be though. They have one cool-ass momma.”

I blinked. “Have?”

“Had.” The older lady corrected herself. “They had a cool-ass momma.” 

“So, how do you come into the picture?” I asked the enthusiastic one after a few seconds pause. It could have been a mistake. She could have been so in the moment that she forgot that their mother had died a while ago. But something about it rubbed me the wring way.

“I’ve been NormaJean’s best friend since she was in high school. She done gone and saved my poor pathetic life. I was in kindergarden at the time. My daddy wasn’t so nice. If I messed up my writing he’d knock me upside the head. My momma died giving birth to my sister, who was born stillborn when I was five, so I don’t member much of her. Daddy expected me to be good in everything, and the teacher didn’t allow me to write with my lefthand, ya see?” I’m a southpaw by nature but that was frowned upon. When she saw me writing with my left hand she’d take a big ol’ metal ruler and snap my poor fingers with it. Making it darn near impossible to write. That’s when I met NormaJean.”

“She was being courted by the nice young arts teacher and came to the primary school near everyday. I would be sitting outside, doing my homework with my left hand scorching from being hit, and my right hand all messy like. Daddy didn’t much care what happened at school, just that I do the work and it looked good. So NormaJean saw me struggling trying to write with my fingers all bullied up and she ask me what I was supposed to be writin. Well I tells her that my daddy won’t like my right-hand writing as it was too messy, and teacher don’t let me write with my left hand. She says to me, that if I do the work in class with my right hand, then she’ll copy it for me to make it look nice for my daddy.”

“An so that’s what we did. I did the work in class with my sloppy un-controlled right hand, then she’d turn it into pretty writing for me to take home to daddy. Ended up doing all my schoolwork at her momma’s house so she could copy it for me until my hand healed, at which point I had to become my own copier. But that was ok, cause once my left hand was restored, I had real nice left handed writing. But by the time that happened, NormaJean had kinda adopted me as her kid-sister. Been that close ever since.”

“Wow.” I said. “That really sucks.”

“That’s the way it was. It didn’t suck cause I knew no better. But NormaJean here changed my life. When I started growing up, she became my mentor. She was the first I told when I got me my first beau. And she helped me learn how to heal a broken heart. I don’t know what I’d do without her.” The enthusiastic old lady said.

“Well it’s good she was there for you.”

“Yup. I’m one lucky old sucker. Heaven knows I do her no good.”

“Now Annie, that ain’t true.” Said NormaJean.

“Well, I better get back to my job. I just saw you all over here interacting and I just had to know.” I said, checking in on the business partners.

They were ensnared in a powerpoint that the younger man was showing the elder. Someone else had delivered their food, presumably when Annie was telling her story. I felt sorry for her. Her dad wasn’t a very good dad, or at least he hadn’t been… I thought, catching myself. My mental slip reminded me of the slip that Annie had made, saying that the two sisters have a great mom as opposed to had. I had gotten so involved with Annie’s tale of how NormaJean saved her I forgot about the weird feeling I had about that slip up. “Is everything good here?” I asked the businessmen when they looked up from the powerpoint.

“Actually, no.” Said the younger guy. “This has almonds in it. I can’t eat almonds as I’m allergic to them.” He said, passing me the uneaten orange chicken.

“I’m sorry about that sir.” I said, my mind snapping away from the old ladies. “I’ll get that fixed right away.” I took the dish and headed to the expo line. “This is supposed to be almondless.” I told the expo guy.

“Huh?”

“This.” I said, waving it in front of him. “It’s not supposed to have almonds in it.”

“Yes it is, that’s a sizzling entree. The menu even says so.”

“Actually it’s Crispy Orange Chicken. Not a sizzling entree. But, yea, I know the menu says that, but I ordered it without almonds. The guy is allergic.”

“Damn it Marti. What table?”

“Hey, I didn’t do anything. Table 7.”

“That went out ages ago. Crap.” He said, pulling over the tickets for the food that had already gone out and shuffling through them.

“Well you’re off the hook.” He muttered to me. “Write up a ticket.”  I did so as he hollered to the back, “I need a Crispy Orange Chicken, no almonds. That’s sans almonds to most of ya.” To me he said, “Tell your table the back of the house screwed up and it’ll be out in five minutes time.”

“Yea, I know the drill.” I sighed, heading back to the table. On my way back I saw my last table being seated.

As I walked away I heard the expo guy yelling to the cooking line. “Are you working on that orange chicken? Don’t forget sans almonds!”

“I’m sorry about that Sir.” I said, addressing the younger gentleman. “I’ve been told to tell you that it’s not my fault and we are sorry the order was messed up. They are making you a new plate now and it should be out within five minutes, without almonds.”

“Good. They can bring it in a to-go container. Our meeting time is almost over.”

“Yes Sir.” I said, heading over to the new table.

Healthy Eaters

“Welcome to Applebee’s. My name is Marti.” I said, as I laid out the coasters on the table. “Can I get you both a stack of onion rings?”

“Is that made in corn oil or peanut oil?” Asked the woman who looked like she’d been cut out of ice. Everything about her was angular. Her jaw, her haircut, her shoulders and her nose.

“Um…” I said, faltering. “I’m not, sure. I can go check. Do you know what you want to drink?”

“I’ll have a pomegranate lemonade.” Said the woman.

“Coors lite for me.” Said her husband.

“ID please?” I asked, he flashed it and I nodded. “Ok. One Pomegranate Lemonaid and one Coors Lite coming right up. I’ll check on the grease.” I said.

I went to the POS by the expo line. “Hey that redo, the orange chicken from table 7, he wants  it to-go. Better send Sage over there if you see her.

“Sage ain’t working tonight. Jason is manager tonight.”

“Then send Jason. I haven’t seen a manager all night.” I said as I finished keying in the drinks. “You know what kind of oil we use for the onion rings?”

“Is this a test?”

“Customer wants to know, Steve.”

“Peanut oil.” He said offhandedly.

“Thanks.” I said, grabbing the tea pitcher and taking it to refill the businessmen’s cups.

“My food done yet?”

“Not that I’m aware of, my manager Jason should be bringing it out to you.”

“I don’t care who brings it out. Just get it here. We need to go.”

“I’ll go check on it Sir.”I said, taking the tea over to the bar to get the drinks for my latest table. 

“Here’s your Coors Lite, and your Pomegranate Lemonade.” I said, handing them out. “And we use peanut oil.

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NANOWRIMO Day 8

Start here if you haven't read day 1

Three Old Friends

“I think I’ll just take a strawberry one dear.” Said her friend to her left.

“Get me a mango fruit fizzy thing too.” Said the third older lady, a little too loudly.

“Ok! I said, making sure to slow down the recitation back to them, I didn’t want three old ladies saying that I had mis-ordered their stuff because they didn’t understand what I had said. “That’s a strawbery-kiwi Fruit Fizzer for you,” I said to the first lady. “A strawberry Fruit Fizzer for you, and a mango Fruit Fizzer for you. Can I get you ladies an appetizer to tide you over until your meal gets here? Maybe a plate of spinach artichoke dip?”

“Well Hell,” Said the first lady. “Ain’t everyday you turn ninety five. And it is spinach, that is good for you. I’ll take one of those on my bill.” She said, slapping the table with her hand. She sure looked young for ninety five.

“Is it your birthday?” I asked her, thinking a spunky thing like her probably was proud of her years, not shy of answering such a taboo question in the world of women.

“Me? Hell no! It’s NormaJean’s birthday there!” She said, laughing. I am barely brushing eighty.
Well, that made more sense. When she gestured to NormaJean, it was the one that spoke loudly when ordering the mango fruit fizzy thing. She looked like she could be ninety five at least. She still had life in her, yes, and I had no doubts that about fifteen years ago she was as lively as the first lady. But age was catching up to her now. Apparently, her hearing was weakening, and her movements slower than her counterparts. “Well congratulations.” I said, speaking just a tad bit louder than I had been. I didn’t want to make the old lady feel like I thought her hearing was bad, but I wanted her to hear me too.”

“That’s alright young lady.” She said, still in a loud volume. “I can hear you and my friend and sister here quite well, I just have problems hearing my voice as it’s not directed toward me. I like to know what I’m meaning to say is coming out of my mouth. After spending so many years with it, you learn your mouth has a mind of it’s own and don’t mind betraying you at all.” She laughed. “It’s nice to know some of the young still have some decency regarding us oldsters.” She said, laughing heartedly.

I was relieved to hear her hearing was fine, and I went off to place the order for their drinks and the spinach artichoke dip. I felt mildly guilty of up-selling them on both the drinks and the appetizer. Still, if I had one of the lowest pay-out sections I was going to pull out whatever I could to make sure that coming here was worth my time. And the old ladies didn’t seem to mind. They seemed like they had extra money that they just really didn’t have a thing to do with. After I had keyed the order in I went over to the bar to collect my Fruit Fizzers, and keyed in a refill of those same drinks to fire off in three minutes time, in case I forgot.

“Here you go.” I said when I went back to the table, smiling widely. “Your Strawberry Kiwi, Your strawberry, and your mango.” I said, handing them out to each of the ladies. “I got your order for the spinach artichoke dip put in and it should be out in just a few minutes. Are we ready to order?”

“Not quite yet dear.” The one with the strawberry Fruit Fizzer said to me. “How about we’ll give you our order when we get the spinach artichoke. We’re old, and with age comes patience. A few extra minutes till our food gets here won’t hurt us.”

That all seemed well to me. “Ok then, I’ll be by with spinach artichoke dip shortly.” I said walking back behind the front counter and proceeding to fold more silverware. Instead of zoning off, getting lost in the repetitiveness of the task, I watched the old ladies at my four-top conversing with each other.

From where I stood, their gestures reminded me of new mothers getting together, or else a bride with her bridesmaids. It was when you looked at their heads that you got a hint of their age. I still didn’t know the strawberry fizzer lady’s age, but I guessed those years had been hard on her, however old she was. She had lost her parents, that was a given at her age, but perhaps she’d lost even more. A child. Children. A spouse. Whatever had happened in the old ladies life, she kept living through it. I had no doubt that without the other two, it would have been unlikely that the strawberry fizzer lady would be here today.

And the other old lady, the one turning ninety five. What must that be like? Does she expect to make it to one hundred. I certainly thought that if she did she was in the wrong place. Aren’t you supposed to eat fruits and vegetables and stay away from grease if you want to make it to your hundredth year? It appeared like the old lady wasn’t concerned with that though. I supposed that she wouldn’t like dying tomorrow, but if it happened she’d accept it and be glad for the ninety five years that she did have. I secretly hoped that, were I to be lucky enough to make it to that age, that I could have a similar outlook on life. I hoped I wouldn’t let the years of living harden me, or take the joy out of my life as such appeared to have happened to the strawberry fizzer lady.

“Marti, your food is up!” The expo guy called to me.
“Thanks.” I said, putting down my silverware I was working on and reaching for the spinach artichoke dip. I took it out to the table, and the trio of old women quit talking for about a minute, each diving into the spinach and artichoke dip with a gusto that almost made me want to laugh. “Everything good?” I asked.
It was the 80ish year old lady who answered. “This is wonderful! Things like this helps make food not boring.”
I wasn’t in my 80’s or 90’s, but I still understood the thought. Food, more often than not, wasn’t fun. It was something that your body forced you to partake it or else cause you unnecessary pain. It was so old. Eating new things were fun, but usually eating just meant repeating one of a few basic meals in a random order so that you didn’t feel as though you were eating the same thing all the time, even though you most likely were.
The old ladies were back to talking among themselves, so I left to get their drink refills.
“Dang Marti, you doing ok? Usually you are here when I finish making the drinks. These have just been sitting here and I was starting to think I’d have to scrap them.” The bartender, Brandy, said to me when I picked up the three glasses and sat them on my tray. “You’ll want to tell them to give those all a good stirring.”
“I’m fine. I just got this table of old ladies. They are fascinating me.” I said. Brandy just laughed at me, as though she thought I was being sarcastic. I decided she wasn’t going to say anything and walked back to where the old ladies were seated.
“Here’s refills for you.” I said, passing out the refills to each of the older ladies. “Make sure and give them a good stir before drinking.” I instructed, as Brandy had warned me to. “Are we ready to order now?”
“Oh, yes dear.” The one with the strawberry fizzer said. “I’ll take on of those sizzling asian shrimp entrees.”
“I want one of them gorgeous baby back ribs. With southern barbecue.” The 80-or-so lady said as I turned to her.
“And get me the Spicy shrimp diavolo.” Said the birthday lady.
I repeated back their orders, simple as there were no modifications to be met. The three nodded their heads at me and I left to key in the food. I then went back to my folding silverware and watching the old ladies. I just couldn’t get over their apparent zeal of life, even the one I assumed had been hit hard in life seemed to exude with the zeal of the here and now. She enjoyed the time she had with her friends. She probably went home alone, and at night the memories of whatever had hit her come back, but at the moment all that mattered to her, or so it seemed to me from observation, was where she was at the moment and who she was with.
I kept folding silverware, still watching the three with fascination.

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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.



More story here

NANOWRIMO Day 6 (Yes, I skipped five. hey, I'm still ahead!)

Click here for day one if you haven't read it yet

Before I get to the continueing story I would like to announce I've at least got a working title! Please let me know what you think of Stuck In the Funhouse of Estrogen.... or Stuck in Estrogen's Funhouse. And now... to continue the story!


When I checked back on the table, giving the kids a refill, I found my other table to be sat with my parents. I hurried over to them with their favorite drinks in tow. “Good evening Mr. and Mrs. Boskey.” I said, not faking my smile. “How are we doing today?”

“You’re sounding better.” My mother said. “I can’t even tell you’ve had a single drink.”

“I haven’t, Mom.” I said, dropping the professional act. “What can I get for you guys?”

“I’ll have the cowboy burger, and your father wants his bacon cheddar cheeseburger.” My mother said, sipping at her drink. “Also, get me a Main Street Rita Swirl.”

“Ok.” I said, not needing to jot down their usuals. I walked up to the POS by the bar, yelling at Jack, the night’s bartender to make me a Rita Swirl. He complained about asking for drinks before entering them in, but started making it anyways. After keying in my parent’s meal I went back to the perfect American family table, bringing refills to the parents this time, and asking about the kids. Even though I knew that kids never ever went through their second cup that quickly. “Are we ready to order?” I asked after giving the adults their drinks. “Your guacamole and shrimp will be out shortly.”

“Yea.” Said the father. “The kids want a Mini cheeseburger with fries and chicken fingers with fries. Both of those with a side of ranch dressing. I would like double glazed baby back ribs and a fiesta lime chicken for my wife.” The guy said, as he reached into his back pocket pulling out a Jack of Diamonds playing card that featured one of Santa’s Elves as “Jack”, A five dollar bill folded to look like Abe Lincoln wearing a baseball cap, a pack of mint chocolate chip chewing gum, a picture of a campfire folded into quarters, a hello kitty band aid, a crumpled kleenex, two odd looking purple pills with white stripes on either end, and an Monopoly get out of jail free card. Finally, he pulled out an Applebee’s gift card and checked the total on the card before adding, “And I’ll also have a side of fried shrimp.”

The guy then began collecting up the stuff from his pocket and putting it back in when his little girl screamed. “Daddy! I hurt myself!” She had smeared ketchup on her arm and held it up for her father’s examination. “I need a band-aid!” She cried excitedly.

“Honey, how many times have we told you not to play with your food?” Her mother asked. Noticing that I would not be repeating the order at this table, I walked away to place in the order.

When I got the front counter my food was up for my classic american family table, so I took that out to them, and found the younger girl wearing a Hello Kitty bandaid on her lower arm where the ketchup mess was made. After I handed her dad both her brother’s and her food, I knelt down next to the little girl and asked if she was OK.”

“Yea. Looky at my ban-aid!” She said, showing me the pink fashion statement.

“Wow. Looks like it’s all OK now.” I said, standing up and turning back to the parents. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, it looks delicious.” Said the mother.

“We wan’ foo’!” The two year old boy cried out.

“In a second.” The dad said, cutting the chicken up into smaller bites and giving half the burger and half he chicken to each of the children.

“Do the kids need a refill?” I ask, before turning to leave.

“Krissy?”

The girl, Krissy, shook her cup around a bit, judging to see how much was left. “Yes, Pease.” She answered.

I took her cup and refilled it before I had to run to get my parent’s food.

Before I made it back to the front desk, I got a sudden dizzy feeling. The world spun around me and I stumbled as I turned the corner behind the front counter. I grabbed the first server I saw, Sean, and asked him to get my parent’s food to their table, as I made my way to the back break room.

Of course Sage was there. She was cleaning up the mess that the cooks had made and when she saw me, and what must have been a throughly dazed look, she rushed over to me and guided me to a seat, before running to get me a glass of Sprite.

“Are you OK Marti?” Sage asked, sitting down next to me.

I took a huge gulp of the soda and bent my head over my knees before answering. “I’m ok. I was just,” burp, “dizzy all the sudden.”

“Do you need me to check on your tables?”

“Not now. They are all quite satisfied. Someone will need to if I don’t get back out there.”

“Did you eat anything pre-shift?”

“I’m not diabetic.” Was my answer.

“But did you eat before starting the shift?”

“No… I tried to have a pizza but it tasted awful to me. I ended up giving it to my husband.”

“Stay here, I’m going to get a side of fries back here for you. You need something in your stomach. I’ll watch over your tables for you.”

“But…”

“I’ll give you the tips. You need to recover.”

“Sage, my parents are out there. Please don’t tell them why you are taking over, tell them I’m helping someone else do something in the back.”

“Ok. I’ll have Jesse bring you back some fries. When you can get back up and out, after eating please do.”

“I will.” I sipped at the Sprite again and leaned back against the chair. Sitting down wasn’t such a smart idea. The world was once again stable, sure but it made me realize how tired I really was. I reached into my apron pocket and pulled out my cell phone. It was seven-thirty. There were still at least two hours to go, up to five if I was closing. Surely Sage would let me go early.

Jesse brought me back a plateful of fries along with a side dish full of ketchup. “Thanks Jesse” I said, taking the first fry and shoving it into my mouth without dipping it into ketchup at all. After that first fry though, I dipped every other fry in the ketchup. The fries weren’t despicable, but they weren’t delicious either. They did, however make me feel better. They gave my stomach a bit of padding to chew on and allowed me to feel like I’d eaten something. I cleaned up after myself and headed back out to the floor.

Sage was at my parent’s table, refilling a glass when I joined her. My other tables had already left, and mom and dad were finishing their meal. “Sage, I just finished that project you had me working on. Thanks for watching over my tables.”

“No problem. Sage said turning towards me. “Here’s the other table’s checks and stuff. You good to go?”

“Yup.” I said. It was mainly true, I was fed, I just needed to get over the sleepiness. I’d have to go have a chat with Crystal to change that one though. Sage waved good bye to my parents and I took over once more. “Sorry Mom, Sage needed me to help out in the back. Was everything good?”

“It was lovely honey. Sage took good care of us. Here’s our card.” Mom said, handing me the check book.

“Ok, give me a moment.” I said, taking the check over to the POS. While there, my other table was seated. I rang in the credit card, and returned it to my mother.

I walked to the other table and introduced myself.

“Ma’am, it’s my papa’s birthday today and I’d like to be able to play him Happy Birthday, would that be ok?” A man in his late teens said to me instead of his drink order, gesturing to a huge black instrument case.

“Umm..” I said, hesitating, “Yes, that would be fine.” I made a note on my notepad to order them a birthday ice cream as well. “What can I get you all to drink?”

“I’ll take a Corona.” Said the boy’s grandfather, and a Corona for my son too. Get Junior there a root beer.”

“Coke.” The boy said to me. “Get me a coke.”

“Ok, I’ll need to see your ID please.” I asked the middle guy. He showed it to me, he was in his late thirties, and I handed it back and went to put in the order.

“Ok Sweetie, it was good seeing you. I’m glad you are feeling better. Have a good night and get plenty of rest tonight.” My mother said, handing the check book back to me, and kissing my cheek.
“Love you too, Mom. Glad you could make it. Have a great night.” I said, finishing the other table’s order.

After Mom and Dad left I flipped open the check book and saw ’20.00’ written under the ‘tips’ section of the receipt. That was probably going to allow me to break 100.00 by the end of the night. The week seemed to be exhausting, but rewarding.

The table of guys went fairly normal. They all placed their orders, and the middle-aged guy said he would be paying for the entire meal. That seemed to bode well. After their food was about halfway gone I placed the order for the birthday ice cream.

Before the ice cream got there, the young boy stood up and opened up his black instrument case and pulled out a huge saxophone. “Papa,” He said in a deep voice. “This is for you.” He said, before placing the saxophone to his lips. He started out playing a few random notes, which got the attention of the entire restaurant, and then the tune quickly became an upbeat familiar playing of Happy Birthday to You, which everyone sung along to, with a sax solo during the part where people usually sing the person’s name. The entire restaurant exploded in applause and a few of the tables around where the man was sitting people stood up to congratulate the birthday man.

When the saxophone was safely secured in its case one more, I went back to check on the birthday ice cream. It was ready, and so I grabbed it and toped it with whipped cream and sprinkles. Then I grabbed Crystal and Sage and we all went over to the table to sing our Applebee’s version of a Happy Birthday song. I didn’t want it to be too extravagant since we’d just been treated to a saxophonic rendition of the actual song.

The three men split the ice cream, and then dropped their check leaving me with a ten dollar tip. I told them good bye and got a take home dish so that the birthday man could finish his meal at home, as his appetite wasn’t as big as his younger companions.

Sage then announced that the first wave of servers to go home can start their side-work, and let me know that she had put me on that list after my dizzy spell.

I immediately started to clean off my tables and get them restocked. That didn’t take too long since I had only one table that was starting to leave when the announcement was made. After that, I had 150 silverware to fold before I checked out. Crystal, having also worked the day shift was also on the list of servers that got cut. She also quickly finished up her work and joined me in folding silverware.

Whenever she and I worked together, we always folded twice as much so that we both got out at the same time. It usually took less time than it would to do the same amount of silverware on our own. I don’t really understand why.

“So you had a quiet night after that one popcorn fiasco.” I said to Crystal when she joined me.

“For the most part. Lots of smaller families. No teenagers though, so I probably did better than you.”

“I doubt it. My parents came and tipped me twenty bucks.”

“Cheater.” Crystal said, puffing air out of her moth to blow a stray lock of hair out of her face.
“I didn’t tell them to come. They just wanted to check in on me cause’ Spencer went over there without me this morning.”

“He did?” She asked.

“Yea, I was sleeping. Knocked out cold last night. I woke up around one thirty.”

“Dang girl. Whatever you had last night I want some.”

“I wasn’t drinking, that’s what my mom keeps accusing me of. I just, I dunno, I went home yesterday and I was just… wiped.”

“Ha! I worked a double and still did my laundry last night. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Yea yea. Well you must be getting more sleep than me.

Story continues here

NANOWRIMO DAY 4

If you are just now reading this, and haven't read previous days click here to start at day one.


“Something tells me that if I let you follow me into the bedroom I’ll be late for work.” I teased before another burp escaped me.

“If I follow you into the bedroom you will get to work on time… you’ll just wish that you could be late.” Spencer replied, his voice in a low whisper next to my ear. He had come up from behind me and wrapped his arms around my stomach.

I wanted to laugh and get myself into the bedroom. I really should have. But I couldn’t. Not with him that close to me. Not when he was using his deep seductive voice. He was wrong. He didn’t have to make getting dressed a challenge to make me want to just skip work, I wanted to skip work with the mere tone of his voice in my ear. What I did say, albeit weakly, was, “I won’t be late?”

“Nope. Cause you’re going to go change now.” Spencer said chipperly, using his normal voice. He kissed me on the neck and patted me on the butt before giving me a firm push to the bedroom.

I walked toward it, trying to cool off. I wanted to smack him for that. I was still in a daze of desire when I entered the bedroom. I walked over to my closet and got my uniform out. I had to search to find my name tag, because it had fallen off of the nightstand into the crack between the nightstand and the bed. I banged my head on the metal framing of the bed when reaching for it, which reinstated the headache I had earlier. I downed another Excerdrine tablet which was still laying on the nightstand from earlier.

When I was all ready to go I still had about ten minutes until I had to leave. I walked into the living room and joined my husband on the couch. He was reading one of the books I had read last year. “All dressed. Ten minutes to spare.” I said, flouncing on the couch.

“You look good.” Spencer told me.

I reached up a hand to cover my mouth while I swallowed back another bubble of gas in my throat that was being difficult. “Yea, I know. All ready to go and flirt my butt off trying to get people to pay me. It’s G-rated prostitution.” I laughed.

“That’s why you’re so good at it?”

“Cause I’m easy?” I asked, offended.

“No, because guys will pay just to hear you say ‘I’ll be right back with those drinks. Not to mention to watch you walk away from the table.”

“You are so biased. I get paid well because I’m the best darn waitress they have. My guests enjoy themselves, and I earn the money fair and square.”

“I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. I’m not saying I’m not biased. I”m just saying that the experience of getting food served by you is worth at least 50% of the total bill.”

I laughed at that. 50% tips only happened if someone orders just a drink and pays with a ten. In other words, only bartenders see 50% tippage. “I wish my customers thought like you. Unfortunately, if you came to eat, it would still cost us money and do no good. Except maybe raise my tip out.” I sighed. “And time for me to get out of here. I’ll be back later.” I said, leaning over and kissing him. “Love you.”

“Knock em’ dead.”

“If I do that I won’t get my tips.” I said, just before closing the door.

Kid's Night

It was a madhouse when I got to the restaurant. It was kids night, and every table was already full. I clocked in quickly and washed my hands before checking the seating chart. I had the middle section. I sighed again, and then smiled widely before turning back to face the crowd. Sometimes, waitressing was a lot like working in an improv play. An improv play in which no body changed outfits and the costumes were boring, but a play non the less. I walked over to Josie, the girl who had my section during the morning and told her that I was there and ready to take over.

“Thank God!” She said exiting out of the POS screen. I just picked up 27, it’s an 8-top. Here’s their drinks, lets go switch them over to you.” I took the paper she handed me, but she ripped it back out of my hand. “Actually, go introduce yourself. I’ll get the drinks out to them while you do that.” She amended.

So I walked over to the double table and introduced myself. “Hi, my name is Marti. Josie was filling in for me until my shift started, so I’ll be your server from here on out. How’s everyone doing?” The eight teens sitting at the table chorused that they were all doing great. It looked like a horrible table to start the night out with. Teens never tipped properly. First of all, at best there would be about four checks. At worse, each person is paying for his or her own meal. Second of all, teens always assume that the others are leaving decent tips. If I got three dollars for this table, it’d be a miracle. No wonder Josie was so glad to give it up.

“Do you know what you want to order?”

“I need more time.” The blonde on the corner said as Josie delivered her drink.

“Ok, I’ll be right back then.” I said, scrambling from the table as fast as I could. I searched out the restaurant for Crystal. She was over in the back right corner. Lucky girl. I walked over to her. “Hey, how’s the day been?”

“Morning was great.” She said as we both walked back to the POS on the end of the aisle. This is hectic.”

“Aren’t kids nights always hectic?”

“Yea, but there’s this table I have, 98, the kids are passing around a bowl of popcorn. So far it’s not been too bad, but every five minutes or so they start fighting over it.”

“Popcorn? For real?” I glanced over to table 98. “That’s is definitely different.” I said, not sure about what exactly to say. “Why popcorn?”

“Apparently one of the kids are allergic to potatoes. So he can’t have french fries. His mother’s brilliant substitute is popcorn. Although, the other kids can’t just sit there and watch this kid eating popcorn, so it keeps getting passed around.

“Huh.” Was all I said. I mean, really, what do you say to something like that. “Well I better,” I began, before one of those annoying burps split up my sentence. “Excuse me. I better go check on my table from Hell.”

“The eight top?”

“Yep.”

“Sorry chica.”

I shrugged. Nothing I or Crystal can do about it. “See ya round.” I said, then walked over to my 8-top.

“Do we know what we want now?” I asked, noting that a few of the cups were nearing empty. I checked the list Josie had shoved back into my hand when I was talking to Crystal and made a note as to which once were low.”

“I’m ready.” Said a voice across the table from where I was standing. I originally thought that the teen was a boy, but the voice was that of a girl. So, I suppose I was wrong.

“Ok,” I reached for my notepad and pen. “What can I get for you?” I proceeded to take their orders, all of which had at least one modification. I repeated their orders back, then went to key them in to the POS. Immediately after that I refilled the drinks that had been getting dangerously low.

After that table was taken care of I went back to the front counter and folded some of the silverware that was laying out. All of my other tables were seated, but they were all being handled by Josie. It looked like most of them were almost done.

“What do you mean it’s empty?” I heard a voice scream above all of the other voices in the restaurant.” I looked up from my silverware folding and saw that Crystal’s table in the back, table 98, had been the one that caused the uproar. The mother was standing up and leaning over her child, trying to soothe her child over. I put down my silverware and walked over to the right hand area so I could see what was going on. I couldn’t hear the mother, who was trying her best to keep her child quiet, but I could hear the child just fine.

“It was my popcorn!” The child yelled, not giving over to his mother’s soothing voice. “They can have french fries. I can’t. They shouldn’t have ate it!” He continued to yell, pounding his fists on the table.
Crystal bypassed me and went up to the table. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

The mother sighed and it looked like she was saying that the kid ran out of his popcorn. As if the whole restaurant didn’t already know that.

The boy was in near hysterics. “I want my pppopcorn!” The child screamed, beginning to cry. He was still ponding his fists on the table furiously. About a minute later he decided that nobody was giving him his popcorn, so instead he decided to punish the kid that ate his popcorn. He picked up the now-empty ceramic bowl and threw it toward the popcorn thief. The other kid ducked from the flying bowl and the bowl went right over his head, hitting the elderly lady sitting behind them right in the temple.

The old lady slumped over the table and Crystal immediately left the distraught mother and went to check on the old lady.

“Marti! You’re table is up!” Sage said as she rushed past me.

I blinked a few times, not entirely sure that what I just saw actually happened, then I shook my head and walked back to get the 8-top’s food. “Here you go.” I grinned, passing the dishes out to each of the teens. “Everything look good? Do we need anything else?” I waited a few moments while they all bit into their food and ignored me before walking away, refilling the one glass that was low, and going to greet my table that just got sat.

That table, at least appeared to be promising. It was a twosie. Probably a first date. The guy was young, probably about 25 and the girl maybe a year or two younger. I sold them both on a nice stack of onion rings, and they each ordered an alcoholic beverage, martini for the girl and Sam Adams for the guy.

After getting them their onion rings, and taking their orders for the night, I turned my attention to the poor old lady who was hit in the head with a ceramic bowl. She was conscious once more, though she didn’t look so tranquil now. I’m sure that table was not pleasant to have as a neighbor, and the flying bowl probably gave her a headache too. She’d probably be getting her meal on the house, with a gift card thrown in.

The teenage group was finishing their meals, and I divided up the checks before handing them out. Turns out there’s seven tickets, all of the guys were friends and all the girls were friends, but only one was a couple. With any luck the next people to take these tables would be a young rich guy that tips over the top.

“Thanks for,” another burp, “Coming to Applebee’s. Have a great night.” I said, as I waved the teenagers out of the store. I collected my tips for the table, 7.50, but only because the guy on the date tipped me four dollars. Everyone else tipped 50 cents. Typical.

The next table to get seated was a family of four, a mother, father, son and daughter. They seriously looked like the perfect image of the american family. The girl was even wearing a dress. She was about four. Her brother two. I went to get him a booster seat.

“Hey, How are we doing?” I said bending down to the table. “Would you like a booster seat so you can sit at the table like mommy and daddy?” The kid nodded his approval. I sat the booster seat down and lifted him into it, scooting the booster back to be next to his sister, who was enthusiastically coloring in the kids menu. I stood up straight. “My name is Marti and I’ll be your server today.” I said, addressing the parents.

“Hi Marti. We’ll take cokes all around. And and I’d like an appetizer of Dynamite Shrimp with a side of guacamole.”

“Dynamite Shrimp with a side of guacamole and four cokes, two of which are kids?”

“Correct.”

“Great, I’ll be right back with those drinks.” I said, walking off to place the order and wondering who in the world orders guacamole with shrimp.


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NANOWRIMO Day 3

Day one here if you haven't read it yet


Thanks to my husband, today's post is the equivalent of days 3/4 even though I will also be doing the normal 1667 for day 4 as well. Anyways, on with the story. (still need a title)



So, as per usual I laughed and gave Spencer a kiss on the cheek. “One lasagna a day would be

“One lasagna a day would be enough.” I said, biting another forkful into my mouth. I was starting to become full after the third helping. I got up from the table and wrapped the bowl in saran-wrap before putting it into the fridge for later. I yawned sleepily and took Spencer’s hand as I walked back to the bedroom, dragging him with me. I kissed him, then climbed back into the bed, dragging him with me. He didn’t complain, just asked if while I was laying there sleeping he could see how the game was going. I told him he could, since the point of my being back in bed was to go to sleep.

“Are you feeling any better?” he asked me once I got myself comfortable in his arms. I yawned again, very glad that I had till tomorrow night to get my act together.

“I’m not hungry. And I’m not even really tired. I’d rather stay up and do something. But I am exhausted. Like physically. Which kind of sucks cause if I was sleepy, then I’d just go unconscious, but it’s my body that is exhausted.” I explained, yawning yet again.

“Sorry Marti.”

I laughed and playfully pushed him. “That’s not your fault.” I’m just probably not getting enough sleep.”
He kissed me on the forehead again. “Then rest. I’m just going to see if the game is still on.” I needed ok and closed my eyes. When we were dating, I was psyched to find a guy that wasn’t really into sports. What I didn’t know, until after marriage, is that his “sport” was on ESPN in the evenings. He liked to watch Scrabble tournaments.

I still haven’t figured out why. As with most guys and football, baseball, soccer, basketball, or put in other voyeuristic sport enthusiast’s normal sport of choice, Spencer couldn’t play Scrabble if his life depended on it.

I actually got him to enthusiastically play a few games after I had learned of his secret “game” the first year we were married, for. He said that he loved the game but had never played, so immediately after opening the game, we sat down to playing our own game. He knew all the rules, naturally. He kept score practically in his head. And I could see him evaluating the amount of points he’d get for various plays in his head. Still, despite that it quickly became apparent that he couldn’t play Scrabble at all. At the end of the game I had 450 points and he had 175, despite all his calculations.

He reached around me to the remote and flipped on ESPN Tournaments. Currently there were high school cheerleaders doing different dance routines on the screen. Spencer turned down the volume to nearly mute and lie there holding me, waiting for Scrabble hour to begin. I don’t know what would happen to him if we were not able to afford to keep our satellite television. I don’t think cable has any channel that shows Scrabble games on an other-daily schedule. I watched a few of the cheerleader routines before snuggling into Spencer’s chest and closing my eyes, surrendering consciousness to sleep.

When I woke up, it was morning again. Late morning. The sun was shining fiercely into my eyes through the window and I’d guess that it was nearing noon. I flicked my eyes to the clock and it said it was 1pm. That sucked. That meant in three and a half hours I was due in to work again. Though, I did feel marginally better. Marginally.

“Spence!” I yelled to the other room in the apartment.

“Yes?” He said, entering the room. “Everything OK?”

“I need an Excedrine, please. Major headache and that sun isn’t helping.” I covered my head with my pillow and blanket so as to block out the light.

He went to the bathroom and came back with that magically red bottle. I don’t know what made Excedrine work, but I found it to be a gift from God. He also brought in a full glass of cold, over-sugared, tea- just the way I like it. After taking the pills I laid back on the pillows again and closed my eyes, thinking that I’d get up when the pain subsided. I could feel the veins on my temple throbbing and figured it’d be best to wait until that was normal before trying to carry on with my already-shortened day.
“I went to your parents house this morning. They are worried about you.”

“I hope you didn’t scare them.”

“I didn’t. I just said that you were sleeping.”

“At what time?”

“I dunno, probably around 11 or so.”

“Crap. I better call and let them know I’m not passed out in a coma.” I pulled the pillow off of my head and reached to the nightstand to get my cell phone. “Did you get Linux installed then?”

“Yup. Easy Cheesy. Your dad didn’t really want to do anything very complicated with it. You know how he is about open source though.”

That was very true. My parents, while never hippies or even activists, had very firm opinions about what should cost money and how much. To their credit, they were realistic. They didn’t think that everything should be free. They’d happily pay 200 dollars for a good computer without complaining. It was the 2,000 dollar computers they had issues with. They didn’t bat an eye at paying 98 cents for bread, but now that it’s frequently over four dollars for a single loaf… well, lets just say that you should approach Mom with caution on grocery shopping days. I fell somewhere in the middle. I hated spending all my money on groceries, but I didn’t see that there was much I could do about the issue.

One of my parents’ more admirable solutions was to move to an area where they had a little bit of land, a little less than an acre, and plant a full garden. It didn’t have a ton of any one given crop, but they instead had 100 square feet of one crop, about ten feet away from that 100 square feet of another crop, and another ten feet from that another 100 square foot of another crop. In between the different plots of crops, were planted trees. They planted apple trees, peach trees, nectarine trees, cherry trees, apricot trees, lemon trees, lime trees, orange trees, and pomegranate trees. For crops they had corn, wheat, strawberries, pumpkins, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots. Near the house they had a pecan and walnut tree as well. The only thing I can think of that they lacked was farm animals. I think my parents would rather pay overpriced prices for already dead meat than kill the animals themselves though.

I opened up my phone and keyed in my parents number. “Hello?” I said into the phone.

“O Martina sweetie, it’s you! How are you doing? Are you running a fever?”

“No, Mom. I’m just fine. I just passed out last night. I probably worked myself too hard yesterday morning. It was worth it though. I got seventy five dollars. That’s not bad for a Tuesday morning.” I said, and then inexplicably I burped. It was a loud one too. Which is very much not me. I don’t burp ever. I apologized to my mother but she seemed more worried about me than my indiscretion.

“Are you sure? Did you drink last night? I know you are over 21, but part of that means being responsible with alcohol. You’re such a smart girl. And you know your father and I won’t love you any less, I just want you to be healthy. What would happen if you found out that you were pregnant? You said you quit taking the shot, and try though you might, I know you are no good at taking pills. That’s one thing you inherited from me.”

“I didn’t drink last night. I passed out too early to drink. Like I said, I probably have been over-working myself. Spencer and I are being careful. I just didn’t think that the shot was worth that much money every three months, not to mention the doctor visit bills. We know we’re in no condition to have a child. We’re enjoying our time when it’s just us. I know you want grandchildren, and you will have them. Just not now. Maybe when Spencer is out of college and teaching. It’s only another semester.”

“I do want grandchildren, but again I just want you to be happy. You’d be such a good mother. I can see it in your eyes. But I know you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But if you are off of birth control, you need to be careful about drinking. You’d never forgive yourself if you caused a child you didn’t even know existed to develop abnormally.”

“We’re being careful.” I reiterated. I was so glad that me and my mother were close enough to talk about all this like adults. Though I did wish she believed me about the not-drinking thing. I was responsible when I did drink, not allowing myself to get past a little tipsy. If the world started spinning, I quit drinking. And I most definitely did not drink last night. “I just wanted to call and tell you I was OK. Spencer said you were worried.”

“You’re just so full of life and energy. You keep me and your dad young. It was sad not seeing you today, and sadder still to hear you were knocked out. I’m glad you are feeling better. Do you work tonight? Your father and I were thinking about going out. We could ask for your table.”

“Yea, I’ll be in at 5.” I said, checking for the time. I still had 3 hours till I had to be there, which meant about two and a half hours of livable time.

“That will work well then. Your father doesn’t like to eat until six anyways. We’ll see you later honey.”
“Ok, love you Mom.”

“I love you too. Tell Spencer your dad likes the new operating system.”

“I will. Bye.” I said, hanging up the phone.

“Mom says that dad is really enjoying his new operating system.” I said, placing the phone back on the nightstand.

“Glad to hear it.” Spencer said. “Your headache any better?”

“Yea. Can’t feel it anymore.”

“Good.” He said, taking his spot next to me on the bed. He kissed me with those kisses that are so familiar to anyone who is happily married, or who has ever been happily married. It was the kind of kiss that didn’t suggest or demand more. It was one of the kisses that was perfect, even though it didn’t have to be cause if it wasn’t there’d be a trillion more where that came from. It was the kiss that said “I am glad to be with you.” The kiss that said “Hi.”

“I’m so lucky to have you.” I said, looking into his dark brown, chocolatey eyes. That was one of the things that made me fall in love with him. Whenever we got into a serious conversation about something he was passionate about, or when we kissed, or made love, his brown eyes which are always deep and dark take on the texture of melted chocolate. Creamy, almost milky. And it’s intoxicating.

“I’m the lucky one.” He said, hugging me tightly to his side. “You are my world. The only one that hold my heart and gives me reason to not give up hope when things get hard.”

“Speaking of, how are classes coming?”

“Slowly. I have a student-teacher thing I have to do next week.”

“I thought you did that last semester?”

“I did. This is kind of a final exam of sorts. My advisor is supposed to be in the back of the class while I conduct classes for that week. I’ll probably be staying late as he wants to see how I grade papers and there’s a few interview-like tests I get to go through too. I’m not worried about it, it’ll be an additional reference and experience thing I can put on my resume. I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t freak if I was out a bit next week.”

“Thanks. It’ll be fine. I’ll probably be working a lot anyways. Have you got a job secured for when you graduate?”

“Not yet, I’ll probably get on at Southside Elementary.” Two weeks before graduation there is supposed to be a job fair. And my advisor will advise me until I have a job.”

“I can’t believe I married a soon-to-be elementary teacher.” I sighed with a joking grin on my face. “At least I know you’ll be good with kids.”

“Kids I’m good with. It’s the infant stage you’ll have to worry about.”

“As if. You’ll be a great father. Someday.” I said. At the mention of his becoming a father his eyes went wide, like deer in headlights.

“Someday.” He repeated, his face relaxing.

I kissed him again before standing up. “I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat.”

“Lasagna? You still have some left.”

“Nah, that’s ok. I’ll keep it for later. I’m thinking about having a pizza.” I said padding my way to the kitchen. I reached into the freezer and pulled out a Tony’s pizza. “You want some?”

“I’ll eat what you don’t.” Spencer said, following me to the kitchen.

I laughed mockingly. “Hope you aren’t hungry, because I could eat the whole thing.” I reached under the counter to get the pizza pan. I put the pizza on the pan and then into the oven for ten minutes.

“You will at least leave one piece. And if you don’t, I’ll take the leftover lasagna.”

“Might want to say your prayers. I’m starving.” I sat down at the bar and held my hand over my mouth while an undeveloped burp slipped out of me.”

“Are you OK?” Spencer asked immediately when I swallowed and dropped my hand.

“Yea. Just a bit gassy I guess. Hope it ends before my shift. Customers, even that ‘manly man’ ones aren’t impressed by burping waitresses.”

“Have some tea.” Spencer said, getting up to pour me a glass.

“Thanks.” I said, drinking about half the glass before sitting it down. “Don’t be surprised if I’m not home till early morning. I’ll most likely get closing, and you know how I hate leaving all the work for the morning crew to do. Probably cause I usually am the morning crew.” I sighed. “Not like anyone else really cares.”

“But that is what’s so great about you. You care. You do the job, happily, and you don’t leave it for others just because you can. You are an amazing person.”

“Biased.”

“Not bi!” He said, raising his arms in a surrendering gesture.

We continued chatting until the pizza timer went off. I went over to the oven and puled out the pizza, cutting it into eight slices and giving four to myself and four to Spencer. He started right in on his pizza. I took a bite out of mine, chewed it up and swallowed before handing my four slices to him as well. “You know,” I said, feigning nonchalance. “I’m not as hungry as I thought.”

“You sure? That’s a lot of overestimating.” Spencer said, concern in his voice. “You barely had a single bite, much less the whole pizza.”

“Yea, I know. I guess I overestimated how much I wanted. You enjoy it. I’m just going to drink this tea.” I said, refilling my glass to full.

“Ok, if you’re sure.” Spencer bit into his second piece and condensed the two paper plates down to one.

“I am. I’m going to go check some stuff on the internet though. If that’s ok.”

“Sure, go ahead. I think your dad Facebooked you.”

I headed into the main room where we kept our computers. I set on the couch and opened up my laptop, checking my email which was full to capacity with junk mail. Also, Crystal had sent about 15 different chain letters to me. If those things work, I hope that my non-participating doesn’t affect her. She’ll send me on average twenty different ones a day. I can’t say that her life is charmed, but then again she hasn’t died of a horrible car wreck or anything. And while I personally didn’t think that “If you deny me in front of your peers I’ll deny you in front of my Father” meant that if you didn’t send on an email titled “I BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST”, then you’d go to Hell, I could admire her for passing them on. It’s not that I didn’t believe, it’s not even that I was ashamed to believe. Just that I didn’t think that sending along an email would help secure me a room inside the heavenly gates. Heck, there’s probably a special level of Hell for those that obsessively forward messages onto their friends. Not that I want Crystal to be in Hell. I don’t think she’d qualify. For one, she never forwards the same email twice. Even the “I BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST” emails had to be different from a previous one for her to send it on. I flipped through the emails reading each one. Though I never participated, I found chain mail fascinating.

Seriously, have you read them all the way through? It makes me laugh when I read one that says “if you don’t send this on your love life will suffer for five years.” Luckily, my lack of forwarding on emails has yet to cause me to end up in the divorce court. I still have my head on my neck and all of my fingers and toes. And while it’s true that I’ve never gotten a check in the mail from Bill Gates, I don’t think Crystal has either so I think I’m doing ok, even if all the bad luck in the world is supposed to be following me around.

And for another reason as to why Crystal isn't going to Hell, I’m not entirely convinced that she actually forwards them all in the first place. I think some of them are just to amuse me. If so, they do their job well.

My dad had Facebooked me a message making sure I was doing OK since he noticed I hadn’t been online yesterday. He cautioned me to make sure I didn’t over work myself and wanted to say he loved me.

After checking my inboxes and replying to Dad, I updated my Facebook and Twitter statuses to say that I was up and ready for a day at work before signing off the computer.

Spencer had finished up the pizza and took the computer from me when he sat down. “Mind if I check on some stuff?”

“College?”

“No, I’ll do that when you are at work. Just maintenance. Email, Facebook, news, stuff like that.”
“We have satellite television and you get your news from the web.” I sighed, shaking my head as I handed over the computer.

“That’s for the game.” He said matter-of-factly. He never actually said the word Scrabble and Tournaments in the same sentence. Even when it was just us it was “the game”. In public, it sounded like he was into any normal sport. Though, I have seen strangers give us strange looks when standing in line and he says something like “I hope we make it in time for the game” on the day after the Superbowl.

“Please tell me that we are not paying for satellite television just so that you can watch Scrabble tournaments.”

“The game. It’s for the game.” He said, I suppose correcting me on actually calling it what it is.

“Besides, you get plenty of enjoyment out of the fact that we have satellite too.”

I rolled my eyes. It’s not like I could do anything about his silly antics. We had a contract. Satellite will continue to get our money are least for the next year. “I’m going to go get ready for work.” I said, noticing the clock now read 4pm.

“Can I come watch?”

I laughed. “You want to watch me put on clothes? By all means, I guess that’s OK.”

“Well,” He began, a glint gleaming in his eye, “in order to put clothes on you first must take them off."



Day four here!