Illustration by Jan Igoe
As someone who loves to eat anything I didn’t personally cook, restaurants are like my second home. So I get to see a lot of servers in action.
I never critique, since my budding career in the food service industry lasted 15 minutes, courtesy of a pack of well-lubricated frat brothers who liked the restaurant where I worked. They were performing handstands on the table and demanding more dressing from me, their smiling and obliging server. As I drizzled our famous homemade blue cheese dressing onto their salads, some curious hands left the table to explore my dress. Before I could stop myself, a gallon of that expensive dressing was dripping off their heads. My memory is fuzzy, but the frown lines etched into my boss’s face seemed unusually deep when she took me off the schedule and waved goodbye.
Even now, I try to cut well-meaning servers some slack. All I ask is that they fess up when the chef’s special is poisonous, refill the water glass before I stick my straw in their aquarium, retreat graciously (without offering any firstborns) when dessert is declined, and don’t leave town when we’re waiting on the check. Easy.
But that was before Bonnie Sue, the deliriously happy, perpetually perky hometown girl became our server. She was oozing sweet, gentle, southern charm—exactly what you’d expect in this beautiful state—unless you’re my friend Tony from New York.
Born and raised in the Big Apple, Tony doesn’t get perfect strangers saying “Morning, y’all.” If they stroll that close back home, he figures it’s to say “Morning. Y’all give me your wallet.” It’s a culture thing. No matter how he tries to fit in here, once his mouth opens and those diphthongy decibels spew out, locals scatter like bowling pins after a perfect strike.
At dinner, Bonnie Sue bounced up as if she were riding a pogo stick, beaming a 500-megawatt grin rarely glimpsed in Cross Bronx territory. She had yet to hand over the menus, but Tony was already breaking out in hives.
Bonnie Sue told us about her brothers, sisters, uncles, goats and being her second-grade teacher’s pet before we interrupted to beg for wine.
She fetched it immediately. Of course, not all of it stayed in our glasses, given all that leaping. But she tried.
Me: “You have a really pleasant personality.”
Her: “Everyone says that. I’m just like sunshine. I’ve always been like this.”
As Bonnie Sue skipped away, I noticed Tony’s face buried under the tablecloth and all the napkins stuffed in his ears.
Me: “You OK?”
Him: “I give myself 10 minutes. Then I kill her.”
Me: “Drink faster. It will pass.”
As dinner progressed, Bonnie Sue returned every 17 seconds to preemptively grant any wish eons before anybody considered wishing it. All hope of completing a sentence without Bonnie Sue landing between the subject and the verb was lost. Finally, I had to say something.
“I was trying to tell a story,” I said gently. Bonnie Sue smiled with delight and pulled up a chair. She loved stories, as luck would have it.
“I was telling the story to him,” I said, pointing to the chair where I’d last seen Tony, who had disappeared under the table, possibly to load a weapon.
As Bonnie Sue bounced off to fetch dessert menus, I let Tony know it was safe to come out. “We’ll find some traffic. You can honk and practice your hand signals,” I coaxed.
The color returning to his face, Tony bounced happily out of the restaurant. I’m not sure, but I think he took her pogo stick.
EDITOR’S NOTE: South Carolina Living is reprinting some of Jan A. Igoe’s previous columns. This “Humor Me” originally appeared in the June 2012 issue. Visit SCLiving.coop/news/in-memory-of-jan-igoe.