Divorce is Bad, Snotty Coworkers Getting Pwned is Good

Guest Blogger # 7

Today's post is from Purple Girl. Did you ever sing "Happy Divorce Day to You"? She did. Read about it here.


My first restaurant job was at a family owned place in a small town. It's the kind of town where everyone knows everyone, and regular customers were the rule rather than the exception. One of those regulars was a gruff-looking older man who always came in in his ranchwear--jeans, boots, cowboy hat, grizzled five o'clock shadow.

He looked like somebody who'd be cranky and very particular about things, but he was very easy-going and generous. Usually he came in by himself, but one night he brought in his daughter and her husband. They sat in our bar area, where my friend B was working.

It was a typical night there; I was serving in the dining room, along with this money-grubbing, gold-digging trashy witch. A girl I didn't get along with was hosting; a younger girl who had a mad crush on the busser was our salad/dessert bitch. The busser was a guy my age, and I think we'd all spent a good portion of the night sucking helium out of balloons and acting stupid (except Golddigger). What can I say, the joint wasn't usually jumpin'.

B came out of the bar and waved us all to the kitchen, saying she needed our help. She told us that her gruff customer's daughter was getting divorced, but not because she and her husband were splitting up. Apparently, she was moving overseas for work for a year or so, and if they were married they'd have to pay some exorbitant tax amount because of their jobs and her living in another country (I don't know all the details, but it was something like that). So they had filed divorce paperwork that day .... and were understandably bummed out about it. Even though they were staying together, it still wasn't pleasant.

B's customer had asked her to do something to cheer his daughter up. Her idea was to take a whole Boston cream pie, decorate it with ridiculous amounts of whipped cream and cherries and chocolate sauce, stick some candles on it .... and then sing "Happy Divorce Day To You"! Me and my helium-sucking friends all thought it was hilarious and were totally on board.

Golddigger stuck her overly tanned nose in the air and said she just didn't think it was appropriate, and that we were making fun of the institution of marriage or something else utterly ridiculous coming from her. She and her big fake boobs stomped away and wanted nothing to do with it.

The rest of us lit up the candles and filed out to the bar area, laughing and clapping, where we proceeded to sing very loudly, and very poorly. There may have been a helium-induced chipmunk voice in the chorus. The couple were laughing, the father was grinning, and our terrible performance got a round of applause. It was one of the few times I've actually enjoined the singing bullcrap.

The table lingered for a while; B started cleaning her bar; us youngsters went back to goofing off waiting for tables to come in; Golddigger kept sniffing about how inappropriate we were for singing to those guests, and was loud enough about it that they probably heard her. She continued being offended right up until the customers left, and B came up to us with a shocked look on her face. She held out the credit card slip, and we saw that on a $60 dinner, her customer had tipped two hundred dollars!

B thought he'd made a mistake, of course, but he insisted. He told her to keep $100 for herself, and give $25 each to all us kids who had helped her sing.

We were all stoked at the prospect of an extra $25 in our pockets for something as silly as singing--at nineteen that's a lot of money! But the icing on the cake? The chagrin on Golddigger's face.

Thanks Purple Girl for your great story about taking care of a customer and at the same time pissing-off your co-worker. Another great addition to Guest Blogger Month. Please visit her blog, The Only Slightly Cranky Waitress and support the people that support this blog.