Becca Steinhoff

Growing up I hated doing things. I hate doing things now, but I hated it then too. Reverse psychology was one of my parents sharpest tools, and ‘We’re going out but you’re not allowed to have a good time’ was a mantra in the household. That was their way of saying we know once you get there you’ll have a good time but you make such a goddamn stink getting there this and every time. I still do this and I am gifted at it. Unfortunately I no longer think of this as a personal deficit. As an adult I prefer to think I’m excellent at doing nothing.

Obviously I was out sometimes or else there would be no memoirs for these mantras, but you can go ahead and assume all other moments of my life were spent lounging as much as possible.

I can only imagine how annoying it must have been to have a child that would fight tooth and nail before doing any of the fun stuff they had planned. Probably feels a lot like having a girlfriend that doesn’t want to go out.

I just don’t think a talent for lounging around like mine should go to waste. Not only do  I enjoy wasting a whole day or week to a television series, but I am exceptional at it. There’s room in society for people like that now. We binge watch Netflix. We put butt imprints in our couches. We eat pretzels and nutella. We order delivery and tip well.

Since I have to fight myself even when I want to go out, I just remember that once I get there I’m not allowed to have a good time. That usually helps.

For a time I worked in a highly conservative restaurant in the DC area. I didn’t typically  advertise my beliefs at work at the time but my political opinions were more unwelcome in this place than most. Did it bother me that the guests and I likely disagreed on matters including but not limited to gay marriage, basic human rights, gun control, etc? Sure, but I knew better than to bite the hand that fed me and speak up.

At first I was happy to keep my perspective to myself. The only thing people wanted to hear out of my mouth were the specials. It was a presentation 15 items long but I had it down to 90 seconds with 3 laugh breaks. I knew I had done my job well when no one needed to look a full menu, ever.

I attempted to compartmentalize the desire to truly converse with the guests. I didn’t want to stop and think of where the (good) money I made was really coming from because I knew deep down it was a dishonorable place. The hardest part was the people I served there. They were largely wonderful. It would have been so much easier to hate them if they weren’t so nice. Nice and rich! What a combo. I managed to provide good service to these people as long as I didn’t think too critically about where their money was made or the leanings they held.

Over time spent and rapport established, it occured to me some of these regulars would actually be interested in having a genuine dialogue. Hope is a beautiful thing and keeping my mouth shut was as poor a skill for me as it was a priority to this restaurant.

I was serving 2 regulars at the bar. Their preferences were routinely unbearable, and before I get to the point please allow me to demonstrate for you just how much brain power was devoted to these men routinely.

They both liked iced tea. One was simple, he liked his unsweetened, but he drank a whole pitcher of it every time they came in. the other liked his sweetened and though he drank far less of it, he wanted no lemon and no spoon cus think of the nasty germs of me touching that spoon to give to him and use. Drink-a-gallon of unsweet guy used to like simple things like pasta, but soon took to ordering what lemonless, no spoon, sweet tea guy ordered. a spinach salad with shaved parmesan (NOT CRUMBLED), chopped basil (NOT JUST WHOLE LEAVES, CHOP THE BASIL FOR HIM), add slice tomato and grilled chicken on a plate (NOT IN A BOWL YOU IDIOTS). Somehow it never came out 100% right.

They always had me recite the specials before ordering one of the same 3 things (not from the specials). Their order takes a couple minutes to ring in, modified to all hell, complete with kitchen spanish notation to explain what exactly TF they want. You can do that all you want people, but don’t be surprised when that order comes out 90% at best.

At the time, gay marriage had yet to be legalized nationally. During the NFL draft season Michael Sam, a top draft pick, had come out and as I recall, it made him the first potential NFL player to be openly gay. They were mansplaining to me how this would affect his draft pick, and without properly considering what side of  issue they were on, I couldn’t contain a brazenly honest sentiment.

“I think we can safely agree that whether you’re for or against gay marriage, people who are against it are on the wrong side of history.”

Turns out, we cannot safely agree on that. Man, what a great way to swallow a bug. That comment was so unwelcome I saw lightning strike right through the center of my tip. Their faces recoiled as if they had just shot a firearm. I truly thought we were in a society where we could collectively acknowledge how dated this “marriage is for a man and a woman” concept was . But no, I was apparently the asshole there and it was time for me to shut up, refill the teas, and put it on my list of things to wonder if I should have said later.

Given the chance to see those men again, I would pour some sweet tea down their shirts and ask them how it feels to be on the wrong side of history AND covered in sugary tea. Except now I would just wish them love and light and hope they could one day discover their true love for each other, like I always suspected.  Hey and now they can get married! They should have me marry them, because I remember all of their entitled preferences. If one of them gets sick from ingesting too much tea, the other can go visit them in the hospital and have all the same rights as straight couples.

It was a full room, as it is most nights at this venue, but the crowd was not very quiet or respectful of the comics. They were loud, and chatty, and rude. At the time, whenever I had a rude, chatty, and loud crowd I would start my set with something abrupt to get them to shut up, and when I had their attention I would move from there. In theory this is a good tactic, but my joke on this night was night the right way to go about it. It was the middle of the summer in a stuffy basement, and I opened my set with, “I know I’m hot the same way I know I’m drunk, I start calling random people faggot.” It’s gotten laughs before, even in this room, but not on this night. It worked, oh it worked. They were listening, they were quiet, and boy did they hate me. I trudged through my set to radio silence, walked off the stage and felt promptly like shit. I ordered a half priced burger and sat in the back, and who needs ketchup when you have tears to add flavor to your meat.

About an hour after my set, it becomes clear to me that this crowd is loud and shitty and disrespectful because they are only there to see their friend, a guy who’d only been onstage once or twice, so he went way at the end of the show, and they were getting very impatient. Oh, and he is a prominent gay guy in the community. He gets onstage and proceeds to tear me apart. I’m pretty sure he abandoned any material he had pored over to make sure this entire room of his friends hated my guts.

“Is that bitch that said faggot still here? what an unfunny cunt, RIGHT ROOM FULL OF MY FRIENDS?”

The room explodes with applause, because yes that bitch was an unfunny cunt, how right you are my good sir.

I lift my head from my burger of sadness as if to say, yes I’m still here.

I let him do it. I let him use his time on the mic to talk about how terrible I was, and how dare I use such an offensive word and hurt him. I guess he doesn’t realize that ripping someone to pieces onstage like that is just as hurtful and offensive, but I’m not going to heckle the guy while he heckles me from the stage when the room is on his side. What I did do is oh so much worse.

I waited until the show was over. I went up to him and said yes I’m still here. Yes I said that but I wasn’t saying that word to you, and that you were also offensive. I said that this just an open mic, a place where we go to try new things and see what works and what doesn’t. He told me to be funnier, I told him to be nicer.

Or at least that’s what I planned to say to him before I walked up to him. I believe it went something closer to “you fucking asshole, you think you’re so much better than me blah blah blah. I have plenty of gay friends blah blah blah”

“I have plenty of gay friends?!” Really?! That’s what a racist person says about having plenty of black friends when they are trying not to sound racist!

I left the show very upset, too traumatized to go back there for some time. I was afraid to see this guy or any of his friends there again, and I haven’t done this room since, only partially by choice.

Should I have said that word onstage? Probably not. Did I mean it offensively? Definitely not. Should I be allowed to say any word that I want onstage in the name of funny? Definitely. But the rule is this: If you have the nerve and the wit to say it onstage, you have to have the resolve to back it up when someone calls you that bitch who said faggot.

Friday night, 7:30 at a popular turn-and-burn restaurant, when serving guests efficiently had potential to feel like hand to hand combat. I remember admiring those coworkers who appeared to always have their cool, especially when they were in the weeds.

The bartender served drinks for her two-top. She tapped in their order with one hand, poured my service ticket with her other, all without taking her eyes off the screen.

The phone rang as she sent her order, and was her job to answer it.

She picked it up and took a to-go order in 10 seconds flat (a new record).

She felt my piercing newbie gaze on her, and took another precious 10 seconds to get right in my face.

“It’s a war out there kid. and it’s us, or it’s them.”

“Yeah! and I think we’re winning!”

A bar patron piped up to ask, nay demand for more water.

She picked up the water pitcher and threw down another service ticket.

Under her breath, I hear her utter to me and no one else,

“I don’t think we’re winning, but we have to KEEP FIGHTING.”

I dropped my drinks and turned back. All water glasses were full. She was already taking another to-go order with one hand, her other balled in a fist.

I don’t know what to write about. its 1:03 now and I’m going to keep typing nonstop until 1:10. I should have sipped my coffee first but whatever. I refuse to turn the TV on, I don’t want any music on, I opted to stay here and struggle to make coffee as opposed to going to starbucks with my computer and having them make me coffee while I write. that would have involved getting dressed, bra and all, putting my computer and any other notebooks I have in my backpack, getting in my car and going to starbucks. it would have been fine except for the bra thing. I really hate those. It’s like it’s strangling my favorite body part. It’s a necessity though. when those things roam free trouble happens. everyone knows when I’m cold. I cant bounce around or move at all. It’s mesmerizing. I think I’ve caused car accidents. Clearly once I take my bra off in public, the men lose their minds and the weemens get mad at me for attracting all of their mens into my life. They trick me though. they act like they’re not looking because they’re looking without moving their faces. They have perfected this and they think we don’t know. what just cus you don’t turn a head, mouth agape, drool spilling out of your wide open mouths as you think wow that woman with the magical titties deigned to walk out here without a bra. What was she thinking this is the best day of my life. Well yes that is what I was thinking. But mostly its strappiness hurts my back fat, but no one ever wants to talk about my back titties. front titties only. You cannot have them sir they are not for you. Just cus I walked out here without my bra on does not mean every man who can’t even look at them straight on in the face with their eyeballs can touch them. You must have balls to touch my titties. Granted if you have balls and the balls to ask me, yeah I guess its ok. i mean i’ll consider it. You had cohones. You had juevos to ask, or to at least look head on, while you watched me see you do it. You perv. So no. I avoid all this. I wear a bra in public. It’s for the greater good that I do the things that I do. You are so welcome, america

.And that’s why I can’t just walk into a starbucks without the proper attire. No shirt no shoes is RIGHT.

Waiting tables for a living can be quite stressful if you don’t keep your mind in check. Here is my favorite coping mechanism mantra:

“We Serve Biscuits”

After over a decade in the restaurant industry, I’ve honed the mantra “We Serve Biscuits” to a tee. In a nutshell it means relax. It means everyone will eat, so there is no point in me getting stressed about whatever is going on or wrong in my evening. The longer version is “We don’t save lives. We don’t fly planes. We serve biscuits.”

Sometimes when I or someone around me is stressed the fuck out about being busy, I remind myself of this in whatever way I can. I’ll go to grab a jug of milk and in my haste I will drop/spill/break something. “oh god, I don’t know if the milks gonna make it. Get me 3 towels stat! We’ve got to stop the spilling!” If you’re happy and secure in your position like I am, this is a mantra that means calm down and don’t worry. If you’re unhappy or insecure or just plain like to stress the fuck out, you will be offended by this. You will think it means “My job is not important.” You will think I am undermining your life’s work. But if you think I’m saying that to you, keep in mind that we both do this job. We are standing in the same place as I say that.

I don’t think working in a restaurant is unimportant (I don’t think this is a double negative either). Everyone’s gonna eat was an earlier version of the mantra. It means “why are we stressing, everyone will have their food if you’re stressing or not. let’s everyone calm down.”

It also means that wherever you are, wherever you go, you will always find work in a restaurant. Everyone eats, every day. 3 times a day! If you can find a restaurant that serves good food, you can find a way to feed yourself and your family. You have picked one of the wisest professions in our society. Great job. I’m adept enough to know that I have way more skills talking to strangers, making them feel welcome and providing them with already made food than I am making them food that would look and taste burnt or bland.

So when I’m up to my elbows in the weeds, been triple sat, my apps are taking 20 minutes and a coworker next to me broke up with their significant other and can’t stop scowling, I spill red wine on my shirt at 5:30 with the whole night ahead of me, and the wine glass broke on the floor, I can’t find my busser or anyone to help me, and I drop the wrong check at the wrong table, as the owner of the restaurant walks in and sees a mess, I try my best to remember. I Serve Biscuits.