I deliberately requested Independence Day off. Not because I had anything in particular planned (last year, the girl I was seeing and I stayed in, ordered pizza and played Jeopardy! in between rounds of fucking), but just because I knew other employees would be kicking themselves for not requesting the shift off.
After the usual scheduling pandemonium broke out, I ultimately accepted what was supposed to be the first cut of the seven-person night shift. The plan was to continue to accept bribes until I was eventually closing, hopefully having made at least fifty bucks before I had even taken my first table.
Instead, I had to be content with the offer of a “free G” from the guy whose girl I had taken the shift for. And since I thought we’d only be as dead as we were last year and I’d be sent home shortly after arriving, I smoked a fat joint before clocking in and being told that I was going to be the only server in the restaurant for the next hour, maybe hour-and-a-half.
Seeing as it was raining, we actually got enough business to warrant me calling it “busy.” The fact that our Russian immigrant hostess sat tables all over the restaurant certainly didn’t help and ultimately I could only be grateful because after I caught up and others arrived, we saw business slow down severely and I almost certainly finished with sale higher than anybody else who probably worked that day.
Better yet, I left work last night right as many surrounding villages and towns were having their fireworks display, so we coasted down the road in my friend’s convertible with me effectively forgetting about the job I didn’t get offered this week.
