Down the Rabbit Hole

It was one of THOSE dreams. Not the kind where Johnny Depp is your cabana boy and brings you drinks with little umbrellas. Nooooooooo. It was the kind of dream from which you wake up--bolt upright, exhausted, crabby and bathed in sweat and frustration.

I dreamt I was a waitress.

A waitress in what surely must be... Hell (or right next door to Hell).

I should have known from the exterior of the restaurant I was working in that it was not gonna be a GOOD waitress dream. The café was in an old converted brick house. It was circa 1900, 3 stories tall with a peaked roof and wrap-around front porch. Quaint? Not so much. The outer wall had a HUGE, gaping crack that extended from the foundation to the attic. The front porch was sagging and listing to the left. Most of the exterior paint had peeled off. What was left made the place look as though it were an eternal state of...molt--like it had once had a bad sunburn and was peeling, for all eternity.

I should have known then, what was in store for me INSIDE this dream.

Inside was a cozy, hodge-podge arrangement of miscellany tables and unmatched chairs that very much reminded me of what the Madhatter's tea party would look like. The walls were covered in a faded, red Baroque  wall paper  that would have been better suited for the parlor of a Victorian brothel. Many of the tables were coffee table height and several of the chairs were bar stool height. And wouldn’t you know it…the bar stool chairs were surrounding the coffee tables. And guess what? When customers came in…what tables did they choose to sit at?

Normal ones?

Of course not. Not in this dream.

In this dream the patrons chose the Alice-In-Wonderland mismatched bar stool/coffee table combos; despite the fact that all the “normal” ones were empty. Then, they started complaining about how hard it was to reach their silverware.

This was just the beginning.

I relocated the first party to a “normal” table. And realizing I hadn’t given them menus, went to fetch a couple…only to find that someone had poured honey all over them. Well, I couldn’t very well give them a menu that only Pooh Bear would love, so I decided I’d just tell them what we had to offer. But, the thing is…I had no clue WHAT we had to offer.

By then, 3 more parties had come in and were seated at (you guessed it) the “weird” tables.

*sigh*

So, in an effort to tell the first patrons what we had to offer, I ran back to the kitchen only to find it empty. No cook, no bottle washer. Nobody. Instead, there was a full buffet set up with a decent number of selections. (okay, this dream is looking better).

I went back into the main dining area (where I knew 4 parties now resided) but somehow that number had doubled—like bacteria in a petri dish…and all 8 parties were seated and all of them were staring at me. I smiled and went to the original patrons’ table and told them we had a beautiful buffet for lunch. That seemed to appease them but then one customer said “Where’s my water?”…which set in motion a domino effect of customers all asking for water. So, I started running around filling water glasses…which were all DIRTY (of course). Not only were the glasses dirty…the water in the pitcher looked like it had come from an all-but-dried-up African watering hole. It was brownish green with little floaty bits. If that isn't bad enough, the tables were now FILTHY and needed busing and wiping. Every table was a disgusting mess piled with dirty dishes and covered with soaking wet paper napkins and who-knows-what.

This is when it gets bad.

The original diners, having checked out the buffet, decided there was nothing they wanted from the buffet and they were now demanding menus…the menus that were coated in honey.

Table # 2, which originally had 3 people seated at it, now had 7 people sitting there. Of course they didn’t have any drinks yet (though they did have clean silverware—hooray for small victories). Then they all started firing questions at me. Questions to which I didn’t know the answers. I tried to write them down so I wouldn’t forget…but all I could find to write on were paper napkins. Wet paper napkins…and a pen that (oddly enough) wouldn’t write on wet paper products.

“I want Grape soda…do you have Grape soda?”

“I want pork roast…is there pork roast on the buffet?”

“What’s for dessert?”

“Where is the restroom?”

Ensuring them I’d find out the answers, I excused myself and literally made a mad dash to the back to glean information.

Grape Soda, NO. But there was Dr Pepper, Orange, Pepsi and ...um...imported mineral water from Africa.

Pork roast, YES. At least the GIANT lump of meat on the buffet table sorta looked like maybe it COULD be pork roast.

Dessert? There was what looked like chocolate pudding—but it was on the steam table nestled between the mashed potatoes and green beans...and it was HOT…and there were emancipated green beans floating in it...and there were little puddles of what was probably gravy for the pudding's mashed potato neighbor…so I wouldn’t recommend the dessert.

Ladies’ room in back…but, of course, there was no toilet paper.

***

At this point everyone was seated at dirty tables and nobody had drinks or menus. It was then that one “helpful” customer decided it was the perfect time to give me tips (and not the monetary kind). She had frizzy red hair, garish makeup with peacock blue eyeshadow, fake eyelashes and bright coral blush that made her TOTALLY look like a circus clown. She was also sporting 2-inch long fire-engine-red nails that were filed to dagger-like points, so I decided to stifle my urge to hum the dee-dee-deedle-deedle-dee circus music theme.

She started out her vituperation (oooh good word) with a cheesy smile as she picked up a sopping-wet napkin using her thumb and forefinger like pincers.

Her whiny, nasal voice reverberated throughout the dining room--bouncing off the tiled tin ceiling in an annoying echo. “Honey, let me offer you some FRIENDLY advice”, she said in a sarcastically saccharine tone with an emphasis on the word “friendly".

“You should…Blah blah blah BLAH blah BLAH blah blah”.

That’s what she said in my dream…”Blah blah blah BLAH blah”. It was reminiscent of the way adults sound in all the Peanuts cartoons. Now how am I supposed to understand that?

This is when people started getting perturbed and got up to leave. I called out to them, "… WAIT,  it's my first day as a waitress, please be patient." But, I was met with a slamming front door.

Why was I the only person working in this restaurant?? Where were all the other employees? What was with the coffee tables? Where was Johnny Depp with my drink?? Oh, never mind...there he is.

*sigh*

This is the point in the dream when I realized it WAS, in fact, a DREAM. If it were real, Johnny would have put a PURPLE umbrella in my drink. So, I decided “To heck with this!” and woke up—bolt upright, exhausted, bathed in sweat and frustration.

I think I'm feeling a LITTLE stressed about all my upcoming DT projects mixed with my web design responsibilities for my husband's and my business. But you know what "they" say..."Best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time".

THAT'S IT!! THAT'S WHAT THE MYSTERY MEAT ON THE DREAM BUFFET WAS....ELEPHANT.

One thing I know for certain...I'm going to be a LOT nicer to wait staff from now on.