How I spent my Friday Night
Beh. So exhausted was I, after swimming sports (Mansfield came first in the diving, yay! but third overall, bleh), that I wished to go home and snooze on the couch all evening. Or at least have a night out with my friends for Emily's birthday. But noooo... I had the choice, either stay home all night, or go to Tintern and be a waitress for the opening of the art exhibition. I couldn't go anywhere else because that was the only place parents were willing to drive me (as they wanted to be all swanky and cocktail party-ish too).
So I got home, had a shower and washed away all the chlorine and ratty red lipstick, washed hair, put loads of hair product crap in hair to attempt hair-tamage, had hissy fit at hair, took up the hem on my new black pants because they were made for someone with Kate Moss's legs, ironed my white shirt, screwed up ironing shirt, got mum to re-iron shirt as I had made it even more wrinkley than it was to begin with, thanked mum, found stain on shirt, got (most of) the stain off shirt, tried doing hair again, gave up on hair and just tried to make sure it was as packed away as hair was going to get, did make-up, got angry at makeup because I accidentally picked up Emma's foundation (Emma has much more tanned skin than me) and had turned half of my face orange, finally had makeup looking passable, grabbed bag and coat, jumped in car.
"Don't you look neat and proffessional," says mum. I answer something along the lines of "I'd rather look messy and artistic so I can just not bother doing anything about my appearance, but thank you." Get to school. Starts pouring with rain. Tell mum to park as close to the door as possible, and she does. Only 15 metres between car and door. Make mad dash inside. Looki down and discover shirt has gone see-through, hair is messy, makeup is running. Attempt not to screech. Quickly duck into Art Office and make hair and makeup passable. Dry shirt under handdryer in bathroom. Get name ticked off list. Get taught how to be a waitress, and discuss with others how we shouln't really be serving drinks, as we don't have a responsible seving of alcohol license, etc, etc. Pick up first drinks tray and nearly drop it. Serve drinks for half an hour. Hand cramps up. Resist taking entire champagne bottle into corner and drinking away. Serve more drinks. Get attacked by party-guests trying to get rid of their empty glasses. They fill my tray with empty glasses, keep filling tray, tray is overflowing and glasses are on top of each other, "You can fit a few more" says guest. Guests keep filling tray. Ask Jess Chamberlain for some help. Guests continue to harrass us. 10 glasses fall off tray, but get caught by Jess, thank god. And thank Jess. Jess and I finally make it to the dish room, start rinsing glasses and putting them away. Discover someone has broken a champagne glass, THEN PUT THE STILL DIRTY, BROKEN REMAINS BACK INTO A BOX OF CLEAN GLASSES. Resist screaming, get sick of drinks duty, go to serve nibbles instead. Smile politely. Am badgered by guests to reveal all the precise ingrediants of most dishes, end up making most of it up because even the chef doesn't know. Speech time. Am starving, because I haven't had dinner. Waitresses banished into kitchens. Not allowed to touch any of the food except some jelly lollies someone had bought along, and some various pies and sushi that had exploded sometime in the cooking process, therefore weren't good enough for guests to eat (but ok for waitresses). Eat burnt mini-pie. Discover it had some kind of thai curry inside. Mouth on fire, but not allowed to go to drinks room to get anything whilst speeches are happening. Escape through back door of art room, go to year ten toilet block and drink from the tap at the sink. Yeach. Speeches over. Steal a piece of sushi. Go out to collect glasses, find out a large number of the glasses have been just dumped half-full on tables everywhere, and A SIMILARLY LARGE NUMBER HAVE BEEN LEFT ON TOP OF PEOPLE'S ARTWORK. Clean up the fourhundredgazillion glasses. Clean up used napkins all over the floor, lovely. Sneak off to bar, grab a new tray of drinks to serve guests. Hide in dishroom and drink the only nonalcoholic drink available, mineral water. Tasty. Serve other drinks. Carry tray around more. Collect glasses. Smile and mingle and make small talk with guests. Feet and arms now exhausted. Say for the billionth time that none of this artwork is mine, as I am in year eleven and these are all final (as in year twelve) VCE and IB pieces. Smile. Make small talk. Collect glasses. Smile. Collect glasses. Laugh as Alice M brings out another tray of champagne and is comandeered by the other waitresses, all screaming, "NO!!! We're encouraging them to leave now, not stay and get pissed! Smile, collect glasses. Laugh when people hand rubbish to me, as if this is my favourite part of the job. Collect glasses. Smile. Collect glasses. Find mother, tell her it is 9.10pm and the event finished at 9pm. Collect mother's glass. Smile. Collect other glasses. Go to washroom and wash and put away approx four hundred and thirty glasses. Event organiser Bryce or Bryant or Brian or something similar tells us we've done a fantastic job. We smile politely, because instead of being paid like him, we get THREE WHOLE Community Service hours! Go collect more glasses. Wonder how it is that guests seem to have used more glasses than we served them. Smile, collect more glasses. Realise it is 9.30 and we were meant to finish at 9. Grab coat and bag. Refuse to collect more glasses. Find mother. Harass her. Go home. Colapse on couch. Watch Queer as Folk and Shanghai Noon, laughing at Ben (he's just a cool dude), Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan, makes everything better now. Then go to bed with very sore feet. Wake up this morning to discover arms are stiff, sore, and unable to bend in certain directions.
This is why I am not a waitress.
So I got home, had a shower and washed away all the chlorine and ratty red lipstick, washed hair, put loads of hair product crap in hair to attempt hair-tamage, had hissy fit at hair, took up the hem on my new black pants because they were made for someone with Kate Moss's legs, ironed my white shirt, screwed up ironing shirt, got mum to re-iron shirt as I had made it even more wrinkley than it was to begin with, thanked mum, found stain on shirt, got (most of) the stain off shirt, tried doing hair again, gave up on hair and just tried to make sure it was as packed away as hair was going to get, did make-up, got angry at makeup because I accidentally picked up Emma's foundation (Emma has much more tanned skin than me) and had turned half of my face orange, finally had makeup looking passable, grabbed bag and coat, jumped in car.
"Don't you look neat and proffessional," says mum. I answer something along the lines of "I'd rather look messy and artistic so I can just not bother doing anything about my appearance, but thank you." Get to school. Starts pouring with rain. Tell mum to park as close to the door as possible, and she does. Only 15 metres between car and door. Make mad dash inside. Looki down and discover shirt has gone see-through, hair is messy, makeup is running. Attempt not to screech. Quickly duck into Art Office and make hair and makeup passable. Dry shirt under handdryer in bathroom. Get name ticked off list. Get taught how to be a waitress, and discuss with others how we shouln't really be serving drinks, as we don't have a responsible seving of alcohol license, etc, etc. Pick up first drinks tray and nearly drop it. Serve drinks for half an hour. Hand cramps up. Resist taking entire champagne bottle into corner and drinking away. Serve more drinks. Get attacked by party-guests trying to get rid of their empty glasses. They fill my tray with empty glasses, keep filling tray, tray is overflowing and glasses are on top of each other, "You can fit a few more" says guest. Guests keep filling tray. Ask Jess Chamberlain for some help. Guests continue to harrass us. 10 glasses fall off tray, but get caught by Jess, thank god. And thank Jess. Jess and I finally make it to the dish room, start rinsing glasses and putting them away. Discover someone has broken a champagne glass, THEN PUT THE STILL DIRTY, BROKEN REMAINS BACK INTO A BOX OF CLEAN GLASSES. Resist screaming, get sick of drinks duty, go to serve nibbles instead. Smile politely. Am badgered by guests to reveal all the precise ingrediants of most dishes, end up making most of it up because even the chef doesn't know. Speech time. Am starving, because I haven't had dinner. Waitresses banished into kitchens. Not allowed to touch any of the food except some jelly lollies someone had bought along, and some various pies and sushi that had exploded sometime in the cooking process, therefore weren't good enough for guests to eat (but ok for waitresses). Eat burnt mini-pie. Discover it had some kind of thai curry inside. Mouth on fire, but not allowed to go to drinks room to get anything whilst speeches are happening. Escape through back door of art room, go to year ten toilet block and drink from the tap at the sink. Yeach. Speeches over. Steal a piece of sushi. Go out to collect glasses, find out a large number of the glasses have been just dumped half-full on tables everywhere, and A SIMILARLY LARGE NUMBER HAVE BEEN LEFT ON TOP OF PEOPLE'S ARTWORK. Clean up the fourhundredgazillion glasses. Clean up used napkins all over the floor, lovely. Sneak off to bar, grab a new tray of drinks to serve guests. Hide in dishroom and drink the only nonalcoholic drink available, mineral water. Tasty. Serve other drinks. Carry tray around more. Collect glasses. Smile and mingle and make small talk with guests. Feet and arms now exhausted. Say for the billionth time that none of this artwork is mine, as I am in year eleven and these are all final (as in year twelve) VCE and IB pieces. Smile. Make small talk. Collect glasses. Smile. Collect glasses. Laugh as Alice M brings out another tray of champagne and is comandeered by the other waitresses, all screaming, "NO!!! We're encouraging them to leave now, not stay and get pissed! Smile, collect glasses. Laugh when people hand rubbish to me, as if this is my favourite part of the job. Collect glasses. Smile. Collect glasses. Find mother, tell her it is 9.10pm and the event finished at 9pm. Collect mother's glass. Smile. Collect other glasses. Go to washroom and wash and put away approx four hundred and thirty glasses. Event organiser Bryce or Bryant or Brian or something similar tells us we've done a fantastic job. We smile politely, because instead of being paid like him, we get THREE WHOLE Community Service hours! Go collect more glasses. Wonder how it is that guests seem to have used more glasses than we served them. Smile, collect more glasses. Realise it is 9.30 and we were meant to finish at 9. Grab coat and bag. Refuse to collect more glasses. Find mother. Harass her. Go home. Colapse on couch. Watch Queer as Folk and Shanghai Noon, laughing at Ben (he's just a cool dude), Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan, makes everything better now. Then go to bed with very sore feet. Wake up this morning to discover arms are stiff, sore, and unable to bend in certain directions.
This is why I am not a waitress.