Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Six: Ma’am’s side hustle…

On a daily basis, Confused Husband reminds me that we are not getting any younger. He is like the Grim Reaper but in a Father Time form. Every day, I am lectured about us preparing for: “Our next chapter” in life. If I hear the phrase: “Our next chapter” one more time, Confused Husband’s photo will wind up on the back of a milk carton.

A while back he brazenly announced: “You know, since you stopped teaching and embarked on this writing thing, and it hasn’t produced any monetary value”*(code for: you aren’t getting paid yet.) “I mentioned to my friend M that you would help him out at his restaurant.” (So now I am being farmed out like Bessie the working mule?) I am GOBSMACKED! (How would he like it if I casually said one night over a plate of meatloaf: “By the way, I offered your services at the makeup counter at Mona’s boutique.” ) Makeup and Confused Husband should NEVER be in the same sentence! Like me and restaurant. Besides being a patron, I should not be near a restaurant as an employee. I mean, sure, during college, there was the standard waitressing job. But, that was before an extra twenty pounds, thirty years, and hot flashes.

The offer is attempted to sound glamorous, all smoke and mirrors. A few days a week, no pressure, plenty of time to write, yada, yada, yada. Then our friend gives me the:”No your butt doesn’t look big in those pants” lie of a speech, and makes me feel like: “I NEED this job! I WANT this job!. Fast forward, and I find myself in our friend’s pizzeria. It isn’t brain surgery, but I am not as young and quick to learn new things as I once was. There is talk of POS and I smile like I know what that means. I have deduced that it’s either a person with a quirky nickname or an unusual ingredient that I have never heard of. Turns out I am incorrect with both guesses. It stands for “Point Of Sale” (a fancy name for cash register). I am introduced to POS and am sweating like a nun in a cucumber patch. It is like I am in the cockpit of a jumbo jet and shown the instrument panel, and “instructed to land the plane.”

For sure, if he weren’t a friend I would have been fired after an hour. I managed to cancel orders, put in the wrong addresses for drivers, give a vegetarian a steak sandwich instead of her eggplant one, and charge someone $400.00 for a slice of pizza because the print on the POS is too small for me to see. Yes, I am a hot mess express! Plus, because of the ENORMOUS pizza ovens, it is like five-hundred degrees in the restaurant. Under my breath, I cuss out Confused Husband and put a hex on him, using the old spell from Harry Potter: “Avada Kedavra” Voldemort’s favorite killing spell.

Six hours later I return home. I am hot, sweaty, and covered in pizza sauce and cannoli filling. I feel as though I have just been working at the Gulag. I pour a goldfish size bowl of wine and plop on the couch. Confused Husband comes home with that idiotic smile asking:” Well, how was it?!”Like I had just returned from Italy and was excited to tell him about my trip. I take an enormous gulp and say: “You know the kids I used to teach that drove me to drink these enormous vats of wine?” He nods in exorbitant anticipation(Putting Sarah Bernhardt to shame.) : “Well, now I give them slices of pizza and sodas. Except they all have Apple Pay and none of them have enough, so I dig in my purse for loose change to pay the extra forty-one cents, or whatever they need, any piddly tips I make are put right back in the till. The cash register is like flying a jumbo jet. The restaurant is hot, loud, and full of people. Three things that as you know I am vehemently against.” He looks at me like everything I have just relayed to him is “GREAT!”

Here comes the reinforced reel them-back-in Used car salesman, Timeshare, and Snake oil salesman speech. (There is that idiotic smile again): “Wow! Think about all of the new material you have for your writing because of this! Some writers would KILL to have this experience to help with their craft! (I have NEVER, EVER, heard him use the word craft before other than for Mac and Cheese!).

I dramatically take a sip of vino and say:” Well I told Mona since I am at the pizza joint and unavailable, that you would help her in the bra section at her boutique. You have to be there tomorrow at 9:00 am for orientation, VICTORIA…”