WAITER NIGHTMARE [*way-tęr nĭte-mar*]

Noun.

1. That horrible customer who insists on sitting in your station because he thinks you enjoy waiting on him, but you’d rather watch him choke on a chicken bone.
2. You’re deep in the weeds and the host seats you a table of seven Kardashians.
3. A nerve-racking nightmare involving wrong orders, unhappy customers, and gigantic mistakes that snowball until the waiter either wakes up in a mad sweat or has a stroke and gratefully dies in his sleep. Waiter Nightmares strike newbies and veterans alike.

Here are three out of the thousands I’ve had:

NIGHTMARE #15

Time and Order shift and I’m in a restaurant. I don’t recognize the place. But I know it like the back of my head. The Maître ‘d — no greeting — shoves a plate of food in my face

“Here,” says Maître ‘d, “Nathan Lane is screaming for his food. Bring it to him. Quickly. He’s on the phone to the police.”

“Where is he? Where is he?”

“Table Sixty-Four.”

“Where is table Sixty-Four?”

“California.”

“California? That’s clear across the country.”

“Take Amtrak. Hurry, before his Parmigiana gets cold and he soils himself.”

I grab the plate. I board Amtrak. In the train vestibule a member of the Queen’s Guard gently takes my plate then head-butts me. I fall to the floor sit up and spit out a mouthful of bearskin.

“What the hell–?”

“You’re being contained for security reasons, guv,” says the Guard, “Her majesty the Queen of England is in the next compartment.”

James Bond drops from the ceiling, sharp and shiny, dripping pomade. He snorts butterscotch snots, threads thick hairy fingers through my suspenders, and lifts me to my feet.

“Get in there you bloody mess,” says Bond, “and take the Queen’s order.”

“I can’t. I have to get this Chicken Parmigiana to California.”

“Blimey, you blighter, the old girl’s hungry. She hasn’t eaten since VE-Day.”

“But it’s not my table.”

“It is now.”

Bond shoves me against the Queen’s compartment door with a ‘thud’.

“Enter,” sings Her Royal self.

I open the door to the Queen’s chamber. I step in. Everything in the compartment is a cheery lime green, including Her Majesty.

“Your Majesty,” I mutter, “I hope I’m not disturbing.”

“You are quite disturbing. Look at you. Change your shoes, tuck in your shirt, and get a haircut. That is an edict.”

“That’s very generous of you, Ham.”

“What did you call me?”

“Nothing, Ma’am.”

“What are you holding?” says Herself.

“A plate of chicken parmigiana.”

“Sounds ghastly. We did not order that.”

“We, ma’am?”

“Have you not met Winston?”

The Queen points to a large fat cigar. The Cigar is surrounded by a stumpy man in a waistcoat.

“Yes,” I say with some confidence, “Mr. Churchill and I go way back. Eh, Winnie?”

“Good God, man,” says Winnie, “the war is over. Lower your chicken.”

“Look, folks,” I say, “I’d love to stick around and take your order. But first, I have to get this Chicken Parmigiana to California.”

“Nathan Lane, no doubt,” says Her Majesty.

“You’re not the only queen in the western hemisphere.”

“She’s very demanding,” Herself says of Nathan, “is she not?”

“She has two Tonys.”

“Ah,” says the Queen, “I only had the one. Mr. Blair. Prissy little prat, he was. Very well. But be back here as soon as possible. Charles is sharpening the guillotine.”

The train lurches. Impatient. Angry even. I look out the window. The Great Plain is blanketed by hundreds of thousands of tables. Every table has been freshly sat with hungry customers, desperately calling, Calling, CALLING!

“Waiter?” screams a thousand and one guests, “Waiter! Hey, Ted the Waiter!!!”

I lean against the vestibule wall and pray for an easy death…

NIGHTMARE # 9

Omaha Beach. June 6, 1944. Dawn of D-Day. Baby waves gurgle at the shoreline. In the distance, scores of menacing warships stretch across the horizon. I stand at the water’s edge, saluting the Allied Forces with one hand, balancing a tray of iced-teas with the other. General Charles De Gaulle trudges as best he can through sand to my side.

“Tedee?” says De Gaulle.

“Oui, mon Général?”

“Do not speak French. It is insulting.”

“Oui, I mean, Okay,” I say.

“I herewith and hereby order you to serve each and every soldier, as they land, one refreshing iced-tea.”

“How many soldiers will there be, sir?”

“Approximately 150,000 men…and a couple of nurses.”

“I only have seven iced-teas.”

“Then you must figure something out, eh?”

Behind me I hear the snicker of Germans as they load their howitzers.

“While you’re at it, you might as well take their dinner order.”

“But, mon Général, I left my pen at Dunkirk. May I borrow yours?”

The General explodes A tsunami of French saliva

“La plume est sur la table, you twit!”

I wipe the General’s spittle from my chin. I wade knee-deep into the ocean, and wait for the invasion…

NIGHTMARE #4

I’m working the first-class dining room on Noah’s Ark. Outside on deck it’s raining nails. The sea Ripples and Roils

Inside, the dining room undulates wet fur and scales.

Noah bursts in, his usual grand entrance: Arms spread, Mouth agape, Teeth rancid.

“Oh, good,” he says, “we’re busy.”

“I’m nauseous,” I say.

“Get a grip. Our guests are restless.”

“They’re animals.”

“Hungry animals. Get to work.”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll take all tables abaft, avast, and astern. You take everything alee, ahoy, and ahull.”

“A lee a who and a what?”

“Confound it, you twit! You should know this by now. You’ve been at it for forty days.”

Elephant and his Wife lumber to my side.

“We’ve been waiting for our food for over a month,” says Elephant.

“Remind me. What did you order?”

“Seven bushels of apples and an Acacia stump.”

“I’ll get the apples to you as soon as I can, but the stump will take a couple of years.”

Elephant blows a trumpet in my ear. He and Mrs. Elephant stampede back to their table.

Lion and his Lioness slink to my other side.

“We, too, have been waiting for our food,” says Lion, his whiskers twitching a Morse code of ferocious mauling.

“What did you order?” I ask.

“I forgot. What did we order, honey?”

Lioness extends her paw and casually inspects her claws.

“We ordered a couple of waiters…and a side of rice.”

Noah hears this and casually abandons ship.

Mr. and Mrs. Lion sniff my shanks and open their maws. I see my death reflected on their shiny saliva-dripping fangs.

They ask for extra napkins.

Deirdre the Dove circles the dining room.

“Land! Land!” she screeches, “I think it might be New Jersey.”

But no one listens, so she flies out the porthole to the safety of Perth Amboy.

Lion shows me his tongue.

“Ready?” he says.

I mentally add a bazooka to my Xmas list.