Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica

storage and tries wedging them into places they really shouldn’t go. Every year I ask him if he’s going to put a table in the ladies’ room.
    On Valentine’s Day you’re going to be sitting cheek by jowl with the couple next to you. Deal with it. And don’t bitch about where you’re sitting. You’re probably lucky to get a table in the first place. The primo spots have been reserved for big spenders, big tippers, or people who’ve planned way in advance. Most Valentine’s Day reservations, surprisingly, are made at the last minute. If you have a suboptimal table and try bullying me into giving you a window seat, the hostess has got the cell phone numbers of eight desperate guys who’ll be happy to grab your chair before the heat from your ass has had a chance to dissipate. Go ahead—make my Valentine’s Day.
    It’s sad, really, when you think about it. Valentine’s Day usedto be a much simpler, low-pressure affair. Two thousand years ago it started out as a feast day to honor the Christian martyr Valentine. It seems the pagan Roman emperor asked Valentine, a priest, to renounce his faith. Showing an appalling lack of survival skills, Valentine refused. The emperor, who I suspect was a bad tipper, rewarded Valentine’s intransigence by having him beaten senseless with clubs and beheaded. While poor Valentine’s bones moldered in the catacombs, he somehow ended up becoming the patron saint of engaged couples and happy marriages. If you’ve ever planned a wedding, you know Valentine caught a tough gig.
    Time marched on, and, like many Catholic traditions, Valentine’s feast got hacked by preexisting Roman mythology. Somehow the tradition of Cupid got folded into the whole mess, and the greeting-card industry, knowing a good idea when it saw one, revved up the papyrus. I know that the real history of Valentine’s Day is a bit more complicated than that, but you’ve got to feel sorry for its progenitor. Valentine got the shit beat out of him, his head cut off, and what was his reward? Becoming the “box of chocolates” saint? That blows.
    Wasn’t Valentine’s Day easier thirty years ago? When I was a kid, Valentine’s Day meant giving Mom a box of Russell Stover candy and bringing homemade cards to all the kids in my first-grade class. Now Valentine’s Day is an important profit center smack dab in the middle of winter. Candy companies, restaurants, and florists depend on this holiday to help keep them in the black. A few weeks before V-Day the department stores start revving up the commercials, and men everywhere start believing they have the ability to pick out tasteful lingerie for their wives. (You don’t. Just give a gift certificate.) Restaurants start running ads reminding procrastinating men to make their reservations before it’s too late.
    And that’s just fine with me. While I bemoan the commercialization of poor Valentine’s untimely demise, I’ve got a living to make. Remember, I’m a waiter. Don’t be fooled by my occasional bursts of sentimentality. I can be one mercenary bastard. The period between February and April is slow, and my bank account’s hurting. Be warned, I’m going to do my damnedest to separate you lovebirds from your money.
    When the fateful day arrives, I show up to The Bistro a few hours early. Fortified with two cups of Starbucks and a Red Bull, I’m raring to go. I want to get a head start on my prep work and review the seating plan with the hostess. Before I can even take off my coat the house phone rings.
    “Where’s the hostess?” I shout. I don’t want to pick up the phone.
    “She’s not here yet,” yells Imelda, one of the bus girls.
    “She was supposed to be here at noon!”
    Imelda just shrugs. The phone keeps ringing. I know what the caller wants already. I take a deep breath, sigh, and pick up the receiver.
    “The Bistro,” I answer, “how may I help you?”
    “I need a reservation for tonight,” a desperate male voice rasps over a cell