Free Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica

girls who blend in with their high-society environs. This woman looks like she got picked up off the street. The bond trader could afford a less shopworn sex worker, but something tells me this guy likes them sad and desperate. I feel bad for this girl.
    “Miss,” I whisper, “what do you like to eat?”
    “I like spaghetti and meatballs.”
    “We don’t have meatballs, madam,” I reply. “But we have whole wheat spaghetti with mushrooms and sausage.” It’s the rabbit sausage we’re using for the wild boar special, but she doesn’t need to know that.
    “Is that with red gravy?” the hooker asks.
    “Of course, madam.” The dish is made with a white sauce, but switching to red will be no problem.
    “Thank you,” the hooker says. “I like sausage.”
    I’m sure no pun was intended here either.
    The man and his date eat their dinner. I can tell the hooker’s really enjoying her food. Good. At least she’ll get something positive out of this whole sordid transaction. Her date, however, has drunk the entire bottle of Dom and is valiantly attempting to polish off a $700 bottle of wine. If I dug up a corpse and fed it to him he’d never know the difference.
    I encounter many rich and successful people in my line of work. It never ceases to amaze me how people can be completely capable in one part of their lives but total fuckups in most of the others. This guy’s a super-smart financial type—but he’s also a desperate alcoholic who picks up whores. And believe me, I feel sorry for the whores. This guy’s a pig.
    Before you know it the clocks are striking midnight. The customers toot their paper horns, crank their noisemakers, and scream “Happy New Year” at the top of their lungs. I go around to wish all my tables a happy and healthy 2006. The woman with the fake pearls at table 26 just glares at me. That’s odd. She’s been smiling at me the whole time she’s been here. Before I can think about it any further Louis liberates a bottle of champagne and starts passing it around.
    “Happy New Year’s, man,” Louis says, offering me a swig.
    “Happy New Year’s, Louis,” I say, taking the bottle out of his hands.
    “How’s our bond trader?”
    “His blood alcohol must be, like, twenty-five percent.” I say, taking a pull from the bottle. Ugh. Cheap domestic. I prefer Veuve Clicquot.
    “He’s not driving home, is he?”
    “No,” I say. “He always goes home in a cab.”
    “You think he’ll be able to get that tiny pecker of his up when he gets home?”
    “Probably not,” I chuckle. For the hooker’s sake, I’m happy.
    By one-thirty the customers start going home. Of course, the bond trader and the hooker are the last to leave. I drop the man’s $1,500 check. Half an hour later he still hasn’t looked at it,preferring to babble profanities at his paid companion instead. I decide to move him along.
    “May I take care of that for you, sir?” I ask, gesturing toward the check. (That’s waiterspeak for “get out.”)
    “Uh, no,” the drunk trader says. After a few clumsy seconds, he produces an American Express Black Card from his wallet.
    “Bet you’ve never seen one of these before,” he says, handing me the credit card. A Black Amex card feels like a piece of ceramic tile. They say you can use it to buy a yacht. I see at least one every week.
    “No, sir,” I gush. “I don’t. They’re very exclusive.”
    “Damn straight,” the trader says, releasing a profane belch.
    “I’ll be right back, sir.”
    I run the man’s Amex. It goes through. A $1,500 check is child’s play for this guy. When I return to the table, the trader grabs the check holder out of my hand, inks in a tip, signs it with a flourish, and hands it back to me.
    “Howdya like the tip I left ya?” he asks, eyeballing me strangely.
    I open the check holder. On $1,500 the man’s left me $250. Roughly a 17 percent tip. Of course, $250 is nothing to sneeze at, but this guy’s been a consummate pain in