In my dream,
I just got hired as a waitress,
not the best job in the world,
but I've done it before.
The setting is shoddy-rustic,
a boondocks type place,
well settled in nowhere.
Given a check pad of green,
and a pen, looking quite normal.
I already have an apron on,
also green, with three pockets.
The kitchen, to my eye,
was abit of a horror,
dirty dishes all over
and the cook in a cast.
One cook.
No dishwasher or busboy.
The other girls are familiar
with customers and chaos,
they probably have clean dishes
stashed away, same with silverware.
My first customer a woman,
"Grilled cheese sandwich
and a bowl of chicken noodle soup,
please", she says. No problem,
except I cannot find a clean bowl,
she doesn't want a cup of soup.
I check through the tubs
of dirty dishes, finally find one
and wash it out myself. Next, a plate,
then I search for a doilly, none to be found.
Okay, where's the soup?
Where's the grilled cheese?
Why does my pad have 3 more table orders
written down and not turned in? Things
are getting bad,
I don't even know my section.
I am starting to freak out, people
are sitting at empty tables, looking at me
as I fly around the room, not looking at them,
concentrating on my one lady
who is sending me glances
as she pretends to read her book.
A table of older men
want me to sit down and chat,
it's like the Twilight Zone in here,
I escape to the kitchen, wanting to hide,
so I fill a rack to send through the dishwasher,
only to find
all these open sanitary chemicals
in the last section of glass holders,
I have to transfer everything to another rack.
The cook has disappeared, there is food
all over the floor and, oh,
did I forget to mention, a couple
of good sized dogs are ambling around
or sitting in the doorway to the resturant?
I throw some bread on the grill
for the sandwich, spot the soup,
still no doilly, but, finally,
I get my first order out,
the woman smiles with her cheesy mouth
but not her nightmare eyes. I look around,
nobody is here except
me and several more full tables
of waiting customers, I realize
I never called my husband to tell him
I was working, that I got a job
at Hell's Resturant, that I wasn't home
watching our children, they were alone,
just like I am alone,
the shriek of an alarm goes off,
the dogs start to howl,
the people start to melt and shift,
as I wake up, groggily,
feeling discombobulated,
but happy I am home,
as I go to make coffee,
for myself,
and ponder
on the stuff of dreams.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 9/17/02