Memory
Some waitresses can remember every order. They can stand in
the kitchen with their eyes closed and tell you how many
tables they have and what all their customers look like and
when they get to the table with the food they remember
exactly what everyone asked for. People sit in restaurants
and they don’t think anything of the fact that their
waitress has thirty customers and they all want something
different and yet the plate she sets in front of them has
exactly what they want.
I was not this kind of waitress. I forgot my tables as soon
as I walked away from them. Whatever they wanted left my
short-term memory immediately. It went straight to another
part of my mind so that years later, seeing someone on the
street or meeting a person at a party, I would have the
useless thought: grilled oysters, salad, Tyee pinot gris,
Table 2.