The Nastiest Cocktail: Life With Bitter on the Rocks

This is a little story about how people become bitter. I used to think we were born that way but nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, we learn how to harden our hearts, how to distance ourselves, and to distrust others. It’s a means to survive.

Two nights ago, I had an opportunity to watch this process, in its early stages, unfold in my daughter’s life. No mother wants to see her child (or any child for that matter) learn such an unfriendly lesson, but we know it’s a rite of passage for our wee ones – so the best we can do is to stand by their side, offer a shoulder, pat them on the back and encourage them to go back out into the world with their eyes more widely opened.

SJ is 18 years old and works 43 hours per week as a food service waitress in a local diner-style restaurant. This is not a career option, but rather a stepping stone while she works her way into the hoity-toity art school she desperately wants to attend. Her shifts are varied and her social life has been all-but put on hold. I have the greatest admiration for her determination. At 18, her mother had no sense of direction what-so-ever.

A few nights a week she gets stuck working till midnight. The house rule is that when she finally arrives home, she lets me know so that I can finally fall into a completely restful sleep. I woke up that night at 12:30 to a ringing telephone. I’ve learned not to think the worst when this happens because all too often, she doesn’t get relieved and has to stay later. This was indeed the case this time around.

After talking to her briefly I returned to bed, only to toss and turn for another hour and a half. She would be home by 2:30 the latest. Good.

When she finally walked in at 3:15 a.m., I had been pacing the floor in the kitchen and I noticed she was sobbing as she locked the door behind her. “Uh oh,” I thought, “this is going to be a long night.” I approached her and she fell into my arms from exhaustion. We sat on the couch and I listened intently (and furiously) as she told the story of a lesson hard-learned.

A group of five loud and raucous young women walked into the diner at 1 a.m. They were an un-classy looking group, so at first she approached them indifferently, taking their huge food orders and bringing them coffee. She claims they “got nicer” as time passed, and seemed more normal and friendly. SJ told me she waited on this group hand and foot, bringing them more and more food and beverages, changing things around repeatedly, and clearing the mess they were making as they made it. This was, after all, her job.

Sarah Jane’s relief came in right at two, but she stayed on figuring she had worked so hard to please this group that she had earned their tip. Their bill, after all, had come to a whopping $83; at two in the morning, that’s a whole lot of diner food!

Sometime during their stay, a young man joined the group. Again, SJ waited on them, shared some smiles and waitress/customer chit-chat and went about her business.

When it came time to give them their check, they all thanked her and started to gather their things. Suddenly, SJ no sooner turned around and the women were racing out the door – quickly followed by the younger man. SJ glanced at the table and there was no money on it at all.

Instinctively (and foolishly) she ran after them out into the dark parking lot ~ just in time to watch as the women sped away and the man was getting into his car. SJ cleverly memorized his license plate number and yelled to him that she was calling the cops. In a threatening tone, he called out to her “DON’T DO THAT.” She ran back inside and did just that.

To sum it up, the State Police arrived rather quickly, filed a report, then informed SJ that the car the young man had been driving had been reported stolen. They told her they’d probably never find this group, but that it was good of her to report it. She broke down in tears telling the officer that this money would be deducted from her pay. He assured her that with a case number on file with the police, her boss couldn’t do that. Still, she had seen this happen to others, and was devastated by the possibility.

I was all set to issue the mother-to-child lecture on NEVER racing into a dark parking lot over a fucking diner check, but an overwhelming sadness in her face made me sit back and listen more intently before I started my rant. I’m glad I had.

She proceeded to tell me that the thing that upset her the most was the fact that she had been nice to these people – that they had seemed nice to her – that all had gone so well – and that she had worked so hard to please them. That’s when I saw it. That look in her eye that I’m not sure I ever saw in her before, but recognized it in my own self dozens of times throughout my life; the look that said “I’ve been had.”

It killed me to know that someone, anyone, could have hurt my child so much with one single selfish act. I wanted to crawl inside of her and sweep up all the humility and hatred and mixed emotions, but it couldn’t be done. I really knew that she needed to embrace it and get over it – without my help.

We talked for a while longer, SJ intermittently breaking down and hugging me tightly – in her own words “feeling just so foolish and stupid.” With each hug it felt to me as though she was five years old again, running to me with a scraped knee. I hated like hell that this couldn’t be fixed with a bandage and a lollipop.

And so, my daughter has had the first of many lessons on how to get bitter. She isn’t yet, of course, but it will come. In the meantime, I can only hope that all the crappy lessons in store for her are as easy to recuperate from. The next day, she got up and had breakfast, showered and dressed for work and assured me with a smile that “well there’s one good thing - today has to be much better.” I’m so proud of her.

(A security video tape showed her manager exactly what had transpired during that night – the women had indeed left money with the check on the table and the man had lifted it and run out behind them. At least she didn’t have to feel so stupid for being nice to the women (unless the whole thing was a plan). I will guarantee you this much, she will NOT have that money taken from her paycheck)