[27offsuit]

In school, I worked doing bartending. One night they were having a big to-do with waitstaff dressed in black & whites and they needed every available hand on deck to help.

So here I am, waiting tables for the very first time ever in a room full of about 150 people having a dinner function.
Food has been served and is now being cleaned from the tables as someone is speaking at a podium.
I am stacking the heavy white dinner plates onto a tray and I have about 15-20 stacked up, which turns out to be pretty flippin heavy, but I am oblivious to just how heavy. At this point, I am about to do the 'bend-down-and-lift-the-whole-tray-onto-your-shoulder' move when the speaker at the podium begins to deliver a mini-eulogy about a guy that has just passed away that everyone in the room knows.
The guy finishes his talk about this man, at which point I bend down to lift the tray of plates and as I start lifting, the tray teeters and the plates start sliding off the stack one by one...

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

at this point there is no stopping and all I can do is stand there with a tray full of plates smashing on the floor one at a time

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*

*SMASH!*
*SMASH!*
*SMASH!*
*SMASH!*
*SMASH!*
*SMASH!*...*SMASH!*.......*SMASH!*

At this point, the entire room is silent and looking at me.


A lady easily in her 80's at a table I was clearing leans over giggling and says "He would have just loved that..."



My first and last waiting gig.