waitressing

I dreamt I was in an alcove of a restaurant.
I was with my mom. We were drinking something warm.
The owner came by, a very friendly, jubilant Persian man with a cozy smile. He had a scruffy face. He offered my mom and I something...a food or drink item, or possibly even a compliment. I don't recall. It was an offering. That's what counts.

There were few other customers. It was early afternoon.

We mentioned I needed work and he said they could always use more people, so I agreed to come back that evening for work.

I did, and he wasn't there. The restaurant was packed with people at tables. It expanded past it's former alcove into a large living room size. It was dimly lit with candles and small lamps draped over in red clothe. It was soothing besides the noise level. Everyone was talking. Loudly.
I saw Taylor was there, but didn't pay him much attention. He was with friends. I thought it odd he was there though, since he was meant to be some far away place. I thought "how coincidental" and searched around for an employee to tell me what to do.

I saw one girl with black clothes and an apron writing down orders at a table. She was clearly very busy, so I decided to figure it out on my own. I noticed a table of people resting their chins on their hands, elbows propped up on the table top. Their faces were expressing clearly their annoyance, so I went to them and asked "Have you been helped?"
"No" they all lifted their heads to say.
"Okay. Just one second." And I ran to the back, through the beaded curtain into the stock room/kitchen/washroom to find a pad of paper and pen. The pad was long and had a grid covering it, like you find in a graphing notebook. The pen was like five pounds heavy. I thought "how did I end up with this STUPID pen." I went back to them and wrote what they wanted, the pen wobbling from side to side uncontrollably as I attempted grasping it like a normal pen. After I took their orders I realized I still had my hobo gloves on. They were huge. They made my hands feel three times their size (like in Science of Sleep) and my face went flush when I realized I still had them on while speaking with the customers. I took them off.

Then noticed to my side, near the beaded curtain, was a young girl also wearing a waitress outfit. I sat down at her table and said "Ni Hao!" (because she looked Chinese. This is not something I would ever do...assume someone's heritage like that.) She gave me a disgruntled look without even turning her face to look at me. The guy across from her at the table turned to me and gave me a huge smile. He was an attractive young Asian guy. His smile communicated forgiveness on her part for both my ignorance and her rude response. He made it okay. Then she took a cell phone from behind her other ear and closed it...that is why she didn't even turn to me. I told her I was a new employee and needed help. She was lazy and didn't care about what I had to say. She sat slumped in her chair listening to me and didn't help me. Taylor was still seated at a table, directly across from us, but I wasn't thinking about his being there. I could see him through my peripheral vision.

Without any help from her I kept on. Pretending to know what I was doing, I went to the next table that expressed dissapointment in their lack of attention. It was a large table of people, a family, one guy I knew sitting with them. A woman, seemingly the head figure of the household, pointed to a table across the room and said "We want that. That bowl of whatever it is." I looked over and saw two young girls with an enormous clear glass bowl of "whatever." It looked like salad with beans and something crunchy on top. I said, "Well, of course. Okay.... You know what? I'm very new here, so I'm not really sure what that is. It looks to me like a taco salad without the taco." The woman replied with a full mouth smile and agreed, "I think you're right. That is what it looks like. We'll have it. Looks delicious!" Everyone at the table had their arms on the table (like a symbol of their honesty and kindness.)
Despite the comfort they made me feel, letting off an aura of happy supportive family, I was immeditately stressed out. I had no clue how to find the cooks and didn't know what that "whatever" dish was, couldn't make it myself, had no help from fellow employees, didn't want to disappoint that nice family, and noticed Taylor had left.
Standing in the midst of people, noise, and warm light, I had no solution. Everything felt like it was trembling, the pen weighed down my right hand, and my brain was about to explode.

Then I woke up with a throbbing headache.
My first thought was "I could be a waitress some day."