Tags
fatherhood, guest blog, humor, newborn, parenting, waiting tables
Nobody listens to me…
As I tried to explain here (and here)…okay and here—parenting is not for the faint of heart or stomach. Luckily, that advice is too late for this week’s guest blogger, writer Matt Abraham.
Please pour yourself a cup and get comfortable. And if the baby cries, don’t worry. Matt’s got this one.
How waiting tables prepares you for baby’s first month
by Matt Abraham
I was terrified when I had my kid four weeks ago. He was tiny and fragile, screaming and shaking, and all I knew was that I wanted to succeed as a parent. However, the only skills I possessed dealt with waiting tables. What was I going to do, upsell him a bottle of wine or crumb his bib between courses? But after four weeks of fathering I realize there was no need for concern, because as surprising as it sounds, the skills I gained from working in restaurants were the only ones I needed to successfully deal with an infant. After all, he was just a weepy egocentric human who was demanding all my attention, and even on a slow Tuesday night you’ll see four of those… So if you’re a waiter who’s expecting their first kid you can rest easy, the following six lessons from your time spinning trays are guaranteed to get you through the crucial first month of parenthood with ease.
Kind of.
Lesson 1. No matter how bad it gets, don’t panic.
It doesn’t matter if your apps are dragging, the POS machine is down, or table twelve just found a human finger in the flan; you don’t panic. Personally, I apply this cool thinking to everything I do as a dad. Like right now my baby’s been crying for ten minutes straight, the cat’s crapping on the new white rug, and smoke from the toast I forgot I was making just set off the fire alarm. But am I freaking out? No. I’m writing a blog post. Because waiting tables taught me to keep a level head. Or maybe because I got six fingers of gin in me. Whichever. The point is I’m not panicking.
Lesson 2. You develop an iron bladder
It’s happened to us all: You have to go to the bathroom, but you’re weeded like Snoop Dogg at Reggae Fest with no one around to cover your section, so you seal up your bladder like a sous-vide bag and wait (sometimes an hour) before finally finding three minutes to sneak downstairs and drop your urine like one of those planes that fight wildfires. Congratulations. This ability comes in crazy handy when you have a baby. See, the first thing you learn as a parent is never wake the baby. Never. Even if they’re lying on your chest and you just drank a gallon of tea you sit there as still as possible like the kid’s pinning you to the sofa like they’re fucking Mjolnir, because the hard truth is a quiet baby trumps dry pants every time. Seriously. I’ve never wet myself to keep my baby quiet, but I wouldn’t judge anyone who has. It’s the right call every time.
Lesson 3. You’ll eat every meal like it’s a shift meal
If you’ve never seen a restaurant worker eat before their shift picture a team of piranhas working on a cow, except with more silverware and fewer niceties. And there are two reasons why: first, there’s only a tiny window in which that food can be consumed before the barbarians arrive, and second, there are precious few actual edible bits in a shift meal, and you got to fight for them. Seriously. I’ve seen cooks throw shoe leather into a hotel pan of Salisbury steak to add mass. Basically I’m saying if you want to eat you got to move quick.
Which is the same way you eat around a baby; you just power it down like it’s the Nathan’s Hotdog eating championship, because you got maybe three minutes before that cross between Golum and a potato you spawned wakes up and starts asking for shit. But whatever, tasting your food’s for pussies anyway.
Lesson 4. Booze won’t make it better, it’ll make it a lot better
Alcohol’s your friend, ally, parent, therapist, and old war buddy poured into a convenient bottle. I heartily recommend it to restaurant workers and new parents alike. But only AFTER the shift. And never when you’re breastfeeding. Unless you’re the feedee, and not the feeder. Then your freak flag’s flying so high I don’t think a glass of pinot will do much damage so go nuts.
Lesson 5. You only have friends like you
Thanks to the vampire hours most restaurant folk keep it was impossible for me to have friends who weren’t also in the industry, simply because my schedule guaranteed I’d never see them.
The same thing happens now, except it’s with my kid-free friends, and if I ever do see them I have no clue what they’re talking about. “Taylor Swift’s twitter feud? China’s currency? Trump?” What the fuck are those things? I live in a world of diapers, man. Let’s talk about that.
Lesson 6. Babies and customers are NEVER right, but you still have to give them what they want
Every part of waiting tables is great. Except for the diners. They suck more than if a black hole manifested in the Dyson testing facility. With complaints like, “Where’s my food, I screamed my order at you a minute ago… This bottle’s too cold, warm it up… and, me me me me me me…” it’s amazing more of them aren’t killed annually (probably because it’s illegal, thanks Obama). So all you can do is shove whatever they’re crying for into their mouths in the hopes it’ll shut them up.
I forgot if that point was directly about babies or restaurant guests, but you get my point, it works both ways.
Bonus Lesson. When it’s over you’ll miss it
Sure the industry sucks with all the doubles and clopens, but it’s full of the best people in the world. And you get to work and drink with them all night before waking up at noon in some strange place with no recollection of what you’ve done like a God damn werewolf. It’s awesome, and I miss it a lot.
They say the same thing about newborns. That they grow up so fast and you’ll miss the time when they were itty bitty. It’s hard to believe, but I guess if I still long for my waiting days, despite being bossed around by bald assholes who think they’re the center of my universe, I don’t see why I won’t miss parenting a newborn despite that very same thing happens here on a daily basis, too.
Dane Curse
Sometimes even the unjust deserve a little justice
If you lose a black cape, and can’t go to the cops, then you come to me because that’s what I do. I’ve been in the game for years. I know all the curves and all the angles, and if it gets rough then so be it, I got plenty strength, I’m double tough, and I never quit. And if need be I’ll pull my artillery to get you some answers, because I don’t care about the mistakes you’ve made or how you chose to live your life, sometimes even the unjust deserve a little justice.
At least that’s how it was before a mysterious murder threatens to plunge Gold Coast City into a super powered war unless I find the killer in five days’ time. But getting to the truth won’t be so easy. I’ll have to face ruthless black capes with secrets to hide, a powerful government agency bent on national expansion, and even teams of white caped heroes whose intentions are less than pure.
No easy task for a small time PI, so I’ll need every bit of my strength and guts if I’m going to find the killer, save my city, and maybe even get some justice for the greatest hero the world has ever known.
Dane Curse is available on:
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | Blog
judithbarrow1 said:
Reblogged this on Barrow Blogs: and commented:
Yet another fabulous post from Barb. Meet Matt Abraham
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barbtaub said:
Thanks so much for the reblog!
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Paul said:
Funny Matt. I enjoyed this post although I am child free and have never waited tables.
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barbtaub said:
And I’ve never driven a truck, but you took us there Paul!
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Rosie Amber said:
Fabulous comparisons, lovely to meet you Matt.
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barbtaub said:
I’m going to be super nice to my next waiter. They might have a new baby and be rocking close to the edge.
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Cathy said:
So funny..and true. It’s amazing the lengths you go to not to wake the baby. I haven’t waited tables but worked a bar and that’s kind of similar. Great post, Matt.
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barbtaub said:
Child #1 would only sleep if one of us was holding her and sitting (or standing) bolt upright. It took about one night for her to train us in the next two year’s regime…
I look back on a little scene just before we left the hospital after her birth:
ME: How often should we wake up the baby?
NURSE: bwa-ha-ha-ha… [when she could speak] I don’t think this will really be a problem…
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Cathy said:
How hugely uncomfortable! Waking the baby definitely wasn’t a problem for us either – we took shifts through the night pushing the pram up and down the living room like zombies, alternatively driving round aimlessly for hours.
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barbtaub said:
Driving was good. I also discovered that I could sit her little carrier on top of the washing machine, and the vibrations worked (occasionally).
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Cathy said:
Didn’t try that one!
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Diane Yannick said:
Great post, Matthew! Loved your humor. SO well written!
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Ali Isaac said:
Fabulous post, been there 3 times so know your pain! lol!
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Jessie said:
I love that I now get to laugh at things like this in an “I’ve been there” way and not an “I’m doing it again and I might be laughing or I might be crying but I can’t tell” sort of way!
In any case, this was great and I’m now the proud owner of Dane Curse – thanks!
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