…In addition to fishing unused jelly packets out of the trash to rinse off and put back on the dining room tables (previously referenced in this post); what a feeling it is to watch an oblivious diner fiddle with a little plastic bin of grape jelly you rescued just fifteen minutes prior from a muggy grave of chewed hash browns and sausage upchuck.

– the dish washer who was obsessed with Dream Theater and tried to convert me every night

– the dish washer who was obsessed with Canibus and was constantly complaining about ringtone rappers

– the regular customer who always brought his own tiny briefcase of specialized condiments

– the other bus boy who exclusively addressed me as “James Bond Jr.”

– my employee evaluation; the only negative bit was “needs to smile more”

– the day I wore Converse to work instead of my regulation grease-proof boots to prove some kind of point (i.e. I won’t CONFORM to YOUR WORLD, oppressors); I slid around on the kitchen floor the entire night

– the Billy Drago-esque manager who raced Kawasaki motorcycles in his spare time and who could never walk out the back door without taking a deep breath, looking up at the clouds, and saying, “What a beautiful day to die!” (he was later fired for sexual harassment)

– being scheduled weekday mornings and having jack shit to bus

– being scheduled on Sundays and feeling like I was in trench warfare

– never being too mad about the servers not sharing their tips because they all had families to support and I was just some bozo in college

– the in-store satellite radio playing the craziest post-grunge (deep cuts from Green Day’s Nimrod, the 1999 Alice in Chains “reunion” song, etc)

– getting pied in the face on my last day of work by one of the servers (it was a hearty apple pie and I had pieces of fruit caught in my hair for hours)

– running into the lead manager at a nearby Waffle House several weeks after I quit; she told me I was a great employee and that I could come back any time (this was very nice to hear)

I’ve not set foot in that Perkins or any other since hanging up my bus tub.