Tuesday
Oct132009
On Nightmares
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 11:29AM | Mr Lady
You know those naked at school or work dreams you have sometimes that you wake up from in a cold sweat, kind of dying a little inside? Yeah, you work in a restaurant for long enough and those dreams keep the crowds but lose the naked bit and get replaced with lost checks or burnt steaks. And they're horrifying.
And it doesn't matter how long it's been since you've worked in a restaurant, because that shit will haunt you for the rest of your natural days. Perhaps more. I'm pretty sure the 6th layer of hell involves a buffet line and Mother's Day.
Last night, I had a 9 table section and it was full. Like, full full. There was one table I kept forgetting no matter how hard I tried to, and one table of two that were fairly regular customers who came in with a double pork chop and a chocolate cake made with garbanzo bean flour (shockingly good, I've learned. Thanks, Zoeyjane. I'm totally waiting for that recipe.) They wanted the pork chop cooked to medium and the chocolate cake served to them in 5-7 minute intervals, each at a different style. And they had an evaluation form. And they were filling it in as the night progressed.
I realized this was a dream when I didn't tell them to bite me.
So, it was 20 minutes before the kitchen closed and the dish racks were all full and lined up in front of the kitchen door so I had to go outside, enter through the alley, and cook my own food. The pork chop got thrown on the grill with two steaks that someone wanted stacked up like a double cheeseburger with a side of defibrillator and I got started on the chocolate cake. I got round one plated up and ready to go, then had to run next door to the crack house to sit on the couch with the crack momma and her social worker. I wish I knew why. I was offered tea, and I can't say no to tea, and before i knew it, more than a half hour had past. I ran back, got the heart attack stack out, checked the pork and ran the first cake. And the people weren't at their table. So I took the cake back to the kitchen.
I wasted another thirty minutes looking for a hammer and chisel to open a coconut I was suddenly carrying around before I remembered the pork chop who's asian glaze I hadn't even begun to make. I ran back to the kitchen to find all of the lights out, every cooler locked and an empty grill. Romero (his name was Romero) (because I name imaginary dream people) threw the pork away when he left.
That's the point in the dream when you wake yourself up because you're about to hit the ground and if you fall that far in a dream and actually hit the ground, you'll die in your dream and in real life. If you've never worked in a restaurant, you'll hate me for wasting your time with this whole post but if you have, odds are you're puking right now, just like I wanted to when I woke up.
And it doesn't matter how long it's been since you've worked in a restaurant, because that shit will haunt you for the rest of your natural days. Perhaps more. I'm pretty sure the 6th layer of hell involves a buffet line and Mother's Day.
Last night, I had a 9 table section and it was full. Like, full full. There was one table I kept forgetting no matter how hard I tried to, and one table of two that were fairly regular customers who came in with a double pork chop and a chocolate cake made with garbanzo bean flour (shockingly good, I've learned. Thanks, Zoeyjane. I'm totally waiting for that recipe.) They wanted the pork chop cooked to medium and the chocolate cake served to them in 5-7 minute intervals, each at a different style. And they had an evaluation form. And they were filling it in as the night progressed.
I realized this was a dream when I didn't tell them to bite me.
So, it was 20 minutes before the kitchen closed and the dish racks were all full and lined up in front of the kitchen door so I had to go outside, enter through the alley, and cook my own food. The pork chop got thrown on the grill with two steaks that someone wanted stacked up like a double cheeseburger with a side of defibrillator and I got started on the chocolate cake. I got round one plated up and ready to go, then had to run next door to the crack house to sit on the couch with the crack momma and her social worker. I wish I knew why. I was offered tea, and I can't say no to tea, and before i knew it, more than a half hour had past. I ran back, got the heart attack stack out, checked the pork and ran the first cake. And the people weren't at their table. So I took the cake back to the kitchen.
I wasted another thirty minutes looking for a hammer and chisel to open a coconut I was suddenly carrying around before I remembered the pork chop who's asian glaze I hadn't even begun to make. I ran back to the kitchen to find all of the lights out, every cooler locked and an empty grill. Romero (his name was Romero) (because I name imaginary dream people) threw the pork away when he left.
That's the point in the dream when you wake yourself up because you're about to hit the ground and if you fall that far in a dream and actually hit the ground, you'll die in your dream and in real life. If you've never worked in a restaurant, you'll hate me for wasting your time with this whole post but if you have, odds are you're puking right now, just like I wanted to when I woke up.
Reader Comments (53)
I have had those dreams...scary stuff...glad you woke up! :) Happy not to be in that line of work anymore, but totally over tip when I do go out, b/c I feel sorry for the waiters having to put up with all the b.s.!
Oh holy hell. ::shudders::
I have a feeling my reoccurring nightmare wherein a beeper was thrown at me because it was raining and the patio wasn't open and somehow this was my fault will be coming back tonight. Except that actually happened and my subconscious refuses to let. it. go.
You should have a drink, and a shot or two, while you sit rolling silver. It's a perk of closing.
I worked in a restaurant for three years, and I still wake up in the middle of the night wondering if I remembered to get table 15 their ketchup.
::shudder::
Yes. yes yes yes. I didn't wait tables, but I was a hostess in an upscale restaurant and I've had those dreams.
Terrifying.
And why the hell did Romero throw away the pork chop. HE should be the one in trouble, not you!
Remind me to tell you about the time that a busboy and I trashed an umbrella that two nuns left behind because they stiffed us on a $250.00 tab. Yeah, they came back, apologizing because each thought the other one had tipped and gave me a hundy. Then they asked for their umbrella.
I've worked both sides of the line in my time, and I would have to be damn near cardboard box status before I went back to waitressing. *shudder*
Horrifying. A crowded restaurant is totally what night mares are made out of. I worked in a restaurant when I was in high school... and right after 9/11 I had been asked to go around and give out warm chocolate chip cookies to all the "guests". It was one of my favorite things to do because, obviously, everyone loved the cookie girl. Well, that night, it was incredibly crowded and I accidentally skipped a table. A man with his daughter. They happened to be of middle eastern background. He tracked me down and yelled and yelled and yelled. I was only 16, and I just started crying and apologizing. It was completely awful. For me and for him because I am sure that it was not a random assumption-- he probably had been a victim of some racial profiling and evil-doing.
Oh my GAWD that was frightning. You should keep that shit you yourself!
My nightmares don't feature restaurants, although they often involve air as thick as treacle and underground toilets. Which could describe some restaurants I've been in. Sorta.
I worked at Coco's all through college and my nightmare is that they keep seating my section and all I have time to do is take and fill drink orders before they seat another table and I never get around to putting food orders in the computer b/c I'm just trying to get everyone's drinks. By the time I get back to the first table they want refills and I have to do that before I can put their order in (and so on, and so on). Restaurant dreams are the MOST stressful!!
I waited tables in college and would have nightmares about customers who couldn't make up their minds what to order, while all the other tables were yelling for drinks, or food, or their bill. Worse than the 'having a college final in a class I've never been too' nightmares. I have to ask my college kid if she's had restaurant dreams. Maybe it skipped a generation.
In those dreams, I usually reach a point where I'm so buried I realize I can't ever claw my way out, say "Fuck it." and go smoke a cigarette. (Not that I ever did that in my actual waitressing days...)
The detail astounds me. Your brain still can retain your nightmares with that kind of blow-by-blow? If I don't write it down THE INSTANT I WAKE UP, it's gone. Zapped from my memory. Hmmmm......
I worked in a restaurant during college - called TGI Friday's. Know it? I haven't had any waitress dreams in a while but maybe tonight I will.
And oh. my. god. That line of dying in your sleep AND in real life has me really cracking up. I still believe it though.
:-)
All I did was work in restaurants.
I've had *this* dream.
You just gave me cold sweats. Yikes.
It wasn't only a restaurant. It was a hotel restaurant. So with all the horrors of a restaurant along with delivering room service. And the awful men that wanted me to stay and eat it with them. Or FEED IT TO THEM!
Left there to work at a bank. Missed the restaurant. Apparently I'm crazy or something.
Wow and yikes! I'm glad I'm not the only former waitress to have these dreams (although why I'd wish that misery on someone else, I don't know). I haven't waited tables in a dozen years and I still have dreams that I've totally forgotten a table during the dinner shift only to return to serve lunch the next day to find them still sitting there waiting for me...I call these my "stress dreams".
I had a scary nightmare the other night that I was pregnant and people found out before I could have an abortion.
Working in a restaurant would be a real life nightmare for me. So unappealing to me.
I'm guessing you don't watch reality TV shows like Hell's Kitchen, Chopped, or Chopping Block?
In Blog We Trust:: On Nightmares http://bit.ly/r9j19
I have a tried and true trick to wake yourself from a nightmare. Cross your eyes. As hard as you can, just cross them. You will wake up. Problem is, you'll find yourself crossing your eyes at work a lot in real life. Or when your kid is watching Dora.
it's a wonder you weren't naked with a parrot named ethan sitting on your shoulder too. ha ha. that was good. infact my heart was racing.
I still have cold sweat dreams about soup, salad and breadsticks. But now that I'm a teacher, I have teacher dreams, which are like student dreams but waaay worse. I usually can't find my classroom or haven't made copies. Or I'm naked. In front of a class of teenage boys. All fun stuff.
Hm. I was a lifeguard - you don't want to know about the dreams I had that involved speedos and overweight, middle aged men.
Oh wait. That was real, too.
I had a dream the other night I left the poptart in her car seat in the doctor's office. And when I remembered where I left her, she was still in her car seat but had graduated college.
Then there was the time Darren fell asleep in front of the TV and he dreamed someone was yelling at him in Chinese, and he had this remote that wasn't working. When he woke up the TV had switched from the Simpsons to the local Chinese news.
my last post was about a situation loosely related to yours,, go read and laugh (I hope)
My work nightmare always consists of having to wait on the entire restaurant and then being out of whatever they want and spending the whole dream running back and forth with everyone YELLING.
Dreaming about the weeds is just as bad as being in them.
I have never worked in a restaurant, but I can totally relate because I've had nightmares also. Aren't they sometimes horrifying?! Usually, I dream of falling and then fortunately I wake up to realized that it was just a dream.
I don't work at a restaurant, but I do work in a kitchen. All I know is that now I'm craving well-done pork.
My nightmares always involve going back to high school. As you can imagine, there is more than enough fodder there to keep me nightmaring forevah. I can't seem to convince my subconscious that part of my life is over, no matter how hard I try.
i worked in a cafe. but it was small enough for me not to get nightmares from your post. a little too close to home, but no puking.
I just got down on my knees and thanked the lord that I will never work in a restaurant again. 15 years was plenty enough for me.
I must also mention that I have never prayed before in my life.
i only wish i saw NAKED PPL in my dreams...you lucky girl you.....
oh, sorry, you don't see them anymore...then we're even. How was Tony Hawke??
I had to look him cuz i so didn't know who the heck my son was talking about a few days ago.
... but were you wearing Crocs, like in my dream?
It must be the week for bizarre work related dreams.
Whiskey in My Sippy Cup : Surviving Parenting. Kinda. » On Nightmares http://bit.ly/f7tzT
My husband had a dream this summer that he was on a CSI-type show only this involved accounting (he's not an accountant, he's a lawyer). It was a low-budget production, shot mostly over the desk where husband, as the star of the show, had to wade through piles of receipts in order to solve the crime. The tag line for the show was, "Something just doesn't add up."
He was rather pleased with his subconscious for coming up with that.
Yes. Oh god, yes. I never had customers (back of house) but I still dream of fucked up orders.
I have nightmares about being a bank teller. And yes, they do come from experience and I can relate to the wanting to puke.
The cake thing is similar to thinking you're counting ones and realizing that it's twenties you're handing out.
I did work in a resteraunt...but I was the hostess...so I am not sweating...But I used to have those naked dreams...only I couldn't see either...not completely, just really hazy sight...WTF is that about??
I dont' have those any more...I'm holding out for the erotic dreams now...THOSE make me sweat!!
haven't worked in a restaurant since highschool and I still dream about dropping an entire tray of half empty glasses.
Thirty years after working in a restaurant, I still have those dreams.....
I haven't worked in restaurants but I have worked in retail, which has given me similar nightmares. To me, retail in my dreams was one step below Supermax, because there was no quitting time and the mood of the inmates (I mean customers and coworkers) was always foul. I'd always wake from dreams like that scared, depressed, and wanting to kick someone's ass.
I had one of those falling dreams the other night, except I actually hit the damned ground. Did you know you can actually jolt awake HARDER than the regular run of the mill waking-up-before-you-hit dreams? Damn.
Oh, I can totally identify. I've worked in several bars and restaurants, all here in Guatemala, back when my Spanish still sucked. So my nightmares frequently feature trying frantically to remember what the heck a customer ordered in a language I couldn't recall. Or trying to keep track of some fast speaking Argentinian who has to have their ice, mineral water, salt, lime and Zacapa in separate glasses, plus two glasses with two cubes of ice IN them . . . and a straw. Gak. thanks so much.
I had those dreams for years after working in a restaurant. Of course, I worked in a restaurant of idiots, so those dreams about picking up a 4-top order and only having 3 meals there and having the "chefs" tell me that they were out of the 4th so they just didn't make it actually happened in real life.
Never worked in a restaurant but I've had some equally disturbing dreams. Dreams of having patients I haven't looked at/checked on all night long. Pain medication and call lights I keep forgetting about and the real kicker was when I dropped one of the babies in my care (first week in NICU). Oh and lets not forget the crazy ass patients who chase me up and down the halls.
2 words: "Waffle House"
2 more words: "night shift"
also Denny's, on night shift, plus a bar and some shitty Cajun joint.
I wish my dreams only involved crack-house mamas, tea, chocolate cake, and double-stack pork-chops.
Think crawfish with lots of waffle syrup, drunks, cops, "scattered, smothered & covered" drag queens, ugly polyester apron & hat...
I dreamt once that when I quit the Awful Waffle I actually took off the shirt and threw it at the manager then walked out in my bra & pants.
Oh wait, I don't think that part was a dream...
Good thing it was before camera phones! (Telling my age)
Try adding law enforcement to the mix. And nursing school. I dreamt last night that I had to start a Foley catheter on a drunk cop in drag covered in syrup. With crawfish inside my gloves.
*shivers*
I have two dreams frequently. One is I keep serving the same table corned beef dinners and every time I try to leave- there's someone else handing me another plate of beef, cabbage and potatoes. And it smells.
The second is the one where I waitress in the WOODS and have to bring my daughter to work. I have tables scattered under every tree and my kid keeps disappearing. People start screaming at me as I try to explain how far away the kitchen is and jesus- I just lost my kid again, and could you just give me a break?!
I worked in a large chain grocery store for over 15 years of my youth/early adulthood and I used to have wicked nightmares about being the only cashier working and having a line up that ran all the way around the store, down the aisles etc. In the dream I didn't even stop to take people's money; I would just keep ringing things up and putting them in bags.
Those hellish dreams always woke me up. Those and the horrible leg cramps from standing for 6-8 hours at a time!!