--Min Liao

"I was waiting on a very well-dressed couple at a fancy restaurant and noticed the lady had finished, because her napkin was covering the plate. I picked up her plate and took it back to the kitchen. I lifted up the napkin, and saw the lady had thrown up her meal back onto her plate. No one seemed to notice, however, and when I asked the table if everything was to their satisfaction, they said it had all been lovely. This was my first experience with what was clearly the well-practiced art of discreet public vomiting, and how easy it is to ignore eating disorders."

"I was working at a crappy chain restaurant in Everett. I was wrapping up my side work late one Saturday evening when my manager asked me to stay, to wait on a table of 12. I had no idea just how bad it was going to be though; it was the 30th-birthday party for some asshole skinhead and his racist friends and parents. All were decked out in racist finger tattoos and clothing, INCLUDING dear ol' Mom. Needless to say, I ran around for two hours, and the tip--no shit--totaled four percent."

"I work in a movie theater/restaurant. On one occasion, I noticed two servers nervously discussing something. 'What's going on?' I asked. 'The chick at 384 is giving her boyfriend head, and their food is up, and I don't want to deliver it! That is way too embarrassing.' I grabbed the two plates of food, and as I entered, I saw what appeared to be one lone man sitting at the table. 'Who's got the Philly cheese?' I asked. All of a sudden, a head bobbed up. Obviously embarrassed, the woman proceeded to announce the sandwich was hers--as she wiped her mouth clean!!!!! The man just sat silent, staring straight down, hands in his lap. Both were extremely ashamed, and mumbled their goodbyes while rushing out of our theater."

"I was working the lunch shift at a brewery/restaurant, and my only table was a little old couple. They had to be in their late 70s. I was standing about six feet away from them, cleaning another table, and the old man hurled his butter knife at my head in order to 'get my attention.' It struck the back of my neck. He and his wife were subsequently ejected from the restaurant."

"I was working at a 24-hour diner in Seattle; graveyard shift, five nights a week. This one guy would come in every night, and sit at the counter and drink coffee. He very rarely spoke directly to anyone. One particular night, he had been taking up space and scaring away customers in my section for almost four hours. The restaurant policy was a two-hour maximum for coffee drinkers. I poured him another cup of coffee, and told him it would have to be his last cup. He didn't take it well. He hissed at me, and threw the coffee I had just poured for him in my face. I was too shocked to react. Then he launched a heavy-duty coffee mug at my head from point-blank range. It took four guys to hold him down until the police arrived.

I straightened my clothes, picked up the coffee pot, and started making the rounds to my tables. A waitress I was working with grabbed my wrist. I turned around and saw blood. The fucker had split my head open."

"It was my last table of the night when a sloppy pair of lush thirtysomethings sat down in the corner. It took them about two minutes and three sips to start mauling each other. They each had another drink when last call was given at 11:30 p.m., and asked me if they could sit outside. They walked onto the neighboring roof and Homeboy had already hit a double into the gap and was going for third base, if you dig what I'm saying. Feeling like an elementary-school teacher, I brought the kids back inside. Both of them looked flushed and loaded. Five minutes later, the lady asked me where her date went, and I said, 'Probably the restroom.' When he didn't appear, I went out to look for him--first in the bathroom, then in the alley. In the gentlest way I could, I gave her the news that her date had left. She shrunk into her chair and called a friend on the phone. She soon began bawling. I didn't know what to do. I tried uncomfortably to console her, but she was unresponsive. Then in a burst of saliva and molten embarrassment, she yelled, 'I have to go!'

'Okay, miss,' I said, 'I'll call you a cab, once you pay your bill.'

Then her horns began to show. She started cursing at me. Booze, necking, crying, anger, and a feeling of helpless rejection made her face a ghastly red. The scene got even uglier when she turned around and stumbled into a table, eating shit as her cell phone, personal items, and makeup sprawled across the floor. It was the most ungraceful display I've ever seen. Security showed up and we scooped that wreck of a lady off the floor and made her pay her $22 bill. I tried to tell her that everything would be okay and that he wasn't worth it, but she replied by telling me I was an asshole. I think she had a little displaced anger."

"When I worked at a Starbucks back in 1990, in Wallingford of all places, I had a customer snidely tell me her espresso shots were 'dead.' The only reply I could come up with was, 'No. My mother is dead. Go fuck yourself lady.' She asked to speak to the manager and, of course, I told her I was the manager. So she asked my name. I told her my name, Cheryl Tiegs ('70s supermodel). This mean customer reported me--or, rather, 'Cheryl'--to company heads. The letter she wrote to Starbucks' corporate offices was posted at the Wallingford store, stating that 'Ms. Cheryl Tiegs' told a customer to go 'fuck herself.'"

"I work at B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill. One day, a man came in and told me that he had stolen our tip jar 10 years earlier. He said he was really messed up at the time, and wasn't thinking straight. He had cleaned up his act and he was wondering if I would accept the money back. He insisted that it would bring peace to his heart if he gave us the money back. So I accepted the money on behalf of B&O. I then split up the $30 between the 11 baristas, because we all know what it is like to have someone take our hard-earned tips (tip-jar stealing happens more than you think). I think this is a heartwarming tale of a man who changed his life for the better."

"I was a waiter at a corporate restaurant in Florida. When people acted like assholes, the servers would scratch their pubic hair with the customers' salad forks before the salad was served, and if someone was a major asshole, their coffee/dessert spoon would be used to stir the toilet in the staff lounge."

"My mom raised us three kids bartending downtown at Gibson's for over 17 years. She's all glitter and hot pants still. Anyways, one recent summer night at a West Seattle restaurant where she works, my mom was wearing a miniskirt and a pair of not-sensible heels. The place has linoleum floor, and someone had dropped a butter pat on the floor and didn't pick it up. My mom was carrying a plate of food around a corner to her section, and her heel hit that butter pat, and she slipped and fell--in a way that made her fall flat on her ass, flashing her panties (and I swear to God she farted on her way down). Her whole section saw this. It was awful."