Merry Christmas and a happy fuck off.

Like everybody else in the universe, my restaurant sells a fuckton of gift cards in December. I don't know the total, but we've been running a contest and the results are posted, so I know that between the top three people alone there's at least $10,000 in gift card sales. The problem with that is that people who wouldn't otherwise come out to eat ... come out in droves. And they're cheap. If I had a gift card that was paying for 95% of my meal, you can bet I'd be leaving my server a fat tip. Not these white trash weirdos.

The last two days have just sucked for various reasons, some of which had nothing to do with work itself. Some of it was the weirdos coming out of the woodwork--like the lady who asked me for hot water and then told me "I don't know what this is, but I want some water!" She then insisted she didn't ask for hot water--like I would bring her such an obnoxious thing just because. Then there were the table of nine today who literally would not answer me when I asked questions. They would completely ignore me. The basic question "can I get you something to drink?" was met with silence, and staring at each other. After I dragged a drink order after them, they ignored my question about appetizers--only to then demand the manager order them appetizers when he dropped off a beer. When they did finally acknowledge me, everything was a fucking committee decision.

Then there were the nice people who completely stiffed me for no reason I can determine. And the old lady who shook her glass at me across the restaurant and mouthed, in an exaggerated fashion, "CAN I GET SOME MORE WATER?" Her glass? Three-quarters of the way FULL. And all the people today (about half of my customers) who tipped between five and ten percent. And the people who had a coffee and a hot tea, sat with the ticket on their table for an hour or more, and then suddenly jumped up and made the manager take their money--because of course this was one minute after I'd walked by their table, and thirty seconds after I'd started emptying the trash cans.

Today wasn't all bad. I ended up making decent money. I even got in a better mood by the end of the night. But I'll be glad when any lingering taint of the holiday season is gone, because all it seems to do is piss people off, myself included.