My brother rolls his eyes as he opens the larger than life door, rambling some increasingly eccentric complaints about getting fat and never eating again. I slide into the entryway in front of him before wrenching open the next set of towering glass doors. Our banter is loud and unwelcome in this dimly lit fortress. Our laughter echoes from ceilings even taller than the doors. What had been hilarious was suddenly abrasive. My ears would probably bleed if my cheeks weren’t hogging the blood supply.

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“This was your choice, you know.”

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The host glares hot fire into our souls before twisting his joyless face into what I’m sure is meant to be a greeting. My face is ready to burst with apologetic blood vessels. Best not to look in this man’s direction again. Instead, I peer lovingly at my tattered, ill-fitting shoes while Brother explains: Two, dining in.

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Or something, probably. 

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I’m too far gone mourning my shoes by now to say for sure. Their velvet floral pattern, toe hole for ventilation, faltering rubber borders. They’d sacrificed themselves, molded their entire being to serve my feet despite their assured destruction. Over four years of service—a full life for shoes. And what have they got to show for it? Same thing any of us have to show for anything at the end of the day. A weird smell and an ugly carcass to hide away in a dark box somewhere. Rubber that isn’t easy to recycle .

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“Are you coming?”

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I follow my brother who follows the host to a booth near the back. The host seats us and leaves without a word. A man of pure intrigue and intimidation. I look at my brother, unsure whether this is normal. He just shrugs and mentions his never sitting by a window before. We stare out of it a while, watching the occasional car blast by on the highway. My brother shrieks for no apparent reason. A short snippet of surprise before splitting into chuckles, then a boasting fit of laughter. The humor is unreasonable, abstract. Laughter that shakes bones, stiffens muscles, relaxes souls . We wait another handful of minutes before a waitress pops into the warm light of the overhead lamp illuminating our table. She drops off one basket of bread, then another.

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“Hi, my name is Emily! I’ve been here for eleven years. I know the menu front to back so you’re in good hands! How are you!”

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She yells this through a beaming smile that forces my presence. My eyes meet hers that shimmer from beneath the shadow of her messy bangs. The dim light exaggerates her smile lines gained, probably, from a lifetime of smiling at hungry diners rain or shine, thick or thin, kind or cruel. I briefly see the ghost of my mother in her face and suppress a shudder before responding.

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“Good, thanks. How are you?”

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“You know it is SO nice that you ask, I’m doing very well tonight thank you! Can I get you something to drink other than water?”

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I marvel at the sincerity with which the woman spoke. I try to imagine myself sticking to anything for eleven years, much less a single job in the service industry. Maybe she genuinely loves it. The general consensus is that the service industry is grunt work, meant to be hated by both the worker and the customer, but who’s to say the stereotype is universally true? And anyway, the term “service job” is so ambiguous. Isn’t that every job? Is the ultimate point of work not to serve some betterment of society? Clearly customer service is necessary for today’s society to exist the way that it does, or it wouldn’t make up over 70% of the non-agriculture based work-force. Emily is a vertebrae in the backbone of this society. 

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Maybe she’s just a people person. Brother kicks my shin.

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“Oh, sorry. Just water will be great for me, thanks.”

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She leaves us with two middle-grade sized books titled Menu.

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“Do you think she likes her job?”

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“Did you hear her? She loves it, dude. You said you wanted nachos?”

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“Maybe, they must be a massive portion though, almost 3,000 calories. Nachos don’t keep well. What are you going to get?”

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“It’s been a while since I’ve had their Orange Chicken.”

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He speaks with firm resolve while I read the description on “Shepherd's Pie.” The idea of poorly imitated asian food interferes with the concept of a savory meat pie, bludgeoning any interest I had in a dinner for shepherds. I eventually land on the Thai Peanut Salad. Despite the likelihood that it would be a disgraceful mockery of an entire ethnic genre of food, it sounds yummy. Am I even American if I don’t occasionally submit to the joyous exploitation of other cultures for the sake of a passing hunger? Emily might think not. And besides, this cavernous restaurant is empty and we, as Americans, have forced her to rely on tips and therefore my enthusiastic participation in this grotesque tradition. Did I mention it sounds yummy?

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We pick at the skinny loaves of bread as we wait for Emily’s bubbly return. I’ve never been here, and I hadn’t had the slightest idea of what to expect before walking through the doors. The diffused warm light coming from the cone shaped, post-modern sconces imply my paint stained shirt and tattered shoes is a gross underdressing. Somehow, though, this is contrasted by massive decorational pillars made to look like ancient Egypt paired with high hanging chandeliers adorned by murals of cherubs playfully lounging in the clouds. We are somewhere between a black-tie-required restaurant and an overcrowded McDonald’s playplace. The two women that the haughty host is seating across from us further this symbiotic juxtaposition. One wears a flannel and joggers with flip-flops while the other wears a dress in the loudest shades of vermillion and lavender. Their flip-flops are matching shades of mint green .

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“Are we ready to order? If you need suggestions, my absolute favorite page is number 16! You can try to guess which item is my favorite!”

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I laugh politely while looking at my brother, cuing him in to order first, then ordering my salad. Emily vows to bring us more bread, apparently determined to have us satiated by the time our food comes. She is back in moments, bread in hand with a new expression on her usually ecstatic face. Remorse. I hold back the urge to console her and wait for the bad news.

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“So, I’m really so sorry about this…”

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Did the kitchen staff die or something?

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“We’re out of the dressing for your salad. I'm really so sorry, but we have almost 40 other dressings you can choose from that we can put on the side!! I can bring you a few, even, so that you can choose your favorite!”

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I’m holding back laughter. I almost make the mistake of asking what they have.

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“I don’t mind, just bring what you’d think would go best with it. I trust your judgment.”

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Her face lights up. I ignore the returning intrigue about this woman’s adoration for her job.

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“There’s a few I have in mind, I’ll bring you all of them!! You’re going to love it!”

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We watch her march toward the kitchen.

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“What if she just brings you all 40 dressings? Just fill the table with gravy boats full of sauce.”

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“We’d have to hold our food in our laps” 

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“She just keeps bringing out more and more. There are boats on the floor.”

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We laugh so hard that our properly dressed neighbors give us dirty looks. 

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“Forty dressings. Forty! What kind of place is this that they have to carry 40 different salad dressings?”

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“That’s what’s so great. Something for everyone.”

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“It ends up just being overwhelming. I should’ve just tried the spaghetti. And what’s up with their interior design choices? Are they all like this?”

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Brother shrugs and passes me his phone, showing me the hotel he will be staying at in my once-hometown this weekend. 

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“I bought these shoes there, you know. Get me a new pair while you’re there, will ya?”

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Surprisingly, he actively chose to stray from his usual vacation destination of Portland, Oregon for a small beach town an hour west. This is surprising, of course, because as with his food choices, his vacation destinations are largely predictable and routine. Humans are creatures of habit, so why do we feel the need to drown ourselves in endless choices anyway?

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I stare at the beer and wine menu absently while we wait for our food. This menu is not quite a novel, but still holds enough choices to lead one to question where they might store all of these beverages in the first place. What is the point? Brother seems to think it an oasis for the indecisive and hungry. There are too many choices. A proper safe place for the indecisive would have better lighting and two items on the menu. Doesn’t matter what two items—just two. If that level of choice is overwhelming still, they are given a half-order of both on one plate. The drink choices are water or gin. 

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“I brought you a poppyseed dressing here, and this one is a plum sauce that I mixed a vinaigrette into! Your meals are just about ready, so I’ll be right back. Taste those and let me know which one you like better!”

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Emily sets two precariously filled gravy boats, yes gravy boats, full of potential salad dressings down on our table. I thank our ever cheerful guide in this dining experience, and grin mischievously at my brother. Without a word he dips the corner of his spoon into the poppyseed dressing. I mirror, we cheers, clinking our dressed spoons together before tasting. 

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“Would be good on chicken.”

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My face puckers. It’s sweet, and has little flavor past that.  He takes another dip. I offer for him to use it for his food. Plum sauce is next, and has a more complex flavor profile, although I’d not call it a plum flavor. I wonder if that’s a misnomer. Or maybe it’s derived from pickled plums. Regardless, the tang from the vinaigrette is apparent, with something warm underneath.

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“And wouldn’t you know it, the chef made up more of the peanut dressing for your salad anyway! I put it on the side in case you wanted a different sauce instead, since you have them here.”

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Emily places our meals in front of us respectively with all the grace of a ballerina . She asks which dressing I liked better, and absolutely beams when I answer—with complete honesty—that I preferred her plum sauce vinaigrette mixture. She is so delighted, in fact, that she twirls at the end of our table as she snatched the empty bread baskets away, prancing off to the presumably massive kitchen to do who knows what. Maybe she is rolling silverware, maybe while talking with the cook that mixed up the dressing just for my salad. I wonder if they’re friends, a grumpy cook and her bubbly waitress counterpart. Maybe they are complaining that Brother and I showed up at all, maybe we walked in at the exact moment they had been fantasizing about not having any more customers for the night, bickering over whether they needed the business or not. Sure, we need tips, they’d say to each other, but it’s been such a long day and I would rather just go home!  I bet Emily tips out the cooks well at the end of each night.

Best to leave an especially good one.

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We eat in silence for a bit. The meal is fine. The portions are huge. Brother’s chicken is dry, good thing he has a gravy boat full of extra sauce. Overall, nothing to “write home about”, as they say. Who are “they”, anyway? I suppose “they” would be soldiers. The idiom gained popularity in World War One—does America only gain culture through war? Doubt they wrote home about meals often. Not in a positive way, anyway. Or maybe soldiers ate well, I couldn’t say. War geeks, military men, historians—they all only speak of battles. Battles and trench-foot . 

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We get boxes, and order dessert to go. Emily hard stops, like the Roadrunner, to the edge of our table. Two bags full of food and cheesecake, before digging the bill out of her apron pocket and setting it gently down.

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“I’ve worked here 11 years. Eleven! And I just wanted to point out that this flavor you ordered is seasonal. Not only that, but it was added on the menu TWO WEEKS early. It’s my favorite flavor, I applaud your taste.”

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I laugh in earnest. I chose the flavor because it had been my mother’s favorite. Of course this woman would so enthusiastically agree with my mother. I decide that, in another life, they would have been good friends. Emily would have been a staple in my childhood memories, laughing with my mother after carpooling from a long shift interacting with countless people from countless backgrounds. I wonder if Emily carpools with anyone in this life. I suppose that I hope so. 

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“Just so you know, we’re hiring! We’ll hire any position, any hours, even work with any schedule! And we love college students!! Just make sure you tell them I referred you and you’ll get hired for sure!”

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We smile, and nod. There it is. The sale. Emily hates her job just like everyone in the service industry. She is cutthroat. Devious. Maybe she aspired to be an actor. Who cares? Good game, Emily. We walk outside into a thick layer of smoke, week’s worth of leftovers in hand.