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get that this isn’t the kind of story you tel everyone at work on Monday morning. Or any morning, for that matter. You tel your best friend.
    Maybe. But now everyone knows. God bless him, he’s not ashamed. As far as he’s concerned, it’s just another experience of al that America has to offer.
    “What’s up with the eye patch?” I ask.
    “I lost it.”
    “What do you mean, you lost it?”
    “I had a car accident, and it broke.”
    “What do you mean, it broke?”
    “It broke!” he says, like an eye “breaking” is a common occurrence.
    “Your eye?”
    “It broke. It came out and got broke into a mil ion pieces.” I look at him, but before I can inquire further, a customer waves me over. Later, I found out that Marco has a glass eye. Or had a glass eye. When his face hit the dashboard of the car, his eye popped out and it broke. Apparently they’re like seven thousand dol ars and he can’t afford a new one. Apparently I’m the only one who didn’t know he had a glass eye, as wel . I heard that once he asked another waiter to hold it, and the other guy took it—not knowing what it was
    —and then freaked out. I never got the privilege of seeing that. I guess a customer once did, though, and threw up. Which made another customer throw up, and made the majority of the restaurant want to throw up. They had to comp everyone who saw. Jean Paul and Bruce sat Marco down and told him if he ever took out his eye again he’d be fired. This al went down before I got hired. I always miss al the fun.
    So to help Marco’s cause, I take an empty Opus One wine magnum and place a sign on it. It says
    “Glass Eye for the Bus Guy.” The “Queer Eye”
    reference is almost mean, considering the blow job, but it’s a tip jar, and I place it prominently on the bar. If helping Marco get a new eye is my mission . . . then I’m gonna do it. Marco is so touched, he sheds a tear out of his one good eye. We hug, and I toss the first dol ar into the magnum.
    I spit in someone’s Caesar salad today. I’m not proud of it. But I promise you . . . the customer was such an asshole, he deserved it. It was a preemptive but prophetic spit. He went on to leave me a five-dol ar tip on a bil for one hundred seventy-eight dol ars. And he complained about me to my manager.
    Luckily, it was Jean Paul that he complained to and not Bruce. Jean Paul never cares when people complain. As far as he’s concerned, the restaurant is so “in” right now that if someone’s not happy, they can just go somewhere else and not take up space here.
    Anyway, Jean Paul had a cigarette in his hand when the guy cal ed him over. He tel s Jean Paul that my service was “poor” and my attitude so disgraceful, he was embarrassed to have brought clients here. I’l admit when I do something wrong, but this guy was on me from the minute he sat down. I did nothing to offend or embarrass him.
    First, he snaps his fingers when he wants me to come over to the table. When I offer to tel him the specials he rol s his eyes and says, “Fine.” Then as I’m tel ing him and his guests the specials he actual y blurts out “Blah, blah, blah,” while I’m talking.
    Stunningly rude. I mean, what is that ? So, fine, I ignore it.
    He was nasty the entire time, and I swal owed it and smiled. Even when he loudly announced that he dated a waitress once, but dumped her because it was embarrassing when people asked her what she did for a living. I chuckled at that. Maybe that was what pissed him off. I’ve developed the habit of smiling and sometimes even laughing when people go out of their way to be jerks. I find it amusing. Life’s too short to get that worked up over nonsense, and when people freak out over virtual y nothing, I can’t help but laugh at them. Probably not the best idea, I know, but it’s either that or letting them get to me, and there’s way too many of them, so amused is what they get, like it or not. In his case not.
    So I don’t feel bad