PG13 is HOT and I don't mean trendy. Plus, more tales of the Grey Witch!

Every evening at PG13 I fight an ongoing, losing battle not to sweat. I regularly dab my lower lip with paper napkins, wipe my face down during breaks, even sneak 30 seconds (when I can) in the walk-in freezer. So it should be no suprise that when I come home after a long shift I usually take a shower.

But not last night. More on that later.

The day started well enough, I had a party of five (two adults, three children) and a complex set of meals for them that included 5-count'em-5 bowls of hot soup which I delivered flawlessly from a single tray, two entres for the man and so on and so on. Say a $50 check.

And a $3 tip.

They did thank me nicely when I rang them out at the register. And raising three kids can't be cheap. And of course that makes all the difference in the world.

I'm not bitter. Really I'm not.

When I said that PG13 was hot, I of course was referring to thermodynamic not fashion temperature: PG13 is definately not the place where fashion reigns. Yet right after the family of 5 left I waited on a very attractive and shapely woman with her young son who was wearing a gi with a coloful logo on the back. I politely and charmingly (if I do say so myself) engaged her in conversation and brought her and her son's food promptly making one mistake (giving her french fries instead of onion rings) which I quickly fixed. Say a $14 check.

And a $5 tip.

When I shared this with Spunky, mentioning the attractive woman and the child she said "you mean the woman in the Luis Vuitton top?"

"I meant the woman with the--uh--I dunno, " I replied, not being able to quickly think of a polite word to describe the young woman's delectable decoletage. "That's Ok," Spunky replied, "you're a guy. You wouldn't know."

Staring down at the space behind a plunging neckline is another constant struggle for this member of the male wait-staff at PG13. I find my eyes drawn to any significant bosom, largely indifferent to the larger picture presented. And so I am presented with another battle of yet a different kind of heat.

And considering heat, the Grey Witch was largely quiescent last night, appearing almost entirely in her helpful Lady Greymane guise. The Witch appeared only briefly when it hissed at me to "Clean your tables!"

This emotional personality flip is something not limited to Lady Greymane AKA the Grey Witch. Spunky is mercurial, with an incredible smile and a warm, embracing nature but also wielding a shockingly acerbic tongue. And there is another waitress who previously ran around almost postal and then returned two days later only to be kind and helpful.

Last night, Lady Greymane even recounted one of the registers for me after I explained to her that I thought that I had accidentally given it $5 of my own money while making change. I was right, I had, and she returned to extra $5 before I left for the evening.

I had my best night of tips, about three times as much as the night before. Shows what good service and a little luck can bring.

And so I arrive home, just before midnight, throw off my sweaty clothes, loll around a bit, trying to decide if I'm too tired to shower or not. Finally, I decide that I must, and I head into the bathroom, pull back the shower curtain and ...

"What the F#$%^&! is this?"

My bathtub was full to the top with some dark brown liquid. Fortunately (?!) it wasn't what I first worried it could have been--it didn't smell. Either way, no shower tonight.

This morning I notified the landlady and she sighed and said, "they were working on the bathtub in one of the units upstairs. I'll call the plumber."

And so now, barely an hour before my next shift, after heading out for breakfast, then returning after the plumber had done his dirty but necessary deed, after sanitizing the shower curtain and scrubbing the tub with Pine-Sol, and after lovingly tap-taping out this entry, I am FINALLY ready to take a shower.

Lucky me.