Hutch

15

Daisy

Yawning, I wash my hands for the millionth time since I clocked on a few hours ago. I'd forgotten how hard this job was on a person's skin. I am going to have to go buy some of the Gold Bond's Diabetic lotion. That stuff makes your skin feel as soft as a baby's. My best friend in high school was diabetic and she introduced me to the joy of that particular brand of lotion. Might not smell all sweet, but it works miracles.

The job is fairly straight forward and simple. I take orders, bring orders out, clean in between and whatever else kind of chores the manager asks of us. There's an entire closing chore sheet at the end of the night that's three pages long, but I don't mind it. Hard work is what I grew up on. If it wasn't working to earn money, it was helping Gran in her garden. She had someone come and plow her fields and we planted a huge garden that gave us a huge yield that got us through a lot of winters. I miss gardening.

Maybe one day I can buy my own land and have a small garden again. I do enjoy planting flowers, but vegetables are what I know best.

"How you doin'?" Krista asks as she comes over and sits down beside me where I'm refilling salt and pepper shakers.

"Nice to sit down for a minute."

She laughs. "Girl we all groaned when you were given that job. I guess the manager doesn't want to run you off the first day on the job."

"My feet are killing me even with my New Balances. It's been a while since I've been on my feet this long."

"You'll get used to it in a few days."

"I know. I've waited tables before."

"You're really good at it. Picked everything up faster than most of the other girls. At least I don't have to worry about telling you to do something and to come back an hour later to find it's not been done."

"It helps to pass the time."

"You're off the weekend, so you won't even be here to see the worst of it."

I was working Monday through Friday for training and I wouldn't be back on until Wednesday for my first official weekend rotation. The manager rotated everyone one weekend on and one off so as not to burn people out. I appreciated that.

Honestly, I'd rather have worked this weekend, but Krista is training me and its her weekend off, so I'm sort of stuck in my training schedule. Maybe someone will call in and they might call me. I already told my manager I have no issues coming in to cover shifts as long as it doesn't impact my school schedule. I do have late labs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Like Christa, I gave them my class schedule so there's no what if's.

"I might come in and grab a bite to eat so I can see the worst of it."

She laughs. "Not a bad idea. We have home games for football and hockey this weekend so we'll get a few more customers than usual. Not a lot of the sports guys come in, but we get a few."

"I remember you telling me that. They all head out to the other side of town don't they?"

"Yeah. We tend to get the quieter scene."

The little bell over the door jingles letting us know we have customers. Christa groans and waves me down when I go to get up. "You finish that. I'll handle the new guys if they sit in your section. It's almost quitting time anyway. You might as well get started on the closing list when you're done."

She can have them. I'm tired. I might not be sneezing and snotting all over the place, but I'm tired. Whatever gunk I had wiped me out. I can't wait for it to completely work it's way out of my system. Because Gran was so sick, I constantly made sure I wore a mask when I went out so I wouldn't bring any kind of sickness back to her. I stopped doing that after she died. I guess my immune system wasn't up to snuff and when I got sick, I really got sick.