Zoey and Katy

The uniform is the worst part of the job: starched button up, stiff, itchy collar.  It’s wet in no time, heavy with the salty drops that fall off the back of my head.  The bowtie around my neck is too tight and soon it is also soaking wet.  The black polyester slacks trap heat and sweat in the space between my balls and ass crack. It is a ridiculous masochistic thing to wear under the angry yellow flame of the Los Angeles sun but I suffer for the honor of serving celebrities and socialites cocktails on platinum trays.

At least they don’t make us wear jackets.  My friend Rico works for a company that makes them wear jackets.  The thermometer by the bar says 93.  I would die if I had to wear a jacket.

Even if you forget the uniform this job is not as glamorous as it claimed.  Hob knob with the stars!  Serve premium food and drinks to celebrities at high end events.  Except what the ad really meant is that we may as well be robots or strategically placed drink stands for all the actual hob knobbing we do.

If I sweat much more the martinis on my tray are going to be dirty instead of dry.

But if I wear anything less formal, anything remotely comfortable then, well then they will notice me.  Or if I gain a few pounds, maybe a gut, a couple inches around the waist, they will definitely notice me then and they will complain to the maître d’ about my offensiveness and I will be on the unemployment line before the night is over.

Of course they don’t hold themselves to the same standards.  And it is not just the meat dresses and accidental exposures that I’m talking about.  What you see on TV, in the movies, online, that is not what they really look like.  The real pictures, the true to life versions, only show up in tabloid magazines.

Before I started this job there was a rumor around town that Katy Perry and Zoey Deschanel are the same person.  My spank bank threatened to shrink by one.  If I only  knew…

The first event I ever worked was a shock.  Where were all of the beautiful people? I searched for them, but they were nowhere to be found.  The whole point of taking this job was so that I could check out J Lo, Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, you get the picture, right?  But there wasn’t no J Lo up in that place, no sir!  J Lo’s heinous inbred cousin maybe, but not the real J Lo!  See, there is a difference between a nice, big juicy booty and something that could take out a city block if it backs up too fast.  Halle Berry wasn’t there either, unless you were looking for the unblinking, bucktooth version.  And Angelina Jolie?  Talk about an old lady with tattoo regret.

It wasn’t them.  It couldn’t be them.  I had to be at the wrong party.

“Hey Juan,” I said to the bartender as I waited for him to refill my tray.  “What’s up?  I thought we were working a Hollywood party?”

“We are dude,” he chuckled.  “This is it.”  He pointed at the buffet.  There was a sloppy man with a whole cheese tray resting on his gut.  “That’s Mel Gibson.”

After a few months I guess I got used to looking at them, knowing the truth, knowing their photoshopped beauty is worshiped and praised with millions.  Not that I don’t still hope to see one, just one hot star.  Britney Spears maybe?  Nope.  She’s got a neck like a giraffe.  Two feet long.  Not kidding.  Pamela Anderson?  Now that is one hot plastic jigsaw mess.  One by one each celebrity bubble bursts.  The only hot people at these parties are the help and the occasional groupie lucky enough to snag a spot on the arm of some fugly superstar.

Oh and Zoey and Katy?  Same damn person.  I’m looking right at her, just served her a drink.  And she doesn’t belong in anybody’s spank bank.