#James why have you put these ideas of Trent having a bad dad in my mind

[gottagobackintime]

Trent being startled/frightened

[sustainablehedonism]

august 01.2020

Today the owner of the restaurant I work at now demonstrated to me and the other server how to pour wine at the table. I remembered at the end of his crash course that I had already taken an immersive college course on wine. For almost the entire time, I had completely forgotten about that. The only thing I did in that program was drink and eat a lot. I traveled across three different states and went on wine tastings before I even knew what wine tasted like or even comprehend or appreciate it. What a wasted education. I literally spent an entire year in a class about terroir and I learned more about wine in this five minute presentation than I did at Evergreen. 

Trent tells me that I am pathetic for having a bachelor’s degree and wanting to get a waitress job anyway, but I know I will learn a lot from this job. I’m already noticing the systems engineering around me. I can see how there is an entire college major dedicated to restaurant management because it really is it's own system. There were some boomers who placed a nightmare order today and you could tell that these Karens had never worked in a restaurant because they thought it was a good idea that all five of them individually call in their order at the exact same time and somehow expect it to make it onto the same ticket. 

The owner is practically already making me a manager. I am surprised at how few staff he has in the middle of a pandemic… I would have thought displaced hospitality workers would be desperate for work and there would be no opportunities and a lot of competition, and yet, here I am, getting a job as a server in the thick of it. I guess I was in the right place at the right time. I am also surprised by how little he knows about the operation of his own business despite being in business since before I was born. He doesn’t even know how to use the point of sale system and add new items to the menu. 

I think the food and atmosphere of this establishment is overrated and overpriced, but if it is expensive and popular, that means more tips for me. Imagine a middle-aged, bland Port Angeles guy trying to sell generic Italian food to Twilight-obsessed tween tourists. I don’t have to take this job quite so seriously, and he doesn’t seem to have his shit together in the least and it seems like he needs all the help he can get. I will ride this wave as long as I can; maybe I can even put "bookkeeping" on my resume. 

 Apparently Madeline was a senior server here. That makes sense; I could imagine she's worked at every restaurant in Sequim and Port Angeles in the past few years. I once saw her working at a tacky Thai food place in Sequim of all places, despite being the whitest of white girls. I could see her life unfolding before me. You really only need to know a few things about someone to know their whole story. Christian. Small business owner. Bleach blonde. Children's dance and music classes. And now she's strapped down to this boring hometown, desperately just trying to provide for her bastard son. I overheard one of the kitchen staff saying that she works full time at a vet clinic now, so at least she is getting out of hospitality and into a more career driven job. But she still waits tables on the side for any money she can get. 

I remember when I first saw her backstage at my dance recital all those years ago, with a round pregnant belly burgeoning off of her cute little body. I thought she was such an adult at the time but I’m just now realizing that she was younger then than I am now. I remember when she was a teenager and working the reception of the dance studio, and I thought she was old and mature then. I remember babysitting her kid that one time. They were probably extremely busy at that point in their lives (and still are) but they never invited me back. I was bad at it, it was terribly boring, and I charged $10/hr which I suppose was too high because they were surprised by my rate - says the people charging $200/month for three dance classes. Her mom said in a Facebook post about her children, “Madaline, you are exactly what James needs,” which somehow upsets me but I can’t explain why. 

I saw her with her mom and siblings at the Irrigation Festival once, struggling to carry her giant toddler on her small hip. I remember seeing on Facebook how hard it was in the beginning when James had health problems including recurrent seizures. 

I can only imagine what could have been going through her head when she took a positive test. There’s the obvious panic, but also things like This child will have lots of aunts and uncles from dad’s side. There really isn’t any choice when you come from her world. Her baby’s grandmother is literally a famous midwife. I looked up to Carol for a while and just remember that odd article she shared on Facebook about how pregnancy is always followed through with even in cases of a stranger attacking and raping young girls. Her own mother is running a business about how to raise children properly, and she ran the dance studio with her business partner Carry, who is raising her great-grandchild in absence of fifteen-year-old mom Ashley. This kind of thing happens frequently in her world, and she was among the unfortunate fallen. 

I wonder how James will feel when he gets old enough to realize that he was a mistake, and then old enough to realize that he was the product of an affair. Imagine having a kid with someone else right before you get married. I remember seeing Isaac’s gorgeous engagement photos several years ago on Instagram and feeling relieved until I realized that this woman he is marrying is not Madaline. And I heard at some point from her sister Analise that he had cheated on his wife with her. I can’t imagine how isolating and embarrassing that is to be The Other Woman doomed for the rest of your life with his child. He is a family man, yet his profile picture is of his wife and their daughter - his son nowhere to be seen. I am stalking his pictures again and it makes me absolutely sick to see so many basic people commenting such positive things. These hicks are living in a Christian trance. “I knew from the beginning that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her,” give me a break. He knew before, during, and after  he was having a baby with someone else? I can’t take this cheesy sentimental word salad. 

These people might be genuinely happy but I can’t believe that. And now she doesn’t even tag Isaac or any of his family in James’ happy birthday posts – she tags her two sisters and her mother. Of course, James is being raised by the women on the maternal side of his family. Madaline has a brother too but I guess Tanner doesn’t babysit. I found him on Instagram and the only think I could tell is that he lives in Utah now. Analise is in California working at a winery and posting basic instagram pictures only by luck of not ending up pregnant at 22. And to think all of this could have been avoided with a magic pill.