Veg

Certain bits of information stay with us forever. Even though my memory is lousy, for some reason I have retained the waitressing shorthand from my first job. I started working at Po Folks when I was 16 years old, and had to learn abbreviations for their "vegetables" to write down on the ticket that goes to the kitchen. For example, rice with gravy was "RG" and mashed potatoes were "MP". I still can't drive by a BP gas station without translating automatically in my head to "baked potato".

The other thing that has really stayed with me from that first job was when one of the other waitresses got a little fried in the brain. The rumor was that she had a bad dose of acid (though Panama City alone can make a person a bit wonky). Anyway, there was a sundae that kids could order that had a scoop of vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, and a cherry on top. So this waitress, returning to work after her bad acid trip, had to make one of the kiddie sundaes. She gets it all ready, and walks out of the kitchen, except she put a cherry tomato on top instead of a cherry. And that reason alone, my friends, is why I never wanted to try acid. Or ice cream with tomatoes.