If We're Talking About The Stones, I Like "Angie" Better Than "Ruby Tuesday".

The same afternoon I moved to Sandusky, I started looking for a job. Lisa handed over the remnants of the Sunday paper - "It’s the best for job listings!" - and I circled away. As I scanned the tiny ads, I looked around at my new home. There was Earl in his usual spot on the couch, smoking a cigarette, watching the Sci-Fi channel. His face was frozen in the usual mixture of paying attention and being a thousand miles away. I know that look; I get it myself. Lisa was in the kitchen, making dinner. Bacon busied himself at her feet, loudly rooting for crumbs. Kitty-Kat, the family kitten, lurked behind the furniture like a black dustball. Earl took to calling her Grandpa Addams because of the way she’d crawl around the half-remodeled house, sometimes entering a room through a hole in the floor or a wall, covered in cobwebs. Chris had the Sunday sports section, two days old and still holding his attention, spread out on the floor, his legs bent at the knees as his feet bobbed in the air. "Welcome home, Jess," Earl said quietly, noticing me looking around.
"Thanks," I whispered, turning the color of the Chris’ pink lemonade.

When I took the tour of the house, I was amazed at the bathroom - Earl had said many times that he was going to do it over and wow, he really did. It was twice the size of the old one, with a huge whirlpool bathtub. There was also a good-size shower stall - half-finished and filled with power tools. "This is coming along awesome!" I shouted to Earl, still on the couch. "Wow! This is really great!"

Then it really sunk in: There was no shower in this house. Thoughts ran through my head at an alarming pace. "Oh God! How do I wash my hair?! And what if I’m...uh.... falling to the Commies? That doesn’t really lend itself to bath-taking!" I panicked a little bit. I pulled Chris aside, motioning him over with a silent wave. "Dude," I mumbled through clenched teeth, "how do you wash your hair?"
"I JUST TURN THE WATER ON AND HOLD MY HEAD UNDER THERE BUT YOU’RE BIGGER THAN ME SO I DON’T THINK YOU CAN DO THAT!"
"Did you take your pill today?"
"Yes."
"Coulda fooled me, buddy," I teased, folding my arms around him in a bear hug. "We’re best friends, right?"
"Uh-huh."

Lisa finally helped me see the light - Big Gulp cups and tampons! - and after that it was easy to feel at home. I changed my shirt and went out on a massive job application foray. On the list: Cabana Jack’s, Ruby Tuesday, Mario DiNapoli’s, Margaritaville, and Cheers; all bar/restaurants in downtown Sandusky, all only minutes away from Earl and Lisa’s. Then came the absolute joy of filling them all out, trying to remember the dates of employment, lying like a dog on all of them about not working for the last four months, writing the same information five times over until my fingers cramped, drilling my new address into my head, and hoping the fact that I left a fabulous office job in Maryland wouldn’t render me over-qualified (or insane - which it did).

The next day, freshly not-showered-but-bathed, I turned them back in. The only one that took me in for an immediate interview was Ruby Tuesday. This might sound megalomaniacal, but I knew I had it before I even walked in. With seven years experience in New York City and Los Angeles, I could wait tables in Sandusky blindfolded.

Long story short, I started training the next day. Orientation was five hours computer training, paperwork, and reminders not to date the managers, not to mention eight wonderful training videos describing how to put myself on the road to success with Ruby Tuesday at the helm. To be fair, that was the only part that really depressed me - "Three days ago I was living a free and wonderful life actually on the road, and now I’m on the Ruby Tuesday Road to Success. How fabulous. I wonder if it’s possible to slit my wrist with a coaster?"

Two days after that, I was on the floor. (Don't be alarmed, it means I was actually waiting tables.) The managers and trainers all agreed I could bypass the standard five days of training, which was awesome. Granted, I busted my ass to learn the menu, to the point where my boss thought I cheated on the test. "You corrected the corporate test," he mused, going over my results with me. He was a young guy, super nice, caught in that awkward place between being friends with the staff and being a new manager. His eyes were green and his name was Alan. We got along very well.
"Yeah. I did."
"I think you cheated," he said, only half-kidding.
"Yeah right!" I laughed, pulling a stack of index cards from my apron. "Flash cards, bee-yatch!"
The look on his face was priceless. "Oh my god!"
I ate it up, giggling and knowing I was in like Flynt.

The staff at Ruby Tuesday was overall very cool. In fact, some were so nice they creeped me out a little, but others I could detect the stench of gossip surrounding them like Soylent Green, so I tried to stay away. Note that I say "tried". Just note that, because it’s impossible to escape the rumor mill in a small town. The Sandusky rumor mill, however, is more than a mere mill. It is a wood chipper, a meat grinder that will ingest anyone or any possible whisper of a shadow of a sentence and spit out a bloody, festering, back-stabbed carcass slathered with the stinking slime of utter falsehood with such vehement rage that I was literally appalled.

This is not to say that I did not make friends for life, though, because I did.

My first morning of training was a Thursday. I was chomping at the bit to make money - and friends. I was learning where the ice goes. She made a disparaging comment about Bush. Her name was Sarah. It was kismet.

36 hours and 27 inside jokes later, we were wearing BFF necklaces. They came in a set of three. We gave the other one to Alan. And the gears on the meat grinder started to churn.