Thanks to that menace Daniel Dougherty, I'm having flashbacks to my days working at Applebee's in high school. It was exactly like "Friday Night Lights" except with bad skin, fat, angry customers, and platters of lukewarm nachos bigger than your head.
I'd wake up in the morning and spend the entire day dreading work that night. Then at around 4 p.m., I'd dash around the house, trying to get ready in the 100-degree heat (my house in Durham, North Carolina didn't have air-conditioning when I was growing up. Don't get me started!) (I've decided this blog is going to be filled with the most irritating clichés in the universe.) (And lots of stupid parentheticals.)
Then I'd put on my black Applebee's shirt, which smelled like an Applebee's Sizzlin' Fajita Platter (which is to say it stank) because I never had the brains in my head to wash the stupid thing, and I only had one Applebee's shirt. The shirt (which stank) would stick to my body (which also stank) immediately, and I'd sit there sweating in my mom's car (which also didn't have air conditioning, naturally) as she drove me to work (humiliatingly enough) (actually that didn't humiliate me then, but it should've).
The second I walked into the darkness of Applebee's Neighborhood Bar and Grill, a wave of Fajita Platter smell would hit me, and it would greet the Fajita Platter smell of my shirt like an old friend. ("Dude! How have you been? Long time no smell!") (That was another cliché, in case you're keeping track.) It was an icy wave of Fajita stank, too, one that would immediately freeze the sweat and the facial oil onto my body like thick (stinky) second skin.
Then I would serve people food. Delicious!
Needless to say, I was a seriously shitty waitress. Often, people would look at me like, "You're kidding me, right?" I was that bad. I spilled things. I forgot stuff. I apologized too much. I didn't make casual conversation. I stuttered. I mumbled. I smiled nervously. I checked back too often. Who doesn't want a waitress who makes them uncomfortable throughout their entire meal? The only people who liked me were the drunks. I was a drunk in the making, so they made sense to me. Everyone else I saw as scary adults who hated me without even knowing me. They hated me because they were about to spend $50 on bad, lukewarm food, served up by a teenager. I would've hated me, too.
The food at Applebee's is, dare I say, bad. At the time, it was about 1/3 as good as Chili's, which wasn't all that good to begin with (except for that vat of melted cheese dip they have - that thing is damn good). Applebee's is sort of like a cross between Red Lobster and Chevy's -- you know, bad meets worse. Lots of terrible combinations of overcooked chicken and fatty ribs and so on, all of it barely warm enough to eat. BAD! When people asked me for recommendations, I would have to say "Our x is popular" or "People (who have no fucking taste) really seem to like x" because I had nothing to recommend. I hated the food. Keep in mind, I grew up in a small town with not that many food options. I had the palate of a toddler. But even I knew that the food at Applebee's was seriously shitty.
And I hated working there. And let's see, this guy I fooled around with a year earlier, who never talked to me again afterwards? He worked there, too. And all he did was talk to me at work, talk, talk, talk. Maybe to make up for what a tool he was before? Or maybe because it was clear I thought he was gross a year later? Or maybe because I stank, both literally and figuratively, and he felt sorry for me?
Who knows? I heart Applebee's! Get it together, people!
I heart my grouchy work blog! Pet peeves, humiliating walks down memory lane. When will the fun end?
Joan Walsh
Kerry Lauerman
Salon.com
Comments
Actually, though, there was some pretty good food on it. They had this apple-bran bread that I still fantasize about, from time to time.
But hey! No dissing Red Lobster, Where (Landlocked) America Goes For Seafood! Red Lobster meant 'eating out' for my family, an annual event that occurred at RL because Olive Garden had yet to be invented. Shrimp festival - shrimp 5 ways (shrimp with butter, shrimp with garlic butter, shrimp stuffed with garli butter-flavored fake crab), that's eating! And don't forget hush puppies, which my family pooled onto a salad plate and gave to my sister in lieu of ordering her an actual meal. I'm fairly certain this stunted her growth, and next week she is having hip replacement surgery, which I'm sure is not a coincidence.
Then we'd all go home with our hair smelling like hush puppy breading, which drove our dog absolutely crazy.
But as long as were flashing back, I think it's only fair to point out that underneath the lipstick, Applebee's is just a Denny's with lipstick. (Go cliches!)(Go redundancy!)(Go stupid parentheticals!) Everything Applebee's did/does badly, Denny's did/does with less dignity. I mean, Applebee's at least had some kind of uniform thing going on. I know, I know. Lame shirts do not a uniform make. But all we got were ties. Yes, ties. Yes, the girls, too. The beginning, end, and inhumanity of our Denny's identities were strips of polyester fashion disaster you wouldn't inflict on your evil stepdad. And then there was the menu. I see your nachos-as-big-as-your-head and raise you one "Moons Over My Hammy" and a trademark symbol. Oh yes, and the bar rush. Applebee's may have pretended to the ignoble throne of "Bar and Grill-e," but Denny's, with its enlightened 24-hour policy, essentially bases 1/3 of its corporate strategy on the relative beauty of its offerings in the eye of a drunk whose bar has just closed. One night, when I was working the graveyard, one guy offered me $50 if I would serve him a glass of buttermilk. Too bad I asked the manager for permission instead of forgiveness. Now that would have been a story.
At Denny's, though, I was lucky in that none of the customers ever condescended to me. Of course, I've come to suspect that I was spared that indignity not because of any particular virtue of mine, but simply because your average Midwestern Denny's customer doesn't have the first idea as to how to go about condescending. They do exasperated scorn just fine, as I found out whenever I let people's coffee grow cold (I was slower than molasses in a Canadian winter), but condescending, not so much. With their elevated status in the fastish-food chain pecking order--elevated vis-a-vis Denny's, at least--I can certainly see how Applebee's would attract a crowd entirely capable of condescension.
All of which goes to show that I grew up in a really, truly, and dastardly lame restaurant ecosystem. And I therefore commiserate almost (I refuse to let go of Moons Over My Hammy--figuratively speaking, of course) entirely.
Applebee's was THE place to be on Friday and Saturday nights- we'd occasionally wait over an hour (!) for a table. I've been back fairly recently (current group of friends + casual dining establishment night + syrupy margaritas = good times) and am amazed how well I was able to stomach that food back them. Now I feel slightly queasy and sluggish after ingesting the nachos. The entire plate. By myself.
First off, um, I'm a fan. No, make that a big, big fan. Gosh, this is so embarrassing. Anyhoo, love the column, love the blog.
Second of all, I lived in Durham, NC for four years. WITH air conditioning. You deserve a medal.
Third of all, hope you find time to post to Open sometime soon. Your columns in Salon aren't enough!
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e105aebf92
Working industrial, construction type jobs in east Texas, I was never directly in "food service". But one summer, when I was delivering oxygen and acetylene to welding sites and big bottles of CO2 to restaurants, I learned that the stinkiest place in the universe is the back door to a restaurant, especially Churches Chicken restaurants.
Sorry, I missed the beta or I would have written sooner.
we have one here, unfortunately!
fun post :) rated.
There was no Applebees when I was a teenage. It was JB's Big Boy (prolly bob's big boy in your neck of the woods). I was a gas station jockey back in the day when attendants still pumped the gas (they still do in Oregon).
On to Friday Night Lights. I heart that show. Made be cry seven weeks in a row. (only misted up the eighth, I've become so hardened)
And I still don't have air conditioning, home or car.
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