"The Singing Waitress"
We had spent the previous week at a technology show in New York City, and the brutal Monday morning meeting back in our home office with the owner at his worst had just about done us all in. We headed to lunch at a nearby T.G.I. Fridays restaurant, not wanting to ever return to the office, knowing we would have to, but also this was going to be a very long lunch.
Our waitress came to take our orders and her being quite a bit pushy to get our orders, I jokingly made the comment, “You’re about as pushy as the waitresses in New York.” She laughed and then informed us she was going to New York after she graduated from KU (University of Kansas) this next spring. Her goal was to perform on Broadway, as her major was in theatre arts, and she was an exceptionally good singer.
We all woke up from our stupor, gave her our orders, and started goading her into singing a song. This was not quite the place to be singing but we teased her anyway. But then, a mother with her adult daughter came in taking a table close by to ours informed her waitress that today was her daughter’s birthday.
Jumping at the chance, we insisted to our waitress that this was her chance to show off her talent by singing the young lady “Happy Birthday”. She surprised us all by agreeing to do so and then shocked us all by her performance. The whole restaurant erupted in applause, and she came over to our table and announced her next song. She sang a song from a musical and totally stunned us all, and again the whole place erupted in applause. It was amazing!
We went back to TGI Fridays every week or so asking for our favorite waitress and got to know her a bit. She had a lead part in the musical “Oklahoma” at KU and she invited Lori and I to go. It was a wonderful experience!
Our waitress transferred to another restaurant on the plaza for a few months and on one of our last visits there, she informed us that she and her boyfriend were about to move to New York. She already had a job in a restaurant off Times Square and asked us to come see her whenever we came to New York City; we promised we would.