Lottery Tickets and Jesus

          "The Bible says it's a sign of end times and I can't wait." It's December first,

World AIDS Day, and I'm speaking to Elizabeth, a regular on her third cup of coffee,

about the short article in the paper regarding the day and the disease. "Really who

do you have dying of AIDS?" She asks me, "gays, whores and drug users. It's the

plague that is wiping out all the evil in the world. It's a sign of Revelation and Jesus

rising agin soon and I can't wait." Appalled by these comments, I want to say to

her, "isn't alzheimers the plague of Revelation? Only senior citizens die of

alzheimers and they're pure evil." I decide I want my tip though, because it's a slow

and aganizing night. So slow that I have only made seven dollars in tips and my

only company is Elizabeth, a loon. Just as I'm walking away from her, relieved that I

have dishes to do, she asks for a spare coin, (6.90 in tips now), to play her scratch

off lottery tickets, that she buys in bulk daily.
         

          Despite her comments, I guess I feel sorry for her. She is 70-something with

long, gray thinning hair, that's always gathred on the back of her head with an

elastic band. Her face is chalk white and cracked, caused by her heavy makeup

habits. With everything so overdone, she makes Tammy Faye Baker look like a

plain Jane. From her spider leg eyelashes, to the thin line of crimson that shoots

across her lips, that only draws attention to her yellow, decaying teeth, she

resembles, more then anything a clown and not a happy fun clown either-John

Wayne Gacy comes to mind.
         

          A widow and mother of a daughter who she doesn't talk to, she has nobody,

not even a car to get her to anybody. She lives four doors down from the Waffle

House though, so all day and night, she walks back and forth from her house to the

restaurant to sit in a two person booth to scratch off lottery tickets and waits for

Jesus.
   

          She and I have one thing in common though, we both waste our lives in a

Waffle House waiting for something to come to us. While she sits and waits for

millions won from a "Double Doubler" and Jesus, I just wait for a better life. Two

years ago, I took this job because they were desperate and I was too, having just

dropped out of college. I have always worked third shift (9p.m.-6a.m.). I wait on the

losers who are too drunk to know a dollar from a twenty and they love me. I am,

remember, the bringer of waffles, and plus compared to the other waitress who work

here, I'm great looking. I'm the prom queen of the Waffle House. For instance,

tonight I'm working with Amy, who according to her name badge, has been "serving

you proudly since 1992." Amy is not in the best condition. She's frail and looks

much older then her 43 years with false teeth and deep thick lines of wrinkles that

go across her forehead. Her uniform is always complete with a faded, stain

encrusted, white shrit, which matches her high water stain encrusted black pants,

which reveal her stain encrusted dirty white socks and her stain encrusted worn out

shoes. Her hair long and stringy hair is always tied in a messy braid with an

oversized scrunchie, also stain encrusted, which is wound around numerous times

at the end of her lifeless hair. She has a waif figure caused by popping an

assortment of ephedrine pills. Pills like Stacker 2's and Yellow Jackets assure you

right on the bottle that they are "as safe as coffee," that is until your heart

explodes. She has been taking these for over ten years, so she has a suppressed

appetite, suffers from sleep deprivation, and is irritable as hell. I guess I have no

room to talk though. I eat Stackers like they're candy. Everybody does on this shift.

It's our diet-Stackers, coffee and cigarettes.


          Amy never did anything with her life. This is her career-waffles. I realize that

if something doesn't change within myself, I could be another Amy. To be honest

though, I'm not sure if I can be anything else. I'm simply in a rut. I live in Grove City,

Ohio and work in the nearby Urbancrest. If you're not a fat, beer bloated cowboy hat

wearing waste of space dumbass, then you're on the other side of town smoking

from a crack pipe and drinking a 40. It's a suburban wasteland. I hate it.