June 21: Oh, Baby!

The night was underway and the restaurant was fully staffed. Three managers patrolled the three main dining areas and the adjacent patio. The wait to get a table was just under an hour, but people were in high spirits as they celebrated Father's Day with loved ones.

I was placed by management in the fourth row of the dining room known as "The South." This gave me three tables that could seat four, six and eight people. I rotated a fourth table designed for four with the server scheduled in the third row. As the night progressed and each row filled with parties of families and friends, each table became progressively more difficult to reach. When paralleled tables of big groups were sat, occupied chairs touched backs making it virtually impossible to gain access to certain parts of groups.

It was about seven-thirty when I had a party of four adults, three kids and a baby arrive in my section. Grandma and Grandpa were being treated by Mom and Dad as the three kids had adventurous balloon-sword fights and the infant slept. The baby wore a white protective foam helmet and slept peacefully through the loud and boisterous events of the evening. Whether the child wore the helmet because of an undeveloped skull or as a result of a traumatic event, I wasn't sure. I wanted to ask, but feared embarrassment for the parents so I left it alone.

The family's visit was relatively calm. There was a mishap over an entree sent out by the kitchen staff but other than that, everything was rather uneventful. Uneventful that is, until I started collecting the dirty dishes. The restaurant I work at is very big on ambiance and the authenticity of the Mexican culture so the dishes used are made of a heavy ceramic in various pastel colors. With each dish, a variety of accompanying bowls and ramekins are used to serve sides. This inconsistency of matching tableware coupled with the occasional left over enchilada can make it very difficult for one to successfully stack plates.

As I was gathering the plates, bowls, silverware and linens off of the table, I tried to minimize the trips I would have to take to the kitchen so I kept taking more and more. My arms started to shake as I reached over the sleeping infant for one more fajita plate. The adults were oblivious to my outstretched arm as I tried to balance my load.

When a person tells of being in a car accident or a traumatic event, he will often describe it as time standing still or moving as if in slow motion. Witnessing the topmost plate shift on a bowl of uneaten charra beans and fall was no different. I tried to catch the falling dish with my free hand, but that only managed to throw off the entire stack's balance. Plates came crashing down around me sending projectiles of rice and beans all over my black pants but all I heard was the deep thud of ceramic meeting foam.

A baby never cries right away. It always takes it a moment to realize what has happened. The sound of broken ceramic was still ringing in my ears when the baby began its wail. My stomach turned over and wrung itself into a knot as my heart leaped into my throat. Of all the kids this could have happened to, I had to chose to drop a heavy orange plate on the kid with a protective helmet to avoid an accidental bump.

The cry of the infant immediately ended the mother's conversation and she whipped her body around to comfort her son. The terror that I felt wasn't anything compared to the look of agony and pure fright. Without paying any attention to the overturned plate of grilled onions and peppers, she instinctively grabbed for her baby and pulled him free of the wreckage. The cries of pain were drowned only by the deafening silence of onlookers at the neighboring tables.

I stood and stared without the ability to speak. I wanted to rush to the aide of the mother, but I knew that I had done enough. I wanted to disappear and never show my face in the restaurant again. I wanted to turn back the clock by two minutes and tell myself to take a few extra trips to the kitchen.

That story didn't actually happen, but can you imagine if it did? Boy, that would suck!