The Tip
Ayumi couldn't believe that she was here again, hiding out in the alley way nestled between last night's special and grease covered boxes tossed out during the morning rush. Glamorous, no, but the brief peace and quiet it afforded her while taking a drag on her cigarette was worth it. She chuckled, the scene and smells were familiar, but 15 years ago she would have laughed at anyone telling her she would be casually smoking a hand rolled, cbd and mugwort filled cigarette. "Shit" she muttered as a rat rushed out from beneath one of the boxes and scampered over her shoe. As she stood there contemplating if the 5 second rule applied to cigarettes, she heard a familiar screechy voice call her name. Tiffani with an "I", the most annoying host she had ever met in all her years as a server. She squeezed back thru the door, into the kitchen and hastily grabbed an empty cup filling it with ice and water. "Who's calling me??", she yelled, " I'm in the weeds, I need to get this to table 12!" Tiffani looked at her, rolled her eyes and screeched, " table 12 requested their check, so I printed it for them...they paid and left about 15 minutes ago. Thought you should know." "Oh! And please clear your table, we have a two top that needs to be sat!" Busted, she took a sip of the water and strolled over to table 12 to see if they had left a tip. When she made it to the table she noticed that the check slip lay on the table on top of small black book. She picked up the slip, no tip. So she picked up the book to see if they had left it inside. Nothing there either. She took the book to the host stand, "Hey Tiffani, I think that they left this behind, can you keep it up here incase they come back?" Without looking up from her seating chart, Tiffani mumbled "Oh no, they said that that was for you."
