Nickel and Dimed

I was awake last night until 2 a.m. I then slept restlessly and dreamed about my waking thoughts. I blame it all on Barbara Ehrenreich's book from several years back titled Nickel and Dimed. It is our assignment for my book club that meets every Wednesday at the Cathedral. I didn't think it would bother me even though I knew the premise: for a writing assignment the author would go undercover a month at a time and work for minimum wage jobs to see if she could survive as one of the "working poor." As I read about Ehrenreich's experiences working as a server in two restaurants in Key West, the memories of my childhood once again started crushing upon me.

When my mother and father divorced in 1950, she went to work to support my sister and me as a server as well. She chose to work a split shift so that she could make more money in tips. The pay at that time was $3 per day. She typically worked seven days a week from 11 to 2 for lunch and from around 4 to midnight. In my memento cabinet, I still have her rulebook for waitresses as well as a picture of her in her early 30's with her jet black hair, red lipstick, and crisp white uniform. Here are my most potent memories:

The placing of her own nickels and dimes in what she called the "tithe" jar in our kitchen cabinet. In the morning, while Judy and I were getting dressed for school, she carefully counted her tips, took out ten per cent, and placed the money in the jar to be placed in the offering plate on Sunday mornings.

The countless servings of stale, cold restaurant food she brought home for us to eat later in those little white bowls with a single ring about the outer portion as decoration. I especially remember the mashed potatoes.

The expert way she could carry a large tray to serve a table of eight without any accidents ever.
She was good at what she did, and she knew it.

The night she came home and told us she had received a $2 tip from a large party she had served that night. She was truly elated.

The summer when I was sixteen when she finally crashed from overwork and underpay. We had gone down to the Mississippi Coast to spend more time together. She had left her job at Azar's in Greenville. Both of us were soon working (and renting a small Airstream trailer) at the restaurant/drive in across the highway. She worked about a week and then quit for some still inexplicable reason. I continued on as a car hop outside and became the breadwinner. She "took to the bed" as we say in the South. I worked for the usual $3 a day from four to midnight and then swept up the parking lot before I could go home.

These remembered experiences of my past have again reminded me of the plight of the working poor. The Democrat Gazette has recently featured several letters to the editor about tipping the servers. Now they are paid at least $2.13 an hour. Many customers still consider it an option as to whether they leave a tip or not. I often wonder if they have any idea what they are doing to the families of those folks.