Lucy Kaplan │ Illustrated by Hadley McCormack │ Edited by Maria Kim
October 31, 2025
During your first shift, you will be sentenced to folding silverware into napkins. A test to see if you’re cut out for repetition, the practice will soon become ritual. Take refuge in this menial task on days when your coworkers commit to telling and retelling their recent sexual escapades. There’s no earthly reason why you should know that your middle-aged boss has a penchant for older women.
Innocently enough, a bartender at your restaurant may slip you gifts: kombucha, a work of bell hooks, a bracelet—your relationship will meander into allegory. Proceed with caution.
When asked how he filled his day, the same bartender might tell you that he “sipped espresso, smoked a cigar, and watched a snail eat a leaf.” When retelling the story to your friends, you will have to insist through giggles that the quotation is direct. Don’t tell them the other things he said.
If your manager is acting a little erratic today, he is likely on the come down from an unsavory adventure he took after closing last night. Watch for signs including an increased volume of arguments with the kitchen, palpitating eyelids, and a lowered physical inhibition. He will spill while clumsily showcasing how to pour a margarita with one hand, but beam at his tricks, and he may tip you out of the bartender’s pool.
You have precisely one week to get in the good graces of the kitchen staff. Spark conversation in whatever broken Spanish you can eek out. Laugh at the jokes that translate awkwardly into English. Take pride when the head chef calls you “mija.” First uneasy at his kindness, you will soon determine his intentions unsullied.
Soldier through incessant teasing along the lines of Hey, remember me? It is best practice to lie and nod. Apparently, the type of men who take their dates to upscale patio bars are also the type to flirt with their barely legal waitresses right in front of them.
A hairball sensation will begin to fester in your gut, one that you will fight back into your esophagus when you laugh at his unfunny jokes and nod when he makes no sense. Don’t cough it up.
The new 20-year-old chef may slyly pull you aside during rush and ask for a shot of tequila. You will for once find it pathetically endearing—the bartenders will not. He will be fired within three days, and you will feel inexplicably at fault. He wore star patches to cover his pimples, patterning his face with innocence.
As the months progress, you will notice a disturbing, albeit useful, pattern. Some days you find yourself crunched for time, hair frizzed from bike rides and lake dips in the summer warmth. Other days, you will bask in the silence of your sun-spotted car—curls tamed, lips painted, cheeks expertly flushed. Take a moment to rehearse a well-placed smile in the rearview mirror. On these evenings, customers will be much more forgiving when the kitchen is running behind. Bat your eyelashes for an extra 5% and don’t think about Gloria Steinem.
Whiskey, sugar, bitters, rock, twist. After countless slow hours spent leaning against the bar, you will learn through osmosis to make an Old Fashioned. Carajillo, Sex on the beach, Negroni, Lemon ball: your new party tricks. You never touched the bottle. You never crossed the line. You never would.
As the paychecks roll in, guilt will thaw into acquiescence. Exhale your bitterness as the hairball in your stomach softens into the lining. You will exit the summer with an outlook half empty, but a wallet half full.
Sole Magazine