My Brilliant Career

                                                           

                                        Hard Knocks U

Indeed, the Pixie Pancake Truck Stop furthered my education though often the schooling was of a more lurid variety.  As it turned out, my three main professors in the School of Hard Knocks were three career truck stop waitresses, Pauline, Mabel and most of all, head waitress, Nelda Brown.

Pauline scared me a little because she was just so angry all the time.  She just had a stub for her right arm with three pudgy fingers where her elbow should be and I thought maybe that’s what made her so proud and mean.  She dyed her hair a harsh bluish black and she penciled in her eyebrows with a black Maybelline pencil in straight lines above her burning dark eyes.  She wore bright red lipstick which made her thin lips look like a straight red line dissecting the lower half of her face. 

She never smiled but she could balance 5 to 6 plates on that stubby appendage all the way up to her shoulder and she could serve a table faster than anybody.