channeling Rita-Mae

May 07, NM: John & Pat bought a cafe last year, The Navajo City Roadhouse, which is about 1&1/2 hour drive from here. Pat works there on Sundays & I go to help her & keep her company. When I was here last year and first worked at the cafe, I wrote on Pat's blog as Rita-Mae, the waitress with a heart of gold and a chest to carry it. So, I've felt like a Rita-Mae ever since.
I have worked as a waitress before, all during high school, & it quickly comes back. I'm a little slow on the cash register but all the customers (99.9% male) are very patient with me. I've had one proposal, not sure of what but he kept saying: "I'm single & I own my own house, a really nice house". He never actually asked me out on a date, sounded more like he was asking me to move in with him! Not sure what a date might comprise of as I live 30 miles off the main road down a bumpy,often impassable and always impossible, dirt road! Apparently single Caucasian women weighing less than 200 lbs are a rarity in these parts and clean ones without facial hair are even rarer.
We serve mostly New Mexican cuisine - everything with chiles on it. The NM State question is red or green, meaning how do you want your chile sauce? The special is a huge hamburger called the "Roadkill" and it takes a big man to order one & a bigger one to actually eat it. Our best seller is the take-out burrito with salsa sauce, I sell a lot of them at under $4.00 a piece. Everyone down here drinks gallons of iced tea with scoopfuls of sugar in their glasses. Very little coffee or hot tea!
The customers are oil field workers who spend all day in their truck driving from rig to rig to service them or they stay on-site for 10-14 hours at a time with no one else around so they really appreciate having someone to talk to. The shy ones are my favourite, they act like no one has ever been interested enough in them before to ask them what they are doing out there on the rig. They act all embarrassed and mumble their replies. But I love it here!