I lied about having experience when I got my first waitressing job. And I guess I was convincing, because they started me out on the hottest, thirstiest Saturday of Brooklyn's summer.

IEverybody wanted to sit in the garden--down some steep, rickety stairs in the back. I pretty much wanted to die.

Some people never got drinks or dinner that night. Lots of it ended up inside my shoes. I still have no idea what happened to entire bowls of soup and hamburger deluxe platters that the cook insisted, snarling, that he had passed me.

I cried. Customers left. But for some reason, the manager decided to give me a second chance.

The next day, a balmy Sunday, I washed my shoes and found out all about "dupes" (duh, you write down an order on your pad and give the cook a copy). It never really got fun. But I did eventually learn to line up plates on my arm.