Page 213-215 of Autobio

How Nirvana Almost Killed Me
(Chapter 19)
“I don't know why everyone takes themselves so seriously here” I think to myself as I hear Ray scream at George about the damn sauce for the third time this morning. It’s another manic Monday at Mama’s Pizza I suppose. I’m not sure where Ray gets the audacity to scream at the head chef about something that is not even George’s responsibility. But Jesus Christ Ray, we literally cannot do anything about it now, but I digress.

Since there is only two of us in the morning, I am doing the front of house duties while Josie cuts up lettuce and tomatoes for the lunch rush. Naturally, I am listening to some Kurt Cobain on my phone with my earbuds while I am making sweet tea, because to be honest, a person can only handle so much Italian music before they lose their mind. Anyways while I am rocking out to “Lake of Fire” I am absolutely oblivious to the elderly couple that comes in and sits down. So here I am, singing about how people go to the hell and basically get burned alive and just enjoying the song in general when I see the couple looking at me when this unforgettable look as if I was this deranged teenager.

The first thing that pops in my head is “ *** ***” while I walk up to the table. Of course when I get to there I am doing my usual intro spiel and ask them if I could get anything for them to drink. I notice that they won’t look me in my face rather they are telling their menus what they want. I cringe when I ask them to repeat themselves several times because I can’t hear them but eventually I understand what they want and I go in the back to make their salads and get their drinks. I bring their food out and their drinks and they still would not look at me but now instead of being subtle it becomes painfully obvious that they do not enjoy my presence. Anyway, I bring out their bill and I go check on another table to see how they are doing; while I am walking back to the bar I notice that they left relatively quickly so I checked the book to ensure that they didn’t dine and dash on me like so many old people tend to do to us servers at Mama’s. Instead of a tip, I find this pamphlet about accepting God into my life. Nothing new, I get those time to time in my checkbooks with a phone number to the local church.

So I work the rest of my lunch shift when Kathy, my boss and the owner of the restaurant, walks in. She usually comes in at 2:30 when things start to slow down and she sees how we are doing and asks us how everything is doing. I don’t mention what happened when we opened because in my mind she didn’t need to know that. Anyways while she is prepping the counter for the dinner shift, the office phone rang and she didn’t answer it. When I walked back to the front I told her that someone called her and they left a message.
So I finish prepping the front when she calls me into her office, I become worried because she never calls me into the office when I am on the floor. Anyhow I go in and she asks me to close the door so I do. I sit down nervously and there was this uneasiness that came over when she was silent after I came in. She asks me if there was an incident that happened this morning that I failed to tell her and as a quick reaction I say no. She told me that there was no reason to be dishonest with her and I should just tell her the truth. I told her that there was a couple that wasn’t happy with me this morning for a few reasons. Before I can go further into detail, she plays the voicemail that the wife left when she called Kathy.

“Hello Mrs. Vindigni, this is Ester Marca. My husband and I ate at Mama’s Pizza this afternoon and we were highly displeased with our dining experience today. We were waited on this young lady, I think her name was Lindsey or Lexi. I don’t remember exactly but she had tan skin and was rather tall. I don’t know if y’all are hurting for servers or whatever but I would have never thought that a family restaurant would stoop so low to hire devil worshipers. She was talking to herself about how people go to hell and how will burn in this lake of fire. We wouldn’t even look at her because we were afraid if we did she would try to convert us to her Satanism. Please find better employees or we will find other Italian restaurants to eat at.”

This was the voicemail Kathy played for me and I nearly lost it. I could not believe that these old people thought I was a devil worshiper. I honestly thought I was going to die from laughter in her office. As I am drying my tears, I see Kathy laughing as hard as me. She told me how ridiculous the message was and she wanted to hear my side of the story. This is how Nirvana convinced these elderly people that I was a Satanist and almost killed me from laughing too hard.