workhorse

When I turned 11 my mom decided it was the appropriate age to make me start working. I went to school with a girl whose grandfather was from the middle east and owned a catering business. He was pretty sketch, especially since he let an 11 year-old work for him. We mostly catered private parties, or at embassies. At some point he acquired a restaurant, the food was disgusting, it was in downtown Silver Spring before downtown Silver Spring got nice and there was a back room which I'm pretty sure was used for hookers. So we go down there with my best friend from the neighborhood, Jennifer. She is three years older than me and was usually at my house and present for all the shit that went down. If her mother had known what we were doing that night she would have been pissed. Anyway, so we get there and my mom decides it's a good idea to tell Mouffa (that was the dude's name who owned the place) to give me the largest table there. Full of big black women. Not only did they scare the shit out of me, they were mean. When I tried to get them to pay for their drinks, they'd yell at me and tell me they already gave me the money. At first I was too much of a pussy to say anything about it. Then I got pissed. I'd had enough. I told one lady she needed to give me the five bucks for the Hennessy she'd just ordered. I was prepared, ready to stand firm...until she stood up. She towered over me, this little pre-pubescent white girl and screamed at me about how she'd already given me the money. I was defeated, I was afraid she was gonna slap the shit out of me, so I backed down. I know my place, sometimes I talk a big game, especially if I've been drinking, but I was only 11 or 12 at that point, and only drinking occasionally (which was okay, my mom knew about it).

We finally got out of there sometime in the middle of the night. It being a black lounge, I literally did not get one single tip. And don't be offended by my saying that, even Eddie Murphy agrees. Not all black people, but still. I mean, white people smell kinda like dogs when we get wet, my Asian coworker just told me "Asians, we smart, but we suck at driving." Every culture has its shortcomings. So we're going to leave and naturally, he's paying us under the table. Dude hands me a twenty dollar bill for my entire night of getting bitched at and bossed around. I cried. I was so angry. What a fucking dick. When we got to the car though it was revealed to me that Jennifer and my mom were keeping most of the money that they had been given for drinks and food. My mom made Jennifer give me some of what she had made.

The best part about how my mom started making me work at a young age is that she would take a portion of what I had made. She always said she was using it for things for me, but that was bullshit. A couple years ago she got really angry at me and had tallied up a list of what it had cost her to "raise" me and told me I owed her $121,000 dollars. Which is funny, because when I turned 18 she started taking credit cards out in my name and completely demolished my credit, I'm still in debt. But that's another story for another blog post.