When I take the kids back east in August,  we will spend three days and two nights in New York City. We will see two Broadway shows: Billy Elliott and Hair. Everyone, myself included, is really looking forward to that. We’ll go to SOHO to eat at the country’s oldest pizza parlor,  which still bakes pizzas in their original ovens  that date back to 1906.  And we’ll go to the Metropolitan Museum of Artto check out the King Tut exhibit. The one place though, that  I really can’t wait to take the kids to see is a restaurant I used to work in called Phoebe’s. At the risk of sounding like a politician trying to drum up votes, let me tell you about my hard scrabble youth.

I moved to New York City from Philadelphia when I was 21. My poor mother. A week before the move, I sold my car, a bitchin’ Chevy Chevette, and packed all the belongings I could fit into two suitcases, because that is all I had room for in my 200 SQ FT apartment (that I was sharing with a roommate).  My poor mother… again. My parents drove me  the two hour trip to The Big Apple and my mother was silent the entire ride. After I got settled into my new place and it was time for them to leave, my mother burst into tears. I assured her I would be fine, but she was inconsolable. She drove away sobbing. My poor mother… yet again.

After I watched their car pull away, I decided to go for a walk to survey the neighborhood. There was a restaurant around the corner called Phebe’s. I needed a job so I walked in to apply. The manager, Joey G., was behind the bar. He took one look at me and hired me on the spot. He gave me an apron, an ordering pad and I started that night.

I can say with utmost conviction that no other experience in life has prepared me for the role of being a mother of five teenagers quite like my job as a waitress as Phebe’s. First of all, they never closed. They billed themselves as being open 365 and a half days a year. Like what the fuck does that mean? And the drama.  Phebe’s was on the corner of 4th and Bowery in the famed “Bowery” section of town. I once watched a man stagger across the street with a gunshot wound in his chest. You get the picture.

Phebe’s was famous for a lot of things. Because it was in the Off-Broadway theatre district, it was nicknamed “Sardi’s South” after the famous after- Broadway theatre show hangout  uptown.  Consequently it attracted a colorful cast of characters both in the clientele and the employees. There were the three Joe’s who worked there: Joey G, the night manager. He was from Queens. He made sure that everyone who stepped foot in the place knew that Phebe’s was a Yankee bar and only Yankee games could be shown on the TV. (The only exception to that rule was when the ‘86 Mets won the World Series.) Then there was Joe B. , an aspiring, nebbishy playwright/bartender who never got a drink order right.  Which was remarkable when you consider we only served Bud and Bud Light.  And Joe Mama, the weekend bartender and country western singer who used to make us pour our own drinks while he made out with his groupies at the bar. This all the while listening to throbbing  beat of The Material Girl thumping on the juke box. To this day, whenever I hear an ’80’s Madonna song I have to resist the impulse to shout out, “Two eggs over easy,  side o’ hash browns and whiskey down.” (Whiskey down is waitress lingo for rye toast.)

The front of the restaurant was cafe style window seating and the back was the size of a gigantic banquet hall. Phebe’s was the only restaurant in the city where a party of 20 could walk in and get seated without a reservation. I often served several large groups at one time.

The Hell’s Angels headquarters was around the corner and the S & M Club came in every Monday night (some on leashes) after their weekly chapter meetings. (I used to tip the other waitresses to take their table because I just couldn’t deal.)  Oh, and I can’t forget Ming. He was the crazy Taiwanese chef who used to hurl plates at us and curse at us in Chinese. Substitutions really upset him.  He took a liking to me after I helped him fill out his immigration papers. The other waitresses used to get me to place their special orders for them. I can still remember pleading with him, “But it’s MICK JAGGER and he really wants French fries instead of a baked potato. “ Cops from the local precinct would come in and drink at the bar while they were still on duty and when somebody “dropped a dime on them” (that means called and reported them) we waitresses used to hide in the bathroom when Internal Affairs came in to investigate so that we wouldn’t feel pressured by the cops to lie.

And you thought the Mafia was a rough crowd.

Movie stars sat in the corner, got shit faced drunk, which only made us scoff at their PR’s reports that they were in rehab for their “addiction to pain killers.” And there were roaches too. Lots. When customers asked me ”What’s good?” I could only in good conscience  recommended the bottled beer.

You want to know the really weird thing about writing this post? I haven’t thought about any of this stuff in years. I mean it just all came flooding back to me in the last ten minutes. Obviously, I’ve been repressing.

Having survived that you can see why finding gum in the garbage disposal this morning (for the third time)  is just not that big of a deal to me. I lived in NYC, I swam with the sharks,  and I did not drown. For lack of a better word, the experience seasoned me.

So there you have it. Whenever I hear a self-aggrandizing  politician talk about their humble job as a cashier at Wal-Mart I can say, “I can top that.  I worked at Phebe’s.”