The Waiter Chroncles: Mix Tapes

In the service sector, your co-workers are everything. They can make your work miserable, or they can make it tolerable. Some may even make this otherwise demeaning work enjoyable.

Meet Pepe, the 21 year-old uber-waiter who has quickly become my favorite person in this strange place. Sarcastic, generous, and full of energy, Pepe makes even the most stressful lunch shift fun. He does this with little gestures: waving his arm in the air and proclaiming, "that's whassup!" as you precariously balance a tray full of entrees; executing short bursts of crump-dance maneuvers; answering the most distressed questions with quips like, "I don't know. All I know is that I'm handsome."

Seriously, being a waiter at the Ristorante would be much, much worse if not for Pepe.

Among other things, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of popular music, which he uses to decorate the most basic of conversations. Which is why my restaurant vocabulary includes "Ay Bay Bay" and "Hyphy," linguistic nuggets I'm hard pressed to defend in any other setting. It's a quality I admire, even if Pepe's musical catalogue is predominately rap and hip-hop.

Out of this admiration, I suggested a mix tape project. That's right, mix tapes (cd's, really). I'm a 31 year old ordained minister, and I just traded mix tapes with another guy. And it was totally my idea.

I offered up The Decemberists, Feist, The Bobby Hughes Experience, Maximo Park, Metric . . .

Pepe produced E-40, Bow Wow, Hurricane Chris, Mike Jones, Nas, Lil' Boosie, The Federation . . .

It's fun, if nothing else.

And a little childish.