HI! I'm Buggie and I'll be your server tonight.

I just watched Waiting. Good Lord, watching a movie that was basically my life from ages 18 to 21 was trippy. I know I should not have watched it alone, but jeepers was I ever bored tonight and not inclined enough to more about it than pop in a movie that I knew would at least make me laugh. And now you will have to suffer through some my memories of my days at old Bennyland.

I was trained by Tiki Barber’s wife. Though they had not yet met and really, my training was all of 6.2 seconds. The next day I found myself training people. Yep.

Clussy and I, who often hosted together (much to her chagrin for my penchant of punching her), ate a ton of candy. We’d run across the hall to the movie theater, or through the mall to CVS, for massive amounts of sugar that would probably kill large mammals, but only served to make us more hyper than we were already inclined to be. I would be leading people to their tables, only to turn and find that they could not keep up with my pace and were still standing at the host station wondering where the heck that girl who was going to show them to their table had gone.

We had an intercom and we made it our job to see how often we could get the hostess to page “Ben Dover” or “Amanda Huggenkiss”. This was before Bart Simpson made it popular. (Shut up. I know I am old). And yes, they did get me to page a person who maybe was sitting at the bar. His last name is Hunt. Mike.

Hanging out at Kirk and Pete’s house was always interesting. I remember one night when we were sitting around chatting (how was it that we could be up all night without being exhausted back then?) when Pete and some girl came home. A few hours later the girl left. A few hours after that Pete came upstairs and when we asked who the girl was, he said, what girl?

I wore a short black skirt while working as a cocktail waitress. People were forever flipping up my skirt. I always wore biker shorts underneath (Mama didn’t raise no moron). I wanted a pair that had a pair of lips on the behind. I thought it was appropriate.

A guy caught fire at our bar once. He spilled Bacardi 151 on himself, and then lit a cigarette. His hand went up in flames.

There was a GM who was a complete cocaine fiend (from the rumors). He also looked JUST like a monchichi. However, when he was on the line, the food came flying out, so drug abuse ain’t always bad…

We had a jukebox and I would play Missionary Man by the Eurythmics 6 times in a row. My manager hated the song so much that she would give me the best sections if I promised to not play it that night.

Kim Webster and I played Black Cat by Janet Jackson a lot. But we just wandered about saying Black Cat, Alley Cat, Monkey Cat, Jackass Cat, Drunk Cat…

When I came home from my brief bout of living on the west coast, I was serving this girl who said she worked at Good Guys. Well, Good Guys was like a Best Buy out in California, so I asked her if she got a good discount on electronics, and she said no, and flashed her new nipple ring at me. (Gah!). Apparently Good Guys is a completely different sort of establishment in DC.

I made some of my very best friends at that place and I am forever grateful. Thanks, Bennigan’s. Who’da thunk it?

* The picture is from my photo album from early days at Bennigans. The drawing is of me and two other hostesses. We had a big Snapple banner up. Yeah, anyway. That's a snapshot of the Bennigan's I knew and, er... loved? Aw, you loved it too...them Monte Cristo's, and B. Cakey's, and grilled pineapple slices, and brownie bottom pies, and RCU's, and Dan Diaz. And Harms with her terrifying stories. Good times. Good times.