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"Ye fooked oop," and Katherine's piercing blue Irish eyes weren't smiling. The three of us, as raw at this game as the strainer full of chicken livers sweating in the sink stood there haplessly. It was the first week of my new waitressing career, and I was kinda wishing I'd studied harder. Through a friend I'd managed to score a gig at An Leath Phingen, renowned Italian eatery in Kenmare, itself the restaurant mecca of southwest Ireland, despite never having spilt chateau legopener on a seated diner in my life. So anxious was I to find out whether it was as fun to run a restaurant as it was to eat in one that I turned down a lifestyle-enhancing salary at the Saatchi advertising outpost in Dublin, packed my life onto the bike and pedalled southwest. I always had a fascination with cooking (or rather, cookbooks) so my ultimate goal was to get into the kitchen. But first things first - today a waitress, tomorrow a Roux Sister. My first two weeks were spent cleaning the newly renovated restaurant from exhaust fan to egg slicer in preparation for the summer season. For this thankless task, I was paid three quid an hour, almost enough to live in the manner to which I was accustomed: slightly above camping out in my tent. When the doors finally opened, I was scheduled to tread the boards for five evenings a week from 5 until 10pm, earned 6 quid an hour - double the standard rate, because the deal was that the owners kept all the tips. This irregular regulation was apparently 'how they'd always done it,' though Katherine said they welcomed any suggestions.

I was housed in a furnished employer-subsidised apartment for just 35 quid a week, and the hours meant  I could spend each day on my bike exploring the craggy natural beauty for which the Ring of Kerry is justly famous. Or so I thought. After day three I was drained. My feet hurt, my head hurt, and I developed the need to use anti-perspirant for the first time in my life. Sometimes I could not even get out of bed until early afternoon, too late to go for a decent spin on the bike.

On the first night, I was responsible for the Incredible Bouncing Knife. Just as I was about to descend the staircase a knife slid off my stack of dirty plates and proceeded to bounce end-on-end hitting each and every step before coming to rest at the boss's feet. The ensuing symphony went on so long that it drew applause. For an encore, I nearly committed one of the seven deadly sins of waitressing -- allowing a bowl of soup to slide off its plate and nearly into the lap of the diner.  I solved this problem by placing a napkin between the bowl and plate but was warned that "we've never had to do that before." 

I'd always dreamed of being a waitress, not for the tips, not for the occasional Ralph Fiennes look-alike snacking solo in the corner table, not even for the last  forkful of chocolate mud cake that might come sailing back through the kitchen doors and into the jaws of the mangy dogs in white caps and dirty aprons hovering around the prep table. I wanted to know what it was like to not have to think -- to put one's mind in neutral, one's body in autopilot, one's gob in autosmile, and reserve one's intensely out-of-hours life for creative pursuits like novel writing, symphony composing, world poverty solving. 

I could not have been more arrogant or more wrong about this profession. Waitressing requires your all; it requires physical, mental, and social skills plus a good dose of humility that most professions do not dare combine. One of the trickiest aspects of this job, apart from being nice to people and not forgetting their third request for more butter or wine and transporting giant birdbaths of brodo soup up the suicidally steep staircase to the second floor, is simply scheduling clients so that no one is left unseated for more than a reasonable amount of time.

Indeed, those who have made reservations must not wait for their table at all. Thus, if you have a large group booked at 8pm, you must seat earlier diners so they vacate the necessary tables by the time the large group arrives. Easy in theory, but it takes just an impatient few to swan in and seat themselves without you noticing and the whole night's bookings can be screwed. The owners had recently renovated the restaurant to include a pleasant waiting area for clients, complete with atrium and coffee table books. We knew we'd "fooked up" when we were ushering people into a waiting area for the waiting area. Thus, I learned that the phrase "Please Wait To Be Seated" is a very important sign which really means 'Don't Fook Up Our System.' Another unnerving experience is to have a table go completely quiet as you clear away the plates, all eyes trained on your dish-stacking prowess. You can tell the conversation must have been pretty uninteresting. Americans are the worst. I could just see my gratuity go from a positive to a negative amount as I stacked the seven plates at the end of the table, as one would do at home rather than at the Ritz, and yikes, did a bit of food flick onto the lady's blouse? "With good people out front, we can do double what we did tonight," intoned our anorexic proprietress. I lay bets that the house special lobster cream ravioli has never crossed her pursed lips.

Back at my apartment, a couple of silver-service schooled buddies of Elaine, my flatmate and co-worker, showed us how it's done. The first  plate is slotted under the thumb and pinkie with subsequent plates stacked on the heel of the hand as you scrape the uneaten remains onto the first plate. This was invented for good reason. Elaine recounted a gratuity-minimising encounter with a diner:  "Squelch?" she commented,  as she squelched a large lump of garlic butter between two plates.

Elaine's friends were employed at the swank 5-star Park Hotel just out of town and were eager to enlighten we of the kebab-house institute. One useful tip for our two-floor restaurant was the need for a "floater," someone who floats around the entire restaurant, lending a hand where necessary and spotting clients who need attention. That evening I applied this technology to my shift, concentrating on downstairs whilst two others did upstairs and a third did the floating. It worked well, but Katherine made it clear she wanted superwaitresses, not systems, waitresses with eyes on all sides of the head and X-ray capability to see through the floor above.

"Nieve is my star waitress," chided Katherine, "she knows exactly what's going on at all times." 

Nieve was a teacher, and at every opportunity made it clear that she wasn't a waitress at all, but a teacher. Whilst scurrying around with plates and wine bottles, she looked like a waitress to me. Nieve wore sensible shoes and unassuming tights and skirt with a cashmere jumper that had a pearl design embroidered around the neck. I wore the only sensible thing I had in my backpack, a pair of Harley Davidson boots with silver plaque thinly disguised by a see-through black tube skirt that could double as an upper body mosquito net if sleeping in a hammock. Katherine eyed my somewhat racy getup and suggested I might like to borrow some of her clothes, but I graciously declined her generosity, not wanting to inconvenience her yet, at the same time not realizing I'd set milk souring.

On my first day off I rode north of the town up to a point on the Kerry Way where you can admire Kenmare in its sylvan setting. I rode towards a place called Currabeg, stopping at the little pier not too far from my apartment where you could gaze out across the chilly waters of Kenmare Bay. I took my snap camera out, and as often happens after framing it through the pathetic viewfinder, put it away without taking the shot. Point-and-shoot cameras are surely designed to remind you that real life is always better than the bottled variety. I thought about the caption for that photo. "Here's my local pier." It felt like a lie. As happens time and time again in my travels, I stood there and felt an invisible hand on my shoulder, ushering me onwards. Is there ever a time and a place where you can truly stop, even for five minutes? Even at home, parents have the knack of saying, "Isn't it time you got off your ass?"

A bit of uphill peddling, fuelled by an excellent TLT (turkey lettuce and tomato sandwich) from the locals' favourite grubberie, Nicky Ned's, and I was ready for my day-off treat: dinner at my restaurant. Being a bit of a tiresome wag, I called up the restaurant and, in my best scone-in-mouth accent, made a booking for Lady Byron Templeton, "just for the craic" as the oirish put it. Apparently this caused a minor ripple in the kitchen. I reasoned that without this alibi, I would have been stuck in the toilet. I showered and put on my "opera clothes" -- a packable long black dress and jacket -- and sauntered down for my 8:30 date with myself. As it turned out I got the "jilted sod's table," a lone little nightstand with a single chair outside the toilet. I ordered a house red, the incomparable uovo ravioli (one huge ravioli occupying most of the plate in a butter sauce), the delicious home made fennel and pork sausage with salsa, and for dessert, a divine pear pie washed down with a house white, which came to 20 quid in all, or 3-and-a-bit hours work. Unaccustomed as I am to meat or alcohol,  I had to spend some time in the lounge sobering up lest I mimic the incredible bouncing knife from my first night on the floor. 

I shuffled home to watch Casino on video until 3am, which made America look like a very scary place. That night I tossed and turned fitfully; the lethal combination of overstimulating movie and meaty pork sausage kept me dreaming and digesting until sunup. 

I could not wait for my next day off when I could jump on the bike again and explore the Cumeen Gap, a part of the Beara Peninsula I had missed on my first trip through these parts almost 6 months ago. This meant peddling though some wonderfully named places like Dromoghty Glen, and passing through some interesting geological formations -- hills that looked like they'd been sliced with a meat cleaver with the resulting slabs slipping against each other.

Back in Kenmare and after I finished my shift at 11pm, I made for The Square Pint, the local afters place, where I would often go for a 2 quid bowl of soup and bread during my lunchbreak. Tonight, the Pint featured a brilliant band fronted by a virtuoso female squeezebox player and an equally impressive mandolinist. From my leaning place near the door I made indecent eye contact with the bass player, a tall blonde lad with a build reminiscent of those Welsh football players with whom I was fortunate to be locked at the Fox & Hounds pub last summer.

I use to think this never really happened at gigs due to the lights shining into the performers' eyes and the seething throng before them, but my once-famous musician friend assured me that yes, eye contact definitely occurs, followed by a front row nod and a back stage wink and a night to forget back in the hotel room or truck or wherever if all goes right. Afterwards, I approached the bassplayer, Dave, to say hello and we exchanged numbers. In fact, I had learned to play slap bass while back in Australia, and all I really wanted to do was harass him for a few techniques. In the background I spotted my flatmate Elaine, looking curiously drenched from head to toe, being escorted through the crowd.

When we arrived back at my apartment Elaine was being nursed by her Mr. Right Now, having slipped over in the Square Pint toilets and split her lip, not to mention knocking herself out cold in the process. Apparently the management had to douse her into consciousness by sticking a hose under the toilet door. A case of good old Guiness getting the better of the uninitiated. We drifted off to my tape of Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy playing on repeat. 

The next day I heard, "Lynette, it's not working out," from Katherine 

I was floored. Nothing prepares you for being fired. Not even if its a job you hate with a passion. Quitting had already crossed my mind barely three weeks into the season, but Katherine beat me to it. I suddenly came over all faint and had to excuse myself and make for the toilet where I stuck my head between my knees to stabilize.  If the demise of my career began with lack of X-ray vision for servicing the floor above or my threatening waitressing attire, it deteriorated faster than a prawn cocktail under a blowdryer when I started innocently offering suggestions to enhance the business.

In my advertising career I was paid to come up with ideas. I foolishly assumed this would be appreciated in my new pursuit. The fact was, "An Leath Phingen was a successful, Michelin-star-to-be outfit that had been wowing people with its handmade pasta since the day it opened," I was reminded.  Who the hell was I? Katherine was reluctant to elaborate further, but in true imposing style, I implored her to give me more feeback on how I'd "fooked up," so I could take more away with me than a footprint stamped on my derriere. 
 

"It's a personality thing. We find your suggestions intrusive. I like someone to just get on with it. And you don't seem to have really grasped the place," she said simply. Despite the shock, I continued in my galling style and treated myself to a last supper in the restaurant that evening. This flipped the entire staff out. Then again, life's too short to spend too much time in recovery. In the ensuing weeks in Kenmare, I often spotted my former employers in the street and they appeared to do their best to avoid me. Just before I left, I put a letter and a recipe in an envelope under their door. It read, in part: