When three worlds collide

This post is meant to serve as a reminder that good PEOPLE treat everyone the same. They take PEOPLE as they find them and don't judge someone on the job they do or the place they are in at the point at which they come across them. It also serves as a reminder that this is a small world and you never know when you might cross paths with someone or when they might cross your path again, different circumstance, different situation, the same PEOPLE.

When my eldest son was about 4 I worked as a waitress, I still maintain to this day that it is a job that EVERYONE should do, it really shows you the measure of PEOPLE. In fact I had two waitressing jobs at the same time, it was just before I became a club singer (another post). One was in a local pub/restaurant and the other was in a fast paced american diner type of place in the centre of town. Waitressing was one of my favourite jobs. I LOVED it. Imagine how many different PEOPLE you come across.

There are two sides to waitressing, the customer side (which I loved) and the staff side. There are two sides to staff, chefs (who for some reason think they are the dogs nuts?) and the waitresses/waiters, who work their arses off and take shit from both sides.

I mentioned in one of my other posts that pubs used to close at 3pm on a Sunday, this was during that time. The only place you could get a drink after time was in a restaurant and only if you were eating. I finished at 4 on a Sunday.

This family used to come in at around 3.30 almost every Sunday I used to look forward to the mayhem they caused as people realised they weren't really there to eat. There was a smell of money off them, I thought they were in a different class to me, they didn't. They ordered champagne, drank cognac, the food didn't really matter but they ordered lots of it. This family consisted of a very distinguished looking dad, a rather glam wife and a couple of wayward adult kids, both of whom were beautiful and full of fun, I made my job fun and they could tell. There were sometimes others, but that was the core of it.

After a few weeks of them coming in, every time they seen me put my coat on they would call me to the table and say come and have a drink with us. I never knew if they were joking and so for a long time I didn't dare accept. One day, and I was having a particularly bad one, on the way out they said come on live a little, have a drink with us. I did.... that day I realised that I had something in common with these PEOPLE, my family were the same as theirs. Dad has his place, mum had hers, the kids respected both but all of them had a sense of fun about them, they laughed at each other, enjoyed each others company and a banter and had only one aim in mind, to have a good time. These were my kind of PEOPLE.

When I left the job I left the memory of those PEOPLE behind but remembered them and often told PEOPLE about this crazy family.

YEARS later, at the time when I was running the working mens club a friend of mine and my husbands walked in with a boy and a girl that I recognised, I couldn't remember where I knew them from so didn't say hello. Our friend said, these people know Sean (my sisters best mate) do you have his number? Sean is another story and one that will be told another day, but lets just say, he wasn't the kind of man who would thank you for giving strangers his number.

I called him and gave him the clues that the girl gave me and he said YES I know her, put her on the phone. As she was talking, I remembered that she was the daughter of that family from those days. When she put the phone down I said, I remember you. She instantly remembered me and the fact that her brother who was standing there used to have a crush on me in those days (blush). So two good PEOPLE were brought together again, through me, the random waitress turned working mens club steward ess! Turns out they had shared an amazing connection at a local festival a few years earlier, they had lost touch but were meant to be life long friends, turns out they were.

In another bizarre twist to this story, at some point in time, when my sister was a taxi driver, she had one day picked up a girl who she connected with instantly, in fact that girl asked her to come in for a drink when she reached her destintation. It had been the same girl. Soooooo the 3 of us had come across the same girl in different circumstances and felt a connection. They say that there is always a common denominator, for us, she is it.

Her name is Emma, she is one of the most awesome characters I have ever met, it comes from being from an awesome family, PEOPLE that know what love is, PEOPLE that know what fun is. She doesn't make friends easily and trust me she is no mug. That's what makes this story so unbelievable.

She made 3 friends separately that later she found were connected in the most bizarre way. Two years ago, Sean was taken suddenly and too soon, Emma was one of the first people I called, she was living in Amsterdam at the time and got the first flight back, we needed her here. She is one hell of a bird. She is a spiritual soul and whenever her name is mentioned, she appears from nowhere.