Thanks for the tip, buddy

  Wanna know if your waiter really will spit in your soup if you give him a hard time? The answer's in “Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip — Confessions of a Cynical Waiter” by the anonymous The Waiter.
  The book, which grew out of the blog www.WaiterRant.net, is to the front of the house what Anthony Bourdain's “Kitchen Confidential” was to the back; in fact, Bourdain wrote a cover blurb calling it “a painfully funny, excruciatingly true account of the waiter's life.”
  It does get bogged down at times in the 38-year-old author's soul searching about what he wants to do when he grows up; he repeatedly says he sees nothing wrong with being a professional waiter, but his oft-expressed angst about his default profession contradicts that. Most of the time, though, the book is a vastly entertaining and well-balanced account of what servers put up with from often mentally unbalanced chefs and owners and surly and pretentious customers, and what they themselves will do to to make their jobs easier and amp up the tips.
  An excerpt: “I'm a big fan of the psychiatrist/gourmand/serial killer Hannibal Lecter, the fictional maniac who ate his victims with fava beans and a nice bottle of Chianti. I always liked Dr. Lecter because he dispatched his prey with panache. (And, if you didn't notice, all his victims kind of deserved it.) My favorite scene in the movie “Hannibal" was when a tuxedoed Lecter, looking like a deranged James Beard, removes the top of a man's skull, digs out some gray matter, and flambes the guy's brains tableside -- while the guy's still alive. After I saw that film I'd found myself measuring the circumference of obstreperous yuppies' heads and wondering where I mislaid my cranial saw. “What's the special tonight?” “Why my dear sir — you are.”