Essay: The Waitress is 15 🎵

Thank you for reading.
I bow my head deeply.

A new morning has come. 🎵
It is a morning of hope. 🎵

Radio calisthenics.
Today,
should I skip it?
Hehe...

I was a working high school girl.

My father, who ran a company,
suffered a brain disorder
due to heat shock
when I was in junior high school.

My paternal grandfather
(a handsome farmer)
always told me from a young age,
rather than planning how to increase,
plan how to decrease.
(Meaning to be frugal and
cherish money.)

The girls' high school I attended
had the second-highest tuition
in the prefecture!

Every month, I would go to the office to pay the tuition and
commuter pass fee.
(We T girls' high school students
didn't know that students at other schools
bought their own passes.)

The school bought
commuter passes for all students
in bulk.

It was a girls' high school
that prohibited part-time jobs,
but to pay the high tuition
(at this time,
my mother, who was highly skilled at housework,
was working two jobs.)

My mother would give me the tuition and pass money,
and make me a bento every day.

Alright!
I'll get a part-time job
without the school knowing!

A hotel restaurant was
hiring waitresses.

At 15 years old,
I was fearless.
I wrote a resume
and went to the hotel
on my way home from school.

The manager who interviewed me
said, "We don't hire
high school students..."
Even though I was turned down apologetically,
I didn't get discouraged, didn't give up,
didn't fawn, didn't act arrogant,

didn't get angry, and didn't rot—I fully displayed
that spirit‼️

I was desperate to sell
my own strengths💦

And then, gracefully✨

Then, could you call the manager?
said the 15-year-old (what was I thinking‼️)
(The manager's eyes widened,
I know, right? 🤭)

Yes, he came over,
the manager.
(As expected of a first-class hotel manager,
he was sophisticated.)

The manager asks me various questions.

Manager: Do you understand table manners?

Me: Yes, I am generally familiar with them. I also enjoy polishing cutlery. I hear that hotel staff call it 'silver,' and I use an egg stand to eat my boiled eggs. I am confident that I can work harder than my hourly wage.

I kept speaking one thing after another, even things I wasn't asked about, fluently reciting proverbs and famous quotes that I had cultivated through reading.

Manager: Mizu-san, you don't look like a high school student, so I will make an exception and hire you. (A manager with compassion 💧)

Me: Manager, I am extremely honored. When I stood up and bowed deeply,

Manager: Please come in from tomorrow. However, this is the first time our hotel has hired a high school student, and as a rule, we do not hire them, so please change from your uniform into your own clothes at the nearest station. We will treat you as a university student.

Me: Manager, thank you for your compassion.

Manager: You know quite a lot of difficult words, don't you? What other proverbs do you know?

Me: 'The mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small,' 'Do not adjust your cap under a plum tree,' 'A king's word is like sweat,' 'Wearing the belt of I-Xian,' 'Every cloud has a silver lining,' 'The dyer wears white hakama,' 'Preaching to Buddha,' 'Fortune and misfortune are like a twisted rope,' and so on.

Manager: Yes, you pass 💮

(Yes! I'm going to work. I made a victory pose in my heart.)

As I left after the interview,

A hotel man saw me off.

(Um, I'm actually a high school student who is working part-time by misrepresenting my age due to the manager's compassion.)

I gave a slight bow and whispered in my heart, 'I look forward to working with you starting tomorrow.'

From the next day, I worked part-time
four days a week.

I was a 15-year-old first-year high school student
teaching manners and proper language
to women who were actual university students.

I really worked hard!

For three years 👍

The End

Thank you very much
for reading until the end.

Since it was such a long time ago,
it was a good era, wasn't it? ♪

The real university students
calling me "senpai"
felt completely natural.
(Oh my)


During summer vacation,
I earned about 130,000 yen
in part-time wages.
It's a nostalgic memory.
(Even now, I think to myself that I worked really hard.)

I hope you all have a good day today,
have a wonderful day ☆

Today and tomorrow,
everything will be fine and good for the rest of your life.
💕㊗️💕㊗️💕㊗️💕㊗️💕㊗️