I wait tables. Sometimes I want to kill either myself or the patrons that frequent my restaurant. As I write this, I think about 75 percent of Loyola students know exactly what I’m talking about.

College students waiting tables is a fairly common occurrence. The hours are somewhat flexible, so we can work around our class and extracurricular schedules. The cash flow is always an added bonus, leaving our wallets overstuffed with one-dollar bills from tips.

Almost every time I walk into an Uptown restaurant, I run into a classmate or acquaintance working. At my restaurant alone, we staff a remarkable repertoire of seven Loyola students, plus a handful of stragglers from Tulane and UNO.

We wait on our friends, we serve food to our advisers and professors, and we complain to one another about bad management and workloads awaiting us at home while we bond over rolling silverware and refilling ketchup bottles. It is our common thread, the tie that bonds us – and the thing that drives us to near insanity.

“They always want more chips. Is five baskets of chips really necessary?”

“Four empty tables in the room, and they have to sit at the only one that’s not cleaned off yet.”

The complaints always sound the same, but that doesn’t keep us from having the conversations. Yes, we are there to serve you, and the customer is always right. But we still reserve the right to whine about the guy who wants a glass of water with his Coke even though we know the water will remain untouched.

Then there’s that table that needs seven refills, five billion napkins and complains that their fries are cold. Well, that’s what happens when you eat your burger first.

There’s ketchup on the floor, water-soaked children’s menus on the chairs and two soggy dollar bills thrown haphazardly amid the crumbs littering the table top. Two dollars for all your hard work. Two dollars for a $50 check, an hour and a half of time gone and a large chunk of sanity missing from what used to be your common sense and patience.

I admit, worst-case scenarios aside, many patrons are polite and appreciative. They say “please” and “thank you” and manage to get the fries into their mouths, not on the table. They leave behind the requisite 15 percent tips, possibly more if they’ve ever worked in the service industry.

I stumble home at night, shirt stained and hair smelling like greasy food, cursing everyone who gets hungry after 9 p.m. Cursing my boss for staying open until midnight. Cursing my professors for the stack of homework awaiting me.

So I pick up the phone and dial Fresco’s (thank God for delivery) and order sustenance.

And I tip the delivery guy $10 (because I believe in karma) and I study. I don’t want to fail out of college. The thought of waiting tables for the rest of my life makes me want to kill myself all over again.