"I'm a glam waitress," she said.

"A What?"

"A glam waitress." 

"What is that?"

"I work at an upscale restaurant.  They hire the girls for their looks.  We are really models who serve food.  The money is really good.  People are ther to be seen, to be known.  They pay extravagantly for the opportunity, and they have to leave a good tip.  Twenty percent would be embarrassing.  They tip thirty percetn or more.  They leave $30 on a $100 lunch.  And we don't even have to be good or nice.  We just have to carry the food and look right.  Busboys take care of the dirty stuff.  I make $300 to $400 a shift."

"A glam waitress." 

She was pretty alright.  He could see how it would work.  It was all based on the same system that paid CEOs ridiculous amounts of money.  She just got what was left on the lower end.  Lower end?  She was twenty-two, a juniour college student, and she made as much as he did teaching at the university with a Ph.D.  And he felt inferior.  He could not figure this part out.  She was beautiful, arrogant, and unenlightened, and all he wanted was to please her.  They were sitting side by side at a posh and trendy bar.  He tried to control his interest in her, or at least to subdue his desire to stare at her with a stupid grin.  She smiled at him for a moment, then swept the room with her eyes taking apart the crowd.  She apparently found nothing of interest, and she turned for the moment back to him.

"What do you do?" she asked. 

He took a breath and tried to seem coy.

"I'm a school marm." 

"What?"

Well, that was stupid, he thought. 

"I teach." 

'Oh?  What subject."

"English." 

He felt foolish.  Why had h not just answered her question? 

"O, god, I suck at English.  It's like my worst subject."