Money Money Money

Every day I reconcile the books for my restaurant. Pretty regularly, I'm floored by the amount of money that people spend on food and drink. Granted, I don't have any money, so at this particular point in my life I can't relate to the freedom of spending $500 on dinner for two. Yeah, you heard me....for TWO. People come in here and buy $200 bottles of wine to go with their filets and whole wok fried fishies. Dude....$200 buys my groceries for two weeks.

Anyhow, yesterday was a kicker, and made me think twice about my role here at Mala. I'm going through the books from the day before, and notice that one of our servers received a $200 tip on a $250 meal. Um....really folks? Really? I noticed also on the ticket that the guest paid with the AmEx Centurion - you know, the "Black Card"? The one supposedly made out of titanium, and is so exclusive that you can't apply for it.... you have to be invited. That's the one they only offer you if you charge over $250K every year. Don't know if you caught that....you don't earn $250K annually, you CHARGE $250K. Cough, choke...ahem.

With the amount of big wigs coming in here spending the big bucks, I was wondering if maybe I shouldn't try my hand at being a server for a while. I don't think I'd be that good at it though....actor that I am, I'm not THAT great at superficially kissing ass. Even if I'm getting paid for it. And most of the folks that pull out the bling bling AmEx are....shall we say....high maintenance....?

Anyway, yesterday evening I had an appointment for a massage with a woman who I had worked on during a clinic for school. She enjoyed my massage so much that she got my phone number and called me to have some work done in her home. She has been a massage therapist for 18 years, so I was extremely flattered. She also asked me if I could handle a two hour session (Could I handle it....??? Come on lady, you're talking to a professional!).

My point in writing all this down is to say that last night, for two hours of massage work, I received my very first $100 bill. I know that this might not really seem THAT exciting to some of you - I used to make pretty darn good money living in the Bay Area too - but for some reason, this held a certain significance to me that I'm not sure I can explain.

Massage therapy is something I chose for myself. I don't really feel as though the hi-tech world of sales, marketing, and software implementation was something I ever really chose for myself. Yes, I did the work, most of it I was proud of, and I was pretty good at......but I never set out to BE a sales and marketing person.

Massage therapy, however, is something I have always thought about, and I made the conscious decision to pursue it, I took a risk in moving to Maui to do so, I spent time and money to receive the education I needed, and I accomplished my goal (well, licensing exam pending).

So to have someone I don't know - a therapist herself no less - call me out of the blue because she appreciated my skill, to ask for a two hour session, and to pay me good money for it.....it just felt like a real accomplishment. Something I did, something to be truly proud of.

I had a stupid little grin on my face all night last night.

You can keep your AmEx Centurion Card, P Diddy. Ben Franklin is my homeboy.