The Sunday around graduation:

1) There's cold pizza and chicken wings sitting out on the counter when I come in to open up the restaurant at noon.

2) There's a lunch rush that sustains into late afternoon, but then everything slows down a bit, and I talk to the one new-ish (young) (female) (Guatemalan) worker who works the deep fryer, and I ask her her name, and it's Maria, so I'm like, "Como la madre de dios" ("Like the mother of God"), and that seems to amuse her, and open her up a bit, from her smile.

I also ask her if she's surviving all of the work, and she's like, "Mas o menos" ("More or less").

(Like a week later, I leave the restaurant at night and she's already outside on the quiet street after shift waiting for her ride, sitting up on the deep stone window ledge of a nearby business and kicking her feet, while she holds her smartphone to her ear for something and just listens.)

3) At like eight PM, there's some delayed graduation event and suddenly we're absolutely swarmed with these huge groups of (South Asians) - 6 here, 10 there, 8 here, 18 there, all the tables but like one or maybe two (South Asian) -- and the restaurant is suddenly full and we're to close within the hour, so the owner commands that we shut the door at 8:25pm, and we do that for the night.

And, he also adds an automatic 18% gratuity on the bills of every table in there, ex cathedra.

4) Some (older) (unhappy-faced) (fat) (ashy-skinned) (South Asian) lady asks for a spice tray, and I tell her that we don't have it and I instead bring her chili flakes and chili paste since she says that's okay, and sometime later I hear some yelling and her voice is raised and she's talking loud and sharp to the owner as she just glares, and then later when they're walking out some (meek) (old) (balding) (bespectacled) (South Asian) man in slacks and a crisp collared shirt who was at the table sidles up to every staff member he sees and says that the food was very, very good.