“Hey, sweetheart, nice patoot.”
The opening line of the story is also the quote that sets the whole story in motion. On its own, the sexist “comment” seems tame enough; tepid and hardly worthy of significance, even. As a collective unit of years and years of objectification of the waitress by men who have been both more and less vulgar, however, the compliment of her behind delivered by the taxi driver in the diner is an example of what is known as a “tipping point.”
“I’m sick of it. I wish nobody could ever look at me.”
This the story of a waitress given three wishes. (Maybe more.) The first wish she didn’t even know would be granted when she hyperbolically voice the deep-seated aspiration. She also had no way of knowing that the bag lady to whom she was kind enough to give a free bowl of soup possessed the power to grant that wish. Her fairy godmother, if you will, grants her casually phrased desire to no longer become merely a sex object.
“She glances over at the bag lady, but the sweet old thing has vanished.”
This is how the waitress learns that the bag lady is a bit more than she seems. Right after the taxi driver suddenly can no longer actually look at her without his neck snapping involuntarily away. Her wish has been granted.
“Whisk, whisk, whisk, go their heads as she passes by.”
For a story that has so many elements of a fairy tale about it, this quote offers an expressive use of alliteration to describe a fanciful and whimsical bit of impossibility that is perfectly apt. The “whisk” sound is that of heads that turn against their own volition to keep the wish true: when she passes by, she does not become invisible because that is not what she wished for. But she might as well be since nobody can hold their heads in place long enough to look at her for more than a second.
"So, jobless, she heads to a bar to get as drunk as she can on her cheapskate boss’s payoff, wishing she could find someone to tell her troubles to who wouldn’t turn away."
Her second wish is not even vocalized, thus informing the waitress later that she can make her wishes come true merely by thinking. As long as the bag lady/fairy godmother is around to “hear” them, that is. The second wish comes true in the kind of creative and imaginative form that is also appropriate to fairy tales: that “someone” turns out to be a blind man.
“`Ample’” is his favorable judgment after doing the Braille thing.
Something a little strange happens here. “The Braille thing” refers to how some blind people get an impression of the appearance of another by touching them. The judgment of her appearance from the blind man after this period of touching…does not seem terribly far removed from the sad-eyed taxi driver’s appraisal of the waitress. And yet the waitress seems to be peculiarly blind to this parallel herself.
"So she decides to wish for fabulous wealth, and to keep on repeating it, so as not to blurt out something stupid and end up like that couple who wished their noses into sausages."
Aware now that merely thinking can make it so and fully informed by the history of ironic endings for those empowered with the ability to have their wishes come true, the waitress does what so many others that have fallen before her have not. She makes sure that her wish is succinct and not open to wild misinterpretation as well as making sure she doesn’t get undone through lack of focus. Part of the moral of the story is encapsulated here: if granted the power to have your wishes come true, don’t be stupid.
