A caveat for everyone who is expecting instant miracles the day after Barack Obama takes office - it won’t happen. Yes, we can look forward to quite a bit of change, both through the force of Obama’s mandate and as the natural consequence of getting those other guys out. But before an Obama White House can begin to enact that change, it will have to pay off a few of the IOUs his people doled out during the campaign. With luck the Democrats will have learned what the Republicans forgot and persuade the special interests to step off until the administration is up and running, but more likely said interests will be lining up to hit up Obama like mafiosi lined up to petition Don Vito at Connie’s wedding.

It’s all pure speculation at this moment, but if we’re going to queue up for our due from the new president, I might as well make a couple of requests of my own:

1. Make cell phone use while driving a jailable offense, with double time if the driver is text-messaging. Call it Aggravated Dumbassery.
2. Declare a national moratorium on any books, movies or TV shows involving vampires in love or the further adventures of any Jane Austen character.
3. Before graduating high school, every student should be required to wait tables for one year. This one is serious. Before our young men and women go forth to inflict themselves upon the fine-dining establishments, greasy spoons and Hooters out there, they should know what every person who waits on them is going through: the long hours, the physically and emotionally exhausting labor. Putting up with an endless parade of people who don’t know what they want but know damn well what they’re entitled to. Being at once a butler, a maid, a food expert, a counselor, a PR flack and a scapegoat, all for two bucks an hour plus tips. Waiting tables may not rate as a prestige job in America, but it’s not for wimps.

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For Real: Steve Dublanica knows this all too well. After losing a lucrative gig in marketing he found himself, at the advanced age of 31 (food-service is like pro sports, in a lot of ways), waiting tables for a living. After a couple of years in the trenches, enduring all the injuries and infighting and petty degradations that are the server’s lot, he began to write about his experiences in a blog called Waiter Rant (www.waiterrant.net). Billing himself only as “The Waiter” in order to protect himself from friends, coworkers and customers alike, Dublanica chronicled the craziness and trench-warfare mentality involved in becoming a personal manservant to dozens of people at a time, night after night after night. His frank and funny posts struck a chord with the blogosphere and, tens of thousands of hits and a couple of Internet awards later, Dublanica embarked on a new career as a professional writer. The result is Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip - Confessions of a Cynical Waiter (Ecco Press, 2008).

Unlike other bloggers-turned-authors, Dublanica doesn’t simply reprint his blogs in book form here. This is his story, that of a guy who found himself in uncharted waters and stayed to live among the sharks, primarily in a higher-end restaurant called The Bistro. Despite the elegant trappings, a fine-dining joint is every bit as contentious and chaotic as The Varsity on a game day, and Dublanica’s stories of paranoid owners, crooked managers, psychotic chefs and double-dealing fellow waitrons will ring true to anyone who’s ever been in the weeds and had a surprise 12-top sprung on them.

But Dublanica’s best observations are about his customers, and Waiter Rant is at its most instructional here. Foodies be warned: your waiter doesn’t care how savvy you are, how much celebrity food-porn you’ve watched, or whether you know a gnocchi from a duck sous-vide - if you’re an asshole, you will pay. The same goes for anyone who tries to commandeer a table by claiming to know the owner, attempts to get physical with a server, or honestly believes that a hearty “good job” is any substitute for a decent tip (including the tax). Servers have long memories and a keen sense of street justice, survival skills for any profession that depends on the largesse of others just to pay the rent. This is not to say that the book is solely an exercise in griping - the job has its rewards, and decent customers get their due as well - only that Dublanica is at his best when describing the job at its worst.

Because of its subject and tone, Waiter Rant inevitably invites comparison with Kitchen Confidential (in fact, Anthony Bourdain does so in the front cover blurb), but the comparison is favorable and apt. Dublanica does an exceptional job of limning life in the front of the house, to which those of us who’ve been there can relate and the rest of us can learn a great deal. Even if mandatory foodservice never becomes the law of the land, this book should at least be required reading.

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Make It Stop: Ever since Charles Dickens disguised his plea for aid to the impoverished as a harmless ghost story, Christmas has been a time for charitable appeals, for all of us to spread some of the joy we feel to others in greater need than ourselves, and to open each other’s eyes to the injustices around us. It is in this spirit that I find I have no choice but to speak out over a grievous harm being done to our children. I speak, of course, of The Elf on the Shelf (CCA and B, 2005).

I had hoped that after its initial release three years ago, this self-published children’s book and its accompanying doll would simply get lost among the mountain of other Yuletide kiddie books out there, but not only has it not died its well-deserved death, it’s thrived and is rapidly becoming some kind of homegrown tradition. Bookstores are having trouble keeping it in stock, and the cursed thing has now spawned spinoff products. For those unfamiliar with this phenomenon, The Elf on the Shelf, by Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell, tells of Santa’s smallest elf, who lives in your house and keeps an eye on your boys and girls to see who’s being naughty or nice. After the kids go to bed, the elf whizzes to the North Pole and relays his findings to Santa, and then comes back to take up a new position. Every morning, the little ones delight in searching for the elf, and they make sure to be extra good throughout the holiday season.

Where to start? Never mind the fact that moms and dads are using the stuffed doll that comes with the book as a low-budget nanny-cam to keep their little darlings in line. Never mind that the children’s beloved new pal is actually narking them out to Santa. Does no one else see anything deeply, terribly wrong about making kids share their rooms with a creepy doll that watches them all day and then comes to life and moves around after they go to sleep? Forget Santa - if I were a kid, I’d be watching my behavior for fear that this thing would suddenly go all Chucky on my ass!

The Elf on the Shelf: a Christmas gift for child therapists far and near. God save us, everyone.

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Postscript: On a serious note, Michael Crichton passed away on Nov. 4, succumbing to colon cancer at the age of 66. The author of such mega-bestsellers as Jurassic Park, Disclosure, Sphere, and the classic The Andromeda Strain, and the creator of the once-watchable TV drama “ER” (based on a script he wrote in 1974 about his own experiences as a young doctor), Crichton was a rarity among big-box authors in his big ideas and thoughtful executions. He was painstaking about verisimilitude - even if the science behind his cloned dinosaurs was utter bullshit, it had the clear ring of possibility - and unlike many of his emulators, he wrote about complex concepts in a way that entertained but never condescended. His enthusiasm for stories was evident and infectious, and he will be missed.

John G. Nettles