*^*Sunshine at Night

Denny’s waitress Sunshine Stevens—an ironic name for a late-night worker—is three hours into her shift at midnight. She has another four hours of work before her evening ends at 4am.

While her manger tells a handful of the other servers that he will be leaving early tonight to drive to Fresno for a funeral, Stevens gets her tables’ orders from the floor and then punches them into a touch screen monitor facing the kitchen. Meanwhile, a middle-aged man who resembles a Hindu swami, with a bald head and a long white beard, walks back and forth in the uncrowded restaurant.

Stevens says she chooses to work while most people are sound asleep in their beds for two reasons. First, she has an eight-month-old daughter, and working late at night allows her to spend the whole day with the newborn. Second, the night shift draws workers from the hospitality industry, who know how to leave a good tip.

Stevens, who blinks slowly and frequently while we speak, says she downed a Red Bull energy drink before starting work this evening. She supplements that kick with another five cups of coffee a night.

Since I’m going to be staying up until morning light, I gulp two cups of coffee and exit into the Monterey evening air. I’ll be back in a couple of hours to see how Stevens is getting along, but right now I stare at a near full moon that is making shreds of clouds look like party streamers.