Sometimes, it’s a social expectation that is salient and an aid to memory. For example, cocktail waitresses make distinctions between the drinks men and women typically order, and other waitresses I interviewed spoke of these gender distinctions as well. My mother describes a couple ordering. The man orders a T-bone steak, and the woman “would order something smaller, so naturally you’re gonna remember that.” And if an order violates expectation the woman orders the steak, the man a chef’s salad—that will stand out, the memorable deviation.
Some items and the routines associated with them enable the use of external memory aids. My mother describes a six-top at breakfast with orders of ham and eggs, steak and eggs, and hot- cakes. As soon as she takes the order she, as a part of her route to the kitchen and back to other tables, sets a little container of syrup in front of the customer who ordered hotcakes. The aid is particularly helpful in a situation like this because “a six-top is especia’lly hard, and sometimes you have to ask the customers who gets what.” The container of syrup, then, lightens the load by one item.