srah blah blah

The waitstaff would like to ask you to leave, ma'am

I was cursed yesterday with waitpersons who, for some reason I never identified, hated me. Or they hated everyone at our table. But mostly me.

At lunch, we went to the restaurant whose name I can never remember. Either Round Robin or Red Robin. Anyway. We sat at the same table we sat at all three times I've been there. I'm going to start calling it my "usual table". Last time, it was I who hated the waitress, because she kept calling me "hon". Different waitress this time, but equally evil. We all placed our orders and the waitress left.

A different waitress brought us our food. Becky got her burger, Mommy got her guacamole burger (but with no guacamole, so they had to get some from the kitchen and give it to her on the side!), Daddy got his turkey burger, Aunt Pat got her turkey burger. The waitress looked at me. "Did you get something?" "I thought I did," I replied. "I ordered a BLTA croissant and french onion soup..."

She went to get our waitress, who returned to our table. "I'm sorry," she said, "I forgot to turn your order in..."

Thus the slowest eater at the table was the last served. You would think they could bring my soup out first, but they waited until it was all ready to bring it out. Thankssomuch.

I ate my soup and by that time everyone was finished, so I took my sandwich home in a box and put it in the refrigerator. We got busy with other stuff and I never got around to eating it.

So then we went to Becky's graduation. About halfway through the Ls, we started to notice we were hungry. This was pretty understandable, especially for poor srah who had a cup of soup for lunch. We were a bit disappointed to find, when the graduation ended around 7:30 or 7:45, that our dinner reservations were for 9:15. But we headed over there and ended up getting seated early.

Maybe that's why he hated us. Because we, a party of 13, showed up early. Hard to tell. We had to wait a while for the last two members of our party. Maybe refilling our drinks was what drove him nuts.

He went around the table, collecting drink orders. When he got to Alex, Alex asked if he could have a hot chocolate. The waiter said he couldn't, which Alex took to mean that they were all out. So he asked for a lemonade, and the waiter said he couldn't have that either. After Alex settled for a Coke and the waiter left, we began speculating that it wasn't that they didn't have hot chocolate or lemonade, it was just that the waiter didn't want to give him any.

When he came back, he took our orders. He asked what kind of salad dressing I wanted and I asked if I could have French onion soup instead (I know, my name is srah and I'm addicted to French onion soup. Sorry). He said I couldn't. This rather surprised me, since it said on the menu that French onion soup could be substituted for soup or salad. But I didn't argue. Maybe he just didn't approve of my choice.

Once he had taken everyone's meal orders, my mom tried to order a hot chocolate for my sister. The waiter said they didn't have hot chocolate, and my mom pointed out that it was on the menu. He said that it wasn't, so we had to point it out to him. As long as we were pointing things out, I mentioned that the menu allowed the substitution of French onion soup for salad, so we changed our orders for that, too.

Perhaps he was upset about the soup and being proved wrong. Maybe he knew that I was with the hot-chocolate-lemonade boy (who did get his hot chocolate, after all). Maybe he forgot to put in my order. Or maybe duck just takes longer to cook than anything else. But once again, I was the last one served, by a long shot.

After I sat there, foodless, for a while, people started sending green beans down the table to sustain me. Finally, my food arrived. I gobbled up my yummy duck and then we had tea and coffee and dessert. I ordered a cup of tea and when he brought it, I asked if I could have some cream. I had to repeat myself several times for him to understand, and then the waiter announced, "Yes, you may." Well thank you, mommy, I thought. Thank you for allowing me to have some cream in my tea.

I'm sure the second time was my punishment for trying to convince my mom not to leave a tip for the first waitress, but I'm not sure what I did to deserve her. Whatever it was, I'm sorry. I apologize. Just don't give me any more service like this!

srah - Friday, 7 June 2002 - 9:12 AM
Tags: food, stories

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