Monday, June 11, 2007
Fine Dining
This afternoon I had probably the strangest dining experience I have ever had. Stranger than the time I threw up in the kitchen of a Cracker Barrel while on a date in Decatur, IL. Stranger even than the time a homeless man started masturbating near me at the Burger King. Okay, well, maybe not, but still very strange.
Our waitress was a tiny, miserable-looking woman who had the unfortunate combination of being a low talker and having a heavy accent, which rendered her utterly incomprehensible. I think I accidentally ordered a prostitute thinking I was getting more water. She responded to each request as though she were being physically abused, shying away from the request for silverware as though it were a punch in the face from Mike Tyson. She also spent the majority of the meal pretending not to notice us as she walked right past. I didn't know whether to undertip her or notify the authorities that she'd been kidnapped.
But the real fireworks came when we received the bill, and she spent half an hour trying to process our credit card. First she announced that "the system was down" so we'd have to wait a minute (at least I think that was what she said -- it might have been the Gettysburg Address); then she pretended to run in and brought back a slip that said "server error." Then she handed it off to five or six different strangers, each of whom no doubt went on a terrific online shopping spree at Baby Gap, before utterly giving up and demanding cash for a hundred dollar meal. I offered to wash the dishes instead, but it turns out that only works in Archie Comics.
This afternoon I had probably the strangest dining experience I have ever had. Stranger than the time I threw up in the kitchen of a Cracker Barrel while on a date in Decatur, IL. Stranger even than the time a homeless man started masturbating near me at the Burger King. Okay, well, maybe not, but still very strange.
Our waitress was a tiny, miserable-looking woman who had the unfortunate combination of being a low talker and having a heavy accent, which rendered her utterly incomprehensible. I think I accidentally ordered a prostitute thinking I was getting more water. She responded to each request as though she were being physically abused, shying away from the request for silverware as though it were a punch in the face from Mike Tyson. She also spent the majority of the meal pretending not to notice us as she walked right past. I didn't know whether to undertip her or notify the authorities that she'd been kidnapped.
But the real fireworks came when we received the bill, and she spent half an hour trying to process our credit card. First she announced that "the system was down" so we'd have to wait a minute (at least I think that was what she said -- it might have been the Gettysburg Address); then she pretended to run in and brought back a slip that said "server error." Then she handed it off to five or six different strangers, each of whom no doubt went on a terrific online shopping spree at Baby Gap, before utterly giving up and demanding cash for a hundred dollar meal. I offered to wash the dishes instead, but it turns out that only works in Archie Comics.
