If you call him "Honey" ONE MORE TIME....

Okay…mild rant here.

Just got back from lunch where I met my husband for a quick bite…of lunch…not him. :wink:

The waitress drove me insane. It started when she introduced herself and asked him, “What can I get you to drink, baby?” Then she asked me, “Mam, what could I get for you?”

WTF??? He is “baby”…and I’m MA’AM???

EVERY time she came by our table, which was A LOT she would begin and end her sentence with “Honey, sweetie, baby, sugar, darling” etc.

At one point she asked him, “Can I get you some more tea?” He told her yes and she proceeded with, “Is that sweet tea…I’m sure it is because you just look too sweet to drink anything else.” Giggle. Giggle.

Now I’m all about waitresses maximizing their tips…hell…I waited tables once myself. If she had a table full of guys and wanted to smile and flirt to get a better tip…more power to her.

But I found it highly offensive she did this when it was obvious we were there together.

Before I get posts back saying that I was just jealous…let me ASSURE you…not even. I am 28 and consider myself very attractive. This girl was probably in her 20’s and not that attractive. My husband was not checking her out and basically answered her questions with a polite “Yes” or “No.” He did nothing to encourage her to continue.

In fact he mentioned to me that she was highly annoying and he thought it rude of her to behave that way with his wife sitting at the table with him.

I really should have asked for the manager and told him he might want to tell his waitress to tone down the cutsie talk to men there with their wives!

After the tea incident I came really close to saying, “Well, darlin why don’t you just stick your damn finger in his tea and let some of that saccharine drip off into it and avoid having to fill the glass back up.”

GGRRRR!!!

I think you’re overreacting. She probably calls every* guy “honey” and “sweetie.” That’s happened to me when I’ve been out with my wife and my wife doesn’t even notice. I don’t see what the harm is.

You’re in Sweet Home Alabama. Shouldn’t you be accustomed to that practice?

She must’ve thought that he was leaving the tip.

I’ve heard many waitreses say that that sort of things helps to increase tips.

I am used to politeness here in Sweet Home Alabama…not bothering us so much we can’t carry on a conversation.

Every minute it seemed she stopped by…

“Sweetie, how’s that sandwich?”

“Is that potato okay for you honey?”

“Can I get you some more sweet tea, baby?”

“I’m sure you want some tallcake after you eat, sugar?”

If she had done the same to me then maybe I would think it was just her personality. But I was always “ma’am” AND I’m not old enough to be a ma’am yet!!! :smiley:

Would you’ve felt better if she had called you “Miss?”

He was leaving the tip and he told me he actually left a smaller one than he normally would because she was so highly annoying and made him uncomfortable.

He said that even if he had been there alone her over-friendliness would have bothered him.

It’s probably something she learned from an older waitress, coming from whom it likely would not have been offensive. However, I can see how in your case, what with she being younger than the two of you, it would be. She’ll learn.

A related story:

I was spending the day with my family in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We ate at Popeye’s. When everyone else ordered, the waitress treated them like normal adults. When I ordered, she squatted down right next to my chair and gave me a big ole’ fakey smile. She would say things like, “Are you sure you want to order that plate of chicken wings? It has six whole strips! Can you finish it?” and stuff like that. She was very belittling. I should mention that I was 17, my brother was 15, and my sister was 12. I don’t look significantly younger than I am, and I’m not really short or anything. Yet she felt the need to squat down and treat me like a child whenever she came to our table. Everyone else in my family noticed it, too. It was very uncomfortable.

Maybe she was a Doper who reads his hilarious Pit rants.

And no, I don’t work as a waitress in Alabama…

:slight_smile:

Yes…if she had been an older waitress it would not have bothered me as much…probably not at all.

I am very secure in our relationship and it doesn’t bother me if people flirt. I’m not that silly. But it was the overkill I guess. It was just rude IMHO. We couldn’t talk without her stopping by.

Scout, what a nice comment! I’ll pass along your praise for his humor.

I have been after him to write a new rant…I love his sense of humor. His boss is out of town most of this week so maybe he will have some time.

OH!!! I forgot my favorite part…

After we finished eating when she came by to ask us if we wanted dessert:

Waitress to my husband: Sugar, I’m sure you saved room for a tallcake.

Husband: No thank you. We don’t care for any…just our check.

Waitress: But I’m sure you might like a Blondie…(points towards me) She’s rather blonde…so are you SURE you don’t want one, baby?

Husband: No…thank you…we will have to pass today.

Waitress: We have chocolate ones too…they are really good, sweetie.

Aries28, I so hear you on this, and you are not over-reacting. That is just rude. It’s not about age or attractiveness–it’s about a woman flirting with your husband right in front of you. If a male server did this to me, my husband would bust his kneecap. The last time a hostess flirted with my husband as she led us to the table, I told her to shut the fck up, and she did. I am so not having that sht.

The other day I was unlocking the front door to open for business where I work, and some guy kept shouting at me, “Baby Girl!, hey Baby Girl!” trying to get my attention. I flouted the rules of customer service and walked away from him without acknowledging him.

Ah, the 250 lb southern waittresses, gotta love 'em. One told me “Honey, ah didn’t have enough sugar for your tea, so I stirred it with mah fainger.”

Aforementioned husband checking in here.

See, the thing is, I’m an antisocial bastard. Nobody who knows me believes this, because for some reason I give off this Richie Cunningham/Tom Hanks/Andy Griffith “nice-guy” vibe. Among other things, it gives older women an uncontrollable urge to call me “sweetie” (along with other endearments) and to cause any female remotely my age to automatically assume I’m her big brother. The problem is, I actively try to give off a Clint Eastwood/Lee Marvin/Bruce Lee “cool tough guy” vibe, but I’m obviously doing something wrong, because all that does is make people think I’m constipated. (“Sugar, you ought to try the fig preserves. A nice boy like you shouldn’t have to suffer.”)

Anyway, this occasionally causes problems for me in restaurants, because any waitress with a beehive hairdo automatically wants to introduce me to her daughter, while any waitress too young to have a beehive wants to tell me about the tough guy who broke her heart. (“I feel like I can talk to you – I can tell you’re not like that at all.” Damn.) All I want to do is read my book and eat in peace.

But this was different. This waitress was obviously breaking the established pattern of behavior. Maybe she was wearing granny panties, and that made her feel old. I dunno. But it was amazingly intrusive (and, I thought, rather rude) to constantly refer to me as “sweetie” and “baby” and “darling” while my wife was sitting there. We literally couldn’t finish sentences of our conversation without her interrupting.

I thought it was obvious that my wife and I were there as a couple, rather than two business associates. We were doing all the couple things you normally see in restaurants – sometimes holding hands, having intimate conversations (leaned in close to each other across the table), etc. I suppose if I’d wanted to make it more blatantly obvious I could have fondled my wife’s breast or something, but I shouldn’t have to do that, I don’t think. (Not that I mind, you understand.)

There was a waiter who took our order and periodically checked on us, as well, and he wasn’t nearly as intrusive or familiar.

The waitress just took the whole smarminess thing to an entirely new level, and was obviously fake about it. I don’t know why she thought we’d want a dessert – after her act, anything remotely sweet would’ve sent us into a diabetic coma.

Okay, now I don’t think you were overreacting. If she punctuated every sentence with a term of endearment like that, I would have been annoyed, too.

I work in an office full of Good Old Boys (we do business with car dealerships and they’re all NASCAR fans), but they are all very nice guys (except when they can’t do the simplest things for themselves:rolleyes: ), and they all have a habit of saying things like “Ava, babe, can you do this?”, but since I’ve worked here for awhile, I don’t mind. I usually call them funny names, as well - so we’ve all earned the privilege - I know they aren’t doing it because it’s meant to be condescending. However, there’s one guy who quit the same week I started, I do NOT know him at all except for maybe five phone calls, and he ends every phone call with “Thanks, babe”, but it’s the tone he uses that bothers me - and the fact that I don’t even KNOW him. The other guys didn’t start using these nicknames until we got to know each other better. I might call a friend ‘sweetie’ (a couple of my good girl friends, but that’s proof of the comfort level in our friendship) and I call my boyfriend ‘baby’ or ‘babe’, but that’s completely different from calling a complete stranger ‘babe’.

You are not overreacting. She overstepped her bounds.

Ava

Leaving the shameless flirting aside for the moment, the tip from me would be getting smaller and smaller every time she came over and bugged me or my husband. After that conversation about dessert, Aries, I would be biting my tongue to keep from telling her “No, I don’t want any damned dessert - how many times do I need to say it!?!”

Regarding the shameless flirting, I think Jim and I might have been amused by it - but not by you being all but ignored though. That’s just rude.

I hate that as well. It usually goes like this:

Waitress/Convienience store clerk/whoever: “You doin’ all right, sugar?”

Me: (real smartass) “I sure am, baby.”

That seems to take care of things.

I was going to say, I stop that shit right away by replying for him “No thanks, honey pumpkin lover. Are we that close that I may call you that, sugar dumpling pudding pie?” What is wrong with people?