I served tables for nine years and I have served some stupid people. Really stupid.
I take they guy’s order. He wants fries. As I’m working my way around the table (perhaps eight people) he pipes up, annoyed, “Hey, are my fries ready yet?” Have I even left the table yet, moron? How could the kitchen possibly know what you want as of yet? Moron.
Guy 1: “I’ll have a cheeseburger with no lettuce, with a side of fries”
Me: “Great.”
Guy 2: “I’ll have exactly the same.”
Me: “So, a cheeseburger with no lettuce, with a side of fries?”
Guy 2: “No, I’ll have lettuce. And not fries. Onions rings. And hold the pickles.”
This happens CONSTANTLY.
Me: “What can I bring you to drink?”
Lady: “I’ll have a…” searching for words (For some reason this would happen all the time with this particular drink and I learned to anticipate it.)
Me: “Fruit Cooler?”
Lady:"…No, it’s got fizzy water and…"
Me: “Fruit? A Fruit Cooler?”
Lady: “Well, it’s got fruit in it, but it’s blended… with… what is that called again?..”
Me: “Soda Water. You’re looking for a Fruit Cooler?”
Lady: “I had it last time I was here. It was really good. Oh, it was soda water and fruit puree. Fruit something.”
Me: “A Fruit Cooler?”
Lady: “That’s it! A Fruit Cooler!”
Me: “Right away ma’am.”
Lady orders a shrimp pizza with extra, extra shrimp.
Lady: That doesn’t look like extra shrimp to me!
In actuality, the pizza is literally tiled wall to wall with shrimp. There is literally not a single space where one could place one extra shrimp. If there was a contest where you would win $1,000,000 if you could place one more piece of shrimp on the pizza without it overlapping another or hanging over the edge, you would lose.
“Is this dish any good?” Points to menu item
I specifically look to see which item they are pointing at: “Yes, it’s fairly popular and almost everyone thinks it’s delicious.”
Customer eyes me with genuine suspicion: “You’re just saying that. You’re paid to say that.”
Well what the fuck did you ask me for, then?
Guy: “I had the hot wings here last time and they weren’t very hot. I want wings as hot as you can make them. You can’t make them hot enough. What’s the hottest sauce you got?”
Me: “Well, I don’t think you want them as hot as we can make them. We stock a habanero concentrate puree that is so hot that our cooks wear gloves and safety glasses when they work with it (they do). You don’t want that.”
Guy: “That sounds great! I want that!”
Me: “You won’t be able to eat it, sir.”
Guy: “Sure I will. Bring me that, that’s what I want.”
Ten minutes later he has his atomic oblivion wings: “What the hell is that!” Genuinely alarmed and pointing at plate of hot wings with one bite out of one wing “I can’t eat that! That’s ridiculous! That’s not food!”
What. The. Fuck. Did. I. Just. Say. To. You. You. Insufferable. Douche.
Lady: “I’ll have the Chef’s Salad and my daughter will have a grilled cheese sandwich with pickles.”
Me: “I’m sorry ma’am, but we don’t have grilled cheese sandwiches. Can I show you the kid’s menu?”
Lady, astonished: “You don’t have grilled cheese sandwiches???”
Me: “No ma’am, I’m sorry.”
Lady: “Well, waaah?.. do you have bread?”
Me “Well, we have Italian rosemary-oregano pan bread which is freshly made every morning, but we don’t have sliced white bread which you’d expect in a grilled cheese sandwich.”
Lady: “You don’t have white bread?” She is totally amazed at this
Me: “Well, no ma’am. Everything we serve is freshly made on a daily basis and the chefs only prepare items that are used in dishes on the menu. We have nothing on our menu that calls for sliced white bread.”
Lady: “Well can’t you just make some?”
Me: “Some bread? I’m sorry, but no. The baker leaves at two in the afternoon and even if we was here it would take too long to prepare.”
Lady: “Well can’t you send someone to get bread?”
Me: “I’m sorry, but we are extremely busy and there is just no way we could spare anyone to drive to a supermarket and back.” Like we are going to staff a guy who waits at the back door, bouncing on his heels, “Any calls yet, boss? Huh? Huh?” “Sorry Jimmy, none yet” …“Oh.”… Looks at floor, kicks toe, chokes back a tear. Poor kid, he just wants that shiny new bike so bad, ya know?
Lady, looking at me like I just punched her poodle in the ribs: “Well what about that other bread?”
Me: “The Italian pan bread? It’s not really suited for grilled cheese sandwiches as we know them. Your daughter surely will not like it. We do have chicken fingers for kids or maybe a cheese pizza?”
Lady: “No, no. We’ll try that grilled Italian cheese whatamacalit-thing.”
Me: “Are you sure? She probably won’t like it.”
Lady: “She’ll like it.”
So I put in her order and two minutes after they receive their meals: “She doesn’t like it.”
*
Yea. I know.*
THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME
Lady: “Do you have nachos?”
Me: “I’m sorry, we don’t”
Lady: “Do you have nacho chips?”
Me: “Yes.”
Lady: “Do you have cheddar cheese?”
Me: “Yes.”
Lady: “Do you have tomatoes?”
Me: “Yes.”
Lady: “Do you have black olives?”
Me: “Yes.”
Lady, now finding it difficult to contain the smugness rising within her: “Do you have jalapenos?”
Me: “Yes.”
Lady, with the death blow: “Then you have nachos.”
Me: “Ma’am, while we do have the constituent ingredients for nachos the problem is that said ingredients are not actually located together in the same place in our big, crazy, territorial kitchen in front of the same person and while that may seem inconsequential to the uninitiated it does, in fact, matter as our kitchen moves at warp factor nine and is a well-oiled machine manned by people who have very specific roles and enter a furious, almost trance-like state when performing them and love to bite the heads off idiotic wait staff who insist on just “making shit up” for the chefs to prepare despite the presence of a beautifully thought out menu. Further, as it happens with nachos, once one plate of nachos is paraded through the restaurant on its way to its recipient, newly arrived guests see this colorful mountain of food and insist, absolutely insist, that they get to order off-menu too as those people got to and they’re no better than us and so what ends up happening is that you get this exponential event not unlike a nuclear mass going critical or a room full of mousetraps exploding off one another with the mere toss of a single ping pong ball with the final result being a kaleidoscopic blooming of colorful mounds across the dining room, an effect that is the exact opposite the intent of the chef who is pretty sure he is a genius and that is exactly why he didn’t put nachos on his menu. So, no, we don’t have nachos.”
Guy: “This isn’t clam chowder. You should call it c**t chowder.”
Me: “…Oh? Why’s that?”
Guy: “Because I c**t find any clams in here.”
charming
Guy: “Is this money any good?” Hands me a five dollar bill.
Curiously, I examine it for defects. No tears, marks, misprinted areas, etc.
Me, handing it back, perplexed: “Looks good to me :)”
Guy: “Oh. OK. I was just wondering if it was OK. That was the money they gave me at the airport. I’m visiting from America.” (We are in Canada)
*ohhhhhh. Ok. I get it now.
And it doesn’t end there sir! We got our own holidays too! We got our own laws, as well! We gots us a seperate military and governyament-thingy too! It’s real neato! We gots hydro-electric power! We got some of them there nucular reactors too! Doctors and nurses too! Boy-o-boy is it fun!!
Not a dig specifically at Americans, honest, but come on man, you’re visiting a foreign country. What the hell did you expect?*
Lady: "Can I have some peanut sauce please?’
Me: I’m sorry, but we don’t have peanut sauce."
Lady: “Yes, you do. I had it last week.”
Husband: “Sweetheart, that wasn’t here, that was at XYZ Restaurant.”
Lady: “No, that was here. I remember.”
Me: “No, I don’t think so. We’ve never (N E V E R) had peanut sauce.”
Lady, very snide now: “How long have you worked here?”
Me: “I’ve been here for three years ma’am.”
For Christ’s sake lady, I’m a professional. I do this every day all day long. I do this for a living. This is what I do. What do you do? Oh, you’re a dental assistant? Are you using the right pick? Are you sure? Is that the right fluoride treatment? Are you sure 'cause I don’t think it is. Hey, those dental dams are 3E-V6’s. Those are supposed to be 4E-V6’s, are they not? And how much voltage did you apply during that X-ray? Just curious.
Lady: “Well, I had peanut sauce here last week. You should have some peanut sauce around here somewhere. Run in the back and check. Ask that guy over there, I think he was my waiter last week.”
Husband: “Honey, THAT WASN’T HERE. That was at the other place. That wasn’t here.”
Lady: “Yes it was.”
Husband: “No it wasn’t.”
Lady: Yes it was!"
Husband: “No.”
Lady: “Yes.”
Husband: “No.”
Lady: “…It wasn’t?”
Husband: : “No.”
Lady: “No?”
Husband: “No.”
Me: “No.”
Lady: “Oh.”
THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. YOU KNOW PEOPLE WHO DO THIS.
Guy: “Why do I have two bills?”
Me: “Because, sir, if I were to place all of your gin and tonics on the same seat on the same bill it would crash the computer.” True
Guy: “What?”
Me: “Yes.”
Guy: “How many did I have?”
Me: “26” True
Guy: “What???”
Me: “Yes.”
Guy: “WOW!!:)”
Me: “Yes.”
He was fine. It took him about eight hours and he wasn’t driving and he was with a sober friend.
Lady: “Are there any peanuts in this dish?”
Me: “No.”
Lady: “Are there any peanuts in this restaurant?”
Me: “Yes there are, they’re used as a garnish for the Hunan Kung Pow.”
Lady: “Oh. OK. Well, I’m deathly allergic to peanuts. Deathly allergic. If I eat a peanut or if any peanut oil touches any of my food I will die. If my food is prepared by someone who has touched peanuts I will die. Can you guarantee me that that won’t happen?”
Me: “Uh, well…wow…You know, I don’t think I can, actually.”
Lady: “What?”
Me: “Well, I’d love to say I could, and I’m pretty sure I could arrange for the chef to take extreme care to wash his hands and to avoid peanuts or even looking at peanuts, but when you put it in the terms that you did, I don’t think terms like “pretty sure” are good enough, right? And I won’t be able to stand there the whole time and watch the chef while he prepares your meal. And there is no backlog as to which food has touched which food or surfaces, etc… to the point that I am confident in being responsible for your life. I mean you have sauce pans splattering away, airborne droplets, Something touched something which touched something which touched peanuts. To be safe, we’d have to shut down and steam-clean the entire kitchen.”
And that is the honest jist of deathly allergies and restaurants. Do people with allergies have a right to dine out? Of course. Are they placing themselves in grave danger, despite what anyone working in the restaurant tells them? Yep. For them to dine out is like someone deathly allergic to carrots placing a blindfold over their eyes and running around the produce section in the grocery store smashing into and bouncing off of tables of fruits and vegetables, screaming, “Oh God! I hope I don’t hit any carrots! I don’t want to hit any carrots!!”
Believe me, people are at least as stupid about their vehicles as they are computers. I’m an office-puke, so I never had to deal with the idiots directly, but I’ve heard some real doozies.