So we went out to dinner tonight, Zyada and me, her mother, and her brother and his wife. Zyada had started feeling queasy, headed to the bathroom, and didn’t make it. She almost made it to the wash-bucket by the kitchen entrance, but not quite. I got up to help her, SIL flagged down the manager, and about the time he appeared, this selfish arrogant bitch butts in to say (this is an accurate quote, I swear) “I think all our meals should be free, because she threw up.” Zyada’s stomach was still twitching (as was the rest of her), the manager had had time to say about two words to us, and the bitch figures her free meal is too important to at least back off a minute and let the manager find out if Zyada was OK. It’s a good thing there was a puddle in the way or I might have smacked her a good one, and I just don’t do that sort of thing. Zyada and I both had a word or two for her, but the manager intervened gracefully and we settled down.
If I was the manager, I would have told the bitch “OK, it’s free. Now get out. NOW!” and called several waiters/busboys to start clearing the table. NOW!
There. I feel better now. (And Zyada is OK, and feeling much better, thanks.)
The SRB should be ashamed of herself for her bad manners. But I do have sympathy for the patrons whose meals were ruined by having your SIL vomit in front of them. Not that that excuses the SBP’s crappy timing, but come on. Having someone vomit in front of you is disgusting, so let’s not minimize their suffering, either.
A few weeks ago, I got horribly seasick on a night manta ray snorkel trip off Big Island. It was on a zodiak (inflatable Jacques Cousteau kinds of things) so luckily I was able to just lean over the side and hurl at will, but I felt horrible for the other patrons whose trip was being affected by my condition. Even if the depths of my wretchedness, I could still muster up enough empathy for my fellow snorkelers to apologize to them, repeatedly. And had we been somewhere like a restaurant, I’d have definitely offered to buy them a round of drinks or something. Because, you know, I’m not completely self-centered.
P.S. I still snorkeled with the manta rays and it was still amazing, even though I hopped back into the boat in time to be sick yet again.
I was assuming it was the SIL who bitched out the manager rather than showing concern for Zyada. That being said, even if it was a bystander, making it to the kitchen entrance is way different than heaving all over the carpet in the middle of the dining room, so I wouldn’t even think some random person should get a free meal unless they’d also gotten the crappiest seat in the house by being seated that close to the kitchen - therefore making the event a really prominent part of their evening.
Why should anyone be compensated? Well, unless the throwing up was a result of food poisoning - then **Zyada **should be the one to get the free meal.
Why is it the restaurant’s fault that a patron got sick? Should they be screening their customers for potential illness? Should they have puke buckets stationed at more convenient spots so that any throwing up can be done more discreetly? Where does the idea come from that if you suffer any sort of discomfort in a place of business, your product should be free? If the restaurant showed negligence or was otherwise at fault, I could see it, but it’s ridiculous to try to get a free meal out of this.
The “bitch” was a stranger to rjk’s party. The demand for the freebie was a “butt in” to SIL’s emergency conference with the manager.
The issue is this other woman’s greed and rudeness, most of all in making this case while the crisis was still in progress, and somebody else was clearly suffering a lot more. We might wonder just how much she could really be “suffering” if the matter of the bill even occurs to her so quickly in this context.
I happen to feel that restaurants are responsible at a certain level for the whole experience, and that in some cases it is appropriate for them to attempt to make amends even for things that aren’t strictly their fault. But short of truly egregious faults in the food or staff, refusing to pay or demanding a freebie is not appropriate for patrons–it is up to the restaurant to attempt to make recompense for your complaint, or for obvious flaws in that evening’s experience. The patron’s place is to decide afterward how they feel about the totality.
Eh. I wouldn’t demand a free meal if this happened at a restaurant I was dining at (I never do that), but I don’t think the person was out of line for vocalizing their disgust. Immediately demanding a free meal? Yeah, that’s silly, especially when the manager is trying to check a sick person. But vocalizing your disgust? It is pretty gross to have someone hurl in the vicinity of your dinner plate, which you’re paying for.
And while one can’t control barfing sometimes (I realize it just overcomes you and happens every so often), but if your wife had been feeling ill for a while, she probably should have been a little more proactive on heading to the bathroom earlier. If I’m feeling barfy at home, I’ll chance it, but if I’m in public, at the first twinge of “IMMA BARF,” I go sit by the toilet.
So, I suppose the short of it is: butt-inner lady was rude to block the manager, but her indignation was at least moderately understandable.
When I got food poisoning it took a day or two to hit. I don’t know if a person throwing up immediately can be attributed to food poisoning. If the meat was bad ,then you could point it out to the waiter. A bad smell can make you suffer a"reversal of fortune". But the food would document the problem.
Of course, and everybody knows that, so there’s no point to saying it.
The appropriate response by other restaurant patrons is, first, to sit still and let the sufferer, her party, the manager, and restaurant staff do what they need to do. Then, if one feels disinclined to continue the meal, inform one’s own table staff of the intent to depart.
I expect many restaurants would offer some recompense at this point without the need for anyone to say what everybody knows.
If you read my post, I acknowledged that she was crass for having spoke up so soon. However, there is more than one issue here because even though the SEB was crass, she DID, indeed, have a valid complaint.
Maybe we should install a spark240 filter so that we know whether what we say passes your relevance test. :rolleyes:
