"Did you ever...?" (Restaurants)

By: Melech Mood: don't know Date: 08/09/2008 07:20:57 Music: None

Did you ever…?

by Melech

Did you ever wonder why some people
decide to work as waiters or waitresses? 
I do almost every time I go into a restaurant.  The vast majority of waiters and waitresses I have encountered
have been exceptionally good at their job and have truly excellent
personalities.  There are, however,
those few who make you wonder why they bothered getting out of bed that
day.  They always appear to be angry, impatient
and in a hurry to go home, even when their shift just started twenty minutes
ago.

The last time I went to a
restaurant for dinner, the waitress asked if I was ready to order. I hadn’t
even sat down yet.  When I asked her if
I could please have a menu, she rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh of impatience
that could have filled a dirigible.

Twenty minutes later, she brought a
menu and didn’t reappear for another half-hour to take my order.  I asked for a steak, very well done.  When she brought the steak, it was swimming
in a pool of blood, and I was almost sure I detected a heartbeat.  The steak wasn’t pink inside; it was
red.  I told the waitress I couldn’t eat
that.  “What’s the matter with it?” she
snapped.  “Well,” I replied, “I made a
promise to myself that I would never bite into anything I had to apologise to.”

The fourth time she brought the
steak back from the kitchen it was still rare, so I just asked for the check.

“Do you want this wrapped up to
take with you?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “Just call the
paramedics. Maybe with CPR it could still live.”

As I was leaving the restaurant, I
noticed several buzzards circling around. 
I guess they knew the steak wasn’t going to survive.

Just then, I saw my friend Bing
going into the same restaurant.  I told
him about my experience there and warned him against it but he wouldn’t take my
advice.  The last I heard of Bing, he
was in the witness protection program and living somewhere in the Middle East
under an assumed name.  A week later,
that waitress won the local “Miss Congeniality Contest” and was now considering
a career in public relations.

As a last resort, and because I was
still hungry, I decided to order from a fast food drive-up.  I was shouting my order into the speaker
when my sister and her husband drove up next to me and asked why I was trying
to order food at a pharmacy drive-up window. 
I pretended I didn’t hear them and I drove away.

When I got home, I put two hot dogs
in the broiler and burnt them to honour the memory of the steak that didn’t
survive.  I looked in the refrigerator
to see if there was anything else to eat, but nothing appealed to me.  I guess it’s because I had also promised
myself that I wouldn’t eat any food that appeared in the colours blue or green,
or moved when you touched it.

The box of cereal in the cabinet
had an expiration date of four years ago, and I was afraid to open the
refrigerator again because the milk looked angry.

Maybe I should take my sister’s
advice and learn how to cook.

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“Did you ever…?” is a weekly newspaper
column by Melech

©Copyright2008 by Melech.  All rights reserved

The next column will be posted on August 16, 2008

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