Sunday, December 30, 2012

Fun At Restaurants


Fun at Restaurants

I’m the kind of guy who likes talking to people at restaurants, particularly the staff. I enjoy kidding around with them and love it when they have a sense of humor.  Unfortunately my wife, son and daughter-in-law do not share this view and are pained when I do this (almost every time).

Occasionally I will do things in jest that others take seriously.

The other day, I had hired two men to do some physical labor for our office.  When they finished, I offered to take them for pizza since it was lunchtime.  One of the guys said his wife was coming to get him and could she come along.  I agreed since I was ordering a large pie and that would give 2 slices to everyone.

The wife arrived with her sister and immediately declared that she had just come from the doctor and a dietician and was not allowed to have carbohydrates, but her sister would join us.  She and her sister sat in the next table since pizza would violate her non-carbohydrate rule.

After a minute or two she asked, "since she was not eating would I mind if she had a beer."

After doing a double take, I asked her laughingly, “Let me get this straight, you can’t have pizza because it is a carbohydrate, but a beer is ok?”

“Well,” she answered, I really need that beer.”

About half way through the meal I turned to her and said, “You know, you didn’t have to give up the pizza. Didn’t the dietician tell you calories don’t count between 2 and 5PM?”

“Really?” she replied, “I didn’t know that, why didn’t that damn dietician tell me?”

“I don’t know, perhaps she is not up on the latest research,” I said.

Her sister then asked, “what if it’s 8 o’clock?”

“No, no, that would be after 5,” I answered.

“Oh, Right,” she said.

I returned to my pizza.  After a minute or two, I turned back to them and said, “You know about the weekends don’t you?”

They stared at me.

“Calories don’t count on weekends either,” I stated.

After 30 seconds the sister looked at me and said, “You were kidding about the calories, weren’t you?”

Realizing I had gone a little too far, I answered, “Well, only about the weekend,” and went back to eating.

I found this quite amusing.

There are a few other times that I think rival this, the following is another one.

Barbara and I were in a pancake house with another couple.  At the end of the meal the waitress came over and asked if there would be anything else.

“Yes,” I said, “you can give the check to that table over there,” pointing to a random couple at another table.

Now when I say this to other wait staff, they usually ask if I know the other people, or look at me askance, or laugh.   That was not the case here.

“Ok,” she said and left.

My wife, lacking my sense of humor started glaring at me.  Our friends looked on confused.

The waitress presented the check to the other table.

I watched amused as the guy tried to figure out how his bill was so high since it was just the two of them.

Barbara called over the waitress and insisted I tell her to get the check back. 

The waitress had assumed (you know what they say about people who assume) immediately ran over and grabbed the check away from the couple.  I offered to pay both checks to appease Barbara, but the guy at the other table had a sense of humor about the whole thing and laughed with me and the other couple with us.  Barbara of course, much to my amazement, was not amused.  The waitress was somewhat flummoxed about the whole thing.

The last incident I will mention (I seem to have a lot of anecdotes but will only mention one other) actually was unintentional on my part (no, really).

Barbara and I, along with our kids, my parents and friends of my parents who I had known since childhood were eating at a Chinese Restaurant near my home.  It was of course a Sunday (see Jewish eating traditions).

It was the couple’s anniversary.

I slipped away from the table and went to pay the bill in order to secretly treat them for their anniversary.

Not wanting them to know I had done that, I asked the owner of the restaurant to tell them that it was the restaurant’s policy to treat everyone at the table when a couple were celebrating an anniversary.  She agreed.

When it came time to leave the owner came over and announced that the bill was on the house because of their “Anniversary Policy”.

Unfortunately, she did this in a rather loud voice, so that other people around us could hear her.

Now this restaurant is near a very large retirement community, and since it was Sunday night, it was filled with these same retiree’s (see above reference to Jewish Eating habits).

As we got up to leave, I could hear several of them saying:

“I didn’t know they did that.”
“Wait till I tell the girls at the pool.”
“ I’m going to make sure I come here with my friends when it’s my anniversary,” and other words to that effect.

I could only imagine the chaos that would ensue in the coming months when hundreds of retirees tried to collect on the “Anniversary Policy” they had just heard about

I felt it best to exit the restaurant quickly.

We didn’t return to that restaurant for some time, for obvious reasons.