Fine Dining

Whenever I eat at a restaurant, I’m extremely patient with the wait staff. I truly am. I’m more patient than most. (I’m not afraid to sing my own praises in that respect, I’ll have a patience showdown with anyone.) But Saturday night, a waitress pulled a trick on me that went far beyond the bounds of poor service. What she did was in poor taste.

There’s a diner called Omega where we for late night / early morning meals. The first time we ate there our waiter took a liking to us, so now he waits on us whenever we go. (and yes, I agree that its kind of strange that he’s there every time we go) But anyway, Saturday night Omega was slammed, so we had a new waitress.

I’m man enough to admit that I made the first mistake. Instead of ordering my usual (fried eggs, sausage, bacon, hash-browns, and white toast), for some godforsaken reason I ordered a Philly Cheese-steak. That was stupid. I knew it was stupid before I ordered, I knew it was stupid when I ordered, and I certainly know how stupid it is now. When it comes to eating at a 24-hour diner, I have one rule of thumb:

--– When eating at a 24-hour diner, ALWAYS ORDER BREAKFAST.

Ordering a meal at a 24-hour diner is like rolling a six-sided die. But when you order breakfast, it's like being guaranteed a 5 without having to roll. It's hard to mess up breakfast. (The Philly Cheese-steak ended up being one of the worst I’ve ever had. And I’ve had more than my fair share.) Always order breakfast. Always, always, order breakfast. If you don’t like breakfast,,,, start liking breakfast.

So I ordered the Philly Cheese-steak, and the waitress immediately asked, “And what kind of soup would you like with that?”

She said my three options were Broccoli & Cream, Lentil, and Gumbo. Don’t get me wrong, those soups may be delicious at other establishments, but not at this diner. The gumbo looks like they slice up some sausage and onions, boil them, let the water cool down to room temperature, and then pour it into a bowl and call it soup. And Omega is the type of place where if you complained about the soup, the waiter would likely pass you the salt shaker and say, “Take this, and keep sprinkling it into your soup until it tastes better.”

If that response frustrated you, and you called a manager over, the first thing he'd say would be, "Did your waiter not offer you the salt?!?! I'm so sorry about that, here, just sprinkle this into your soup and it'll taste much better."

I struggled with the decision of which soup to order, I even told the waitress that I don’t care much for soup in general. I finally settled on the broccoli and cream (mostly because it sounded so much like broccoli and cheddar.) They ran out of the Broccoli & Cream, so I ended up getting the Lentil. I finished ~ one fifth of my soup. It wasn’t good enough to take stand-alone sips, so whatever I had came from dipping my breadstick. The waitress even commented, “you didn’t like the soup?” to which I told her again that I wasn’t much of a soup guy. (I thought about saying to her, “Maam, if I was allergic to every single type of food on this planet except for that lentil soup, the next time you’d see me would be on TV wearing a spacesuit, about to board the first manned shuttle to ever go to Mars,, and they’d spotlight me because I was the one who successfully lobbied for the mission.”)

(Sidenote: I also came up with an idea while eating the soup. Why not have bread, or breadsticks, that come in the shape of bite sized soup spoons?) (I know its stupid, but so are a lot of things.)

Anyway, when the bill came, I took a second look at it because it was more than usual. The big difference of course was the Philly Cheese-steak, but I noticed another line item; $2.50 for the soup.

I felt violated. Why would the waitress play me for a fool like that?

She didn’t ask, “Would you like any soup with your meal?”

She asked, “What kind of soup would you like with your meal?”

She was fully aware that when she used the “What kind of soup would you like?” wording, it insinuated that the soup came free with the meal. Everyone knows that. The problem is that some people make the mistake of actually trusting her. People like me don’t ask the standard follow up question, “Does the soup come with my meal?” Because we don’t want to embarrass her by asking her a question that so clearly demonstrates our lack of trust in her.

I wanted to say to her, “How do you sleep at night? I’m sure that every night when you get tired… you change your clothes, turn off the lights, climb into bed, get under the covers, and close your eyes,,, but do you actually sleep? Or do you just lay there in bed, wide awake, unable to shake the guilt of knowing that the only people upon whom you are able to successfully prey, are also only ones who have given you their trust?”

I guess some people are just fucking ruthless.