Campers

Friday night I was actually pretty excited about my section. Four tables in the first diningroom. Two four tops and two deuces. It wasn’t the best section to have, but since our new management team has been overscheduling the floor the last couple months, leaving only three tables (sometimes two) for each server, it was definitely a step up. Plus it was Friday night and we were sure to be on a wait for the next few hours, so there was going to be plenty of business.

Turn and burn, baby!

Two of my tables were still sat when I got there, but as soon as those guests were finished eating, I rushed to clear the tables and get them ready and let the money-making begin.

And then the hostess spoiled my fun.

I turned around and noticed she was bringing one of our regulars to my table. It was one of the Coleman Sisters, so nicknamed by the staff because they like to camp. No, not the pitch-a-tent-light-up-the-portable-gas-grill kind of camp. The we’re-going-to-sit-at-this-table-for-the-next-four-hours-maybe-five-at-least-until-after-you-close-and-you-and-the-rest-of-the-staff-are-just-waiting-for-us-to-leave-so-you-can-go-home kind of camp.

I knew I had just gone from a four to a three table section. On the very first round of seating.

Fuuuuuck!

Two of the Sisters had yet to arrive, but I greeted the first and took her drink order. I smiled and told her I’d be right back with her lemonade, then went into the server aisle where I slammed down my tray and let out a string of expletives not fit to print even on the porn-riddled interwebs.

“Coleman Sisters?” Another server asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “Fuck!”

They come in every Friday, usually at the very beginning of the dinner rush, and they stay well after they have finished eating, apparently oblivious to the line of people waiting at the hostess stand or to the fact that all the tables around them have been seated and fed and cleaned and seated and fed and cleaned and . . . you get the idea. And once the rush is over and cuts have been made, they still sit. And once the restaurant is otherwise empty, they still sit. And once the restaurant has closed and every member of the staff save their server, the cashier and the manager has left, they still sit.

Every single Friday for the past year.

I was the very first server unlucky enough to have them sat in my section and I’ve waited on them several times since. They’re pleasant enough. Bus drivers for a local school district, I believe. And they usually tip well. Just not well enough to make up for the fact that I’ve lost out on three or four turns of the table they’ve decided to stake out for their very own.

Last Friday, though, they took the annoying factor to a new level. As I said, only one of them was sat at first while she waited for the rest of the party to arrive. I brought her drink and then went about getting orders for two more of my tables that had been sat. After entering those orders and bringing drinks, I found that the other Sisters had arrived, so I got their drink orders and asked if they were ready to order food. They were not. Not yet. Maybe a few minutes.

I dropped off their drinks and picked up the last of my two-tops that had been seated. Then I checked on them again. A few more minutes, maybe. By now, food was up for my first two tables, so I ran that, brought out extra napkins and any last minute requests then checked back on the Sisters.

Still not ready.

Twenty-five minutes since the first Sister had arrived.

I told them to just let me know when they were ready and they continued talking. I brought out the food for my last table, cleared some empty plates from the other tables, and brought a round a refills. A thank you from the Sisters, but still no order. I offered dessert to my other tables and dropped the checks. Still not ready to order. My other guests took their last sips of soda and put on their coats. Still nothing. I picked up my tips and re-set the table tops after the bussers cleared everything away. Forty-five minutes in, and there was still no order from the Coleman Sisters.

The last of my first round asked for a to-go box and started gathering their things. I was about to have three empty tables and we were still on an hour wait, which meant I was about to be triple-sat, which meant that, because the fates are unkind to me this way, the Coleman Sisters were finally ready to order.

And order they did. The special, please, with a house salad, oh and could I substitute this and could you add extra that and could you bring some bread ahead of the meal but after the salad and could we have some honey and some jelly and some apple butter and some molasses oh and extra butter and a refill and maybe some water too.

By the time they finished giving me their list of demands, my other tables were full of guests. Hungry, agitated guests who had just been standing in the lobby for an hour and were none too happy about having to wait another five minutes to get a server over here.

So on the second round of seating, I was already in the weeds. I greeted all three of the other tables, got a drink order from the first, and rushed to the back to gather up the bounty for the Sisters. I had to ask a manager to pick up the drink orders for my other tables so they wouldn’t feel neglected. Then I dropped off the salads only to find out that even though they had ordered house salads, they really wanted tossed. They just got confused. Because, you know, they’ve only been to our restaurant like fifty or sixty times.

May I say once again,

Fuuuuck!

For the next thirty minutes or more, I just rushed from table to table, feeling a couple of steps behind the entire time, and definitely feeling it in the subpar tips I earned that round.

Fortunately, I’d been able to stagger their ordering enough that everybody didn’t finish eating at once and the worst that happened the rest of the night was that I was double-sat. I kept the refills coming to the Sisters through three more seatings of each of my other tables. I cleared away their empty plates, brought them more bread, offered them dessert, and switched them to coffee throughout the night. Eventually the wait ended and guests just trickled in here or there until finally no one else was coming in and only my table of campers was left.

A few minutes before close I dropped off their checks. The first few months we were open, they would wait to pay until they were ready to leave, which meant that the cashier had to hang around and wait to count down her drawer until they left. Another server kindly let them know how they were holding up the cashier and they’ve since started paying right around closing time. But then they come right back and take their rightful place at the table, where they stay. And stay. And stay some more.

At a quarter to twelve they finally dispersed. At midnight, I finally got to walk out the front door and start my trek home, my pockets full with the fifteen dollars they tipped me for five solid hours of service.

Keep on ringing

I have decided that I will no longer answer the take-out phone at the restaurant. I hate the to-go phone. Every server does. This is why it rings and rings and rings and no one ever seems to pick up. We all have tables on the floor, tables we hope will be paying us to provide them with good service. We are busy trying to provide said service, and stopping what we’re doing to answer the phone and then explain the menu and take the order from some voice on the other end just takes time none of us has.

Of course, management is very adamant that the phone should ring no more than three times before one us picks it up. It is, after all, a sale waiting to be made. So they rant and rave and remind us constantly that the phone needs to be answered, and since it’s part of our job and I have that stupid work-ethic thing going on, I answer it more often than not, even when I don’t have the time.

But no more. Last Sunday, as I walked into the vestibule to put an order into the micro, the phone rang and since no one else was standing still long enough for me to hand it off to them, I took the call. What’s your special today, the guy wanted to know. Well, what sides do you have? Well, what can I get that’s like the meatloaf? What kind of soup? And on and on with the questions. Figure out what the hell you want before you make the fucking call. We have a menu on line. And if you're calling us to place an order, I assume you're at the very least familiar with out menu. I spent at least ten minutes on the phone with this guy, ten minutes I could have been using to wow my guests by refilling their drinks before they even asked. And as soon as I hung up, the phone started ringing again.

Because I’m stupid, I answered it again. Another pain in the ass order – all kinds of substitutions and sauces on the side.

By the time I was done on the phone, my orders were up in the window and I had to start running them out to my guests who by this time had empty glasses and had mentally deducted five percent from my tip. By the time I finished running the first round of trays and refilling everyone’s drinks, I realized I’d forgotten to ring in an order.

Fuuuuuck!

That’s why I was coming into the vestibule to begin with.

Moments later, I realized I’d forgotten to bring out a salad too. And the woman was pissed and let the manager know when he ran out the tray for me since I was in the back cajoling the grill line (bribing them with promises of pot) into rushing out my forgotten ticket.

Fortunately, the rushed order came out moments after the order for the table beside them (who ordered at the same time), so they never knew the difference. But I knew. And I couldn’t seem to recover myself for the rest of the night. I was just off all day, one step behind where I needed to be. And by the end of the shift, it was all I could do to finish my sidework and get the hell out. I even shorted them on a few silverware roll-ups in the end because I just didn’t care.

So from now on, the to-go phone can just keep on ringing. I’m pretty sure I can’t hear at that frequency. You know, hearing loss brought on by all those years I spent working on jets.

More than your fair share

When my son was small, I used to get a lot of phone calls from his school teachers. He talked too much in class. He talked when they were supposed to be silent reading. He talked when standing in line. He talked while other students were talking. He talked while the teacher was talking. And even though the things he talked about were generally on-topic and sometimes very funny, he was disrupting the learning process for the other students. “I have only so much time for each lesson and for each student,” some young teacher would say to me. “And he’s a wonderful boy. He’s just using up more than his fair share.”

Obviously, the boy needed more attention and another outlet (and probably a little more challenging work to do). We addressed those problems. He’s slightly less disruptive now.

I was thinking about this the other night. At the restaurant. When I had four tables of guests to tend to, and one of those tables was using up more than their fair share of my time and causing the other tables to get less attention than they deserved. I wanted to tell them what I told my son:

“The teacher (server) is in the classroom (restaurant) to teach you new things (take your order) and help you when you don’t understand (bring you refills and Tabasco sauce that you forgot to ask for). The problem is that you are not the only student (guest) in the classroom (my section). There are, in fact, other students (customers) who want the same thing you do. Sadly, your teacher (server) is a mere mortal and is unable to bend the time/space continuum in such a manner as to allow her to spend as much time with each student (dumbass) as some would like. Out of fairness to other students (more patient guests than yourself), it’s important that you allow the others a turn to speak and ask for help. The only other option is for you to get a private tutor (servant) who could tend to your every need, but we both know that is much too expensive. What I’m trying to say here is, you aren’t the most important person in the world, you’re not entitled to more than the next guy, so hold on, shut up and wait your turn.”

Of course I didn’t say that last part to the kid, but I definitely wanted to tell it to my table the other night. Of course I was far too busy running after yet more jelly (oh and could we get some to go boxes even though we’re still stuffing our faces full of food that is falling out because we’re too impatient to even wait to finish chewing before we speak, oh and I’d like to switch to coffee now even though you just brought me a fourth Coke, and when you come back by to ask that other table if they might need anything . . . actually, don’t bother asking that table, I’m sure they’re fine, but when you come back I’m sure we’ll have thought up something else, so hurry!), so I didn’t have time to tell them that I didn’t have time for their nonsense (bullshit).

And in the end, they tipped me $6 on a $79 check. So yeah, they definitely couldn't afford their own private servant.

This is why your server hates you

Friday night my last table just before cuts went up was a four top – an old white dude, his wife, their daughter, and the daughter’s teenage son who wanted nothing but water and biscuits (hooray, please let me refill this glass for you seven times while I run back and forth fetching you free bread and jellies. No, really. Nothing would make me happier). After being informed that junior would not be paying for a meal, I proceeded to take orders for the rest of the table, starting with junior’s mama.

She ordered breakfast, and when I asked her how she would like her eggs cooked, she thought about it for a minute and finally settled on scrambled. I smiled and turned my attention to her mother in the next seat, but before giving me her order, the older woman told her daughter, in a very snotty tone, “Do you want cheese on them? Because if you don’t want cheese on them, you have to tell them, or they’ll just put cheese on your eggs!”

Her daughter looked up at me, non verbally checking the accuracy of her mother’s outburst. I simply shook my head and said, “No.”

Right then and there my tip went down by ten percent.

“Well, they always put cheese on your father’s eggs and he doesn’t want it,” the older woman said to her daughter, as if exposing a global conspiracy between restaurants and the dairy industry.

“We will definitely not put cheese in the eggs,” I said, then, “What can I get for you today?”

She ordered, without looking up from her menu, obviously steaming about oeufs avec cheese, and when she was finished, she pushed her menu toward me, letting it hover in the air in front of her husband’s face. I very slowly finished writing down her order before taking it from her.

When the husband finally ordered his breakfast, I figured out why the old dude is always getting cheese in his scrambled eggs. “I’d like the pancake breakfast with bacon,” he mumbled, “and I’d like the eggs scrambled without cheese.”

So there it is, I thought, the reason dude is always getting what he thinks he didn’t ask for. If my old dude’s wife hadn’t raised such a stink about it, I probably would have served him and charged him for the dreaded cheese in his eggs, just as psychic bitch predicted.

Why? Because guests don’t know how to fucking order and because they don’t speak up. At full capacity, our restaurant seats over 200 people. Add to that the crowd of non-seated, waiting for a table people. And add to that ten to fifteen servers, two hostesses, maybe a couple of busboys, five grill cooks, two managers, two backup cooks, one prep cook, and whoever manages to show up in dish – all engaged in conversation. Add to that the clank of dishes being set on tables, thrown into bus tubs, and dropped on the floor. Add to that the phone ringing and cash registers slamming shut. And add to that three children running and giggling through the restaurant and one screaming baby. Always one screaming baby.

And I, the server, am standing at the end of your table, focusing intently on your every word as you stare into your menu and whisper your order to me as if we’re in hiding and raising your voice too much would let the serial killer outside the door know we’re in here. Even when I ask guests to speak up, using the pretense that I’m just deaf, most only raise their volume a fraction of a decibel.

So when you say to me, in your tiny voice, “Bring me a Coke with no lemon,” all I catch is “Coke” and “lemon.” And because a Coke is not served with lemon, has not ever been served with lemon, and is not listed on the printed menu you are holding in front of your mouth as you try to communicate with me as including a lemon, it can be assumed that the only reason you would mention a lemon is because you want a fucking lemon. Difficult concept to grasp, I know.

I really hate having to write titles for these things . . .

For a while there, I was in a slump at the restaurant. The hostesses seemed to seat me with nothing but two tops of old people and large parties consisting mostly of children. High maintenance but low checks. A lot of two dollar tips. I would get excited every time I saw guests over four feet tall with a full head of non-gray hair being led to one of my tables. Maybe, I would think, maybe they’ll order the ribeye and dessert and the kitchen won’t screw anything up.

All hope for a decent tip would leave, however, as soon as I stepped up to the table and the complaints began – why did they have to wait so long for a table? Why didn’t we have anything other than vegetable soup today? Why is their silverware dirty (spotty)? The answer to all of these questions was apparently that I am a bad server and screwed everything up. At least that’s what they told me through the tip they did not leave.

But I’d had enough. I’d had enough of the ass-kissing and unnecessary apologizing all in order to maybe squeeze out fifteen percent from these ungrateful bastards (Why is it taking them so long to recook that meal you dropped? It isn’t my fault that your server ran into my kid while he was chasing his brother around the dining room!). No more, I thought. No more will I smile politely while guests complain about stupid shit. No more will I answer their stupid questions as if they are perfectly valid. No more will I have to ask each and every guest in a party of seven the exact same thing because none of them are paying attention. No more.

Some examples:

Guest: I need more napkins!
Me: Sorry. One per customer. Perhaps you should have worn long sleeves today.
Result: Laughter and 20% tip. (I brought them more napkins obviously)

Guest: (after I knocked over a glass of water and broke it at the table behind them) Guess you have a case of the dropsies!
Me: Am I gonna have to cut you?
Result: Laughter. Man’s wife pats me on the arm. 23% tip.

Guest: I’d like a peach cobbler for dessert.
Me: I’m sorry, but we’re out.
Guest: That’s ridiculous! I came in here just for that.
Me: I’m very sorry.
Guest: I just can’t believe this. How could you run out?
Me: I’m not sure. I only ate seven of them before I came on shift.
Result: Guest stares at me for a moment, then laughs and calls me ‘cheeky.’ 30% tip and tells the manager I did an awesome job.

Guest: (looking around a full and very busy dining room) Why did it take so long for us to get a table?
Me: (as other servers and bussers fly past me in both directions) The Redskins’ game is on and we were all watching in back. Now can we make this quick? Half time is almost over.
Guest: Yeah, well what’s the score?
Result: 25% tip

Guest: My god! Did they have to kill the cow before cooking my steak?
Me: Yes, actually. We had one tied up out back, but some neighborhood kids keep letting it loose. Don't worry though, we had a couple of dishwashers chase it down. Your steak should be out as soon as we get some clean plates to serve it on.
Result: Everyone else at the table laughs. When I bring the steak, the guest asks what the cow's name was. I tell him "Patience." More laughter. 20% and a verbal tip (I used that to buy smokes on the way home)

For the past two weeks I’ve just been myself – my bitchy, sarcastic self – and it’s changed everything. I’d been holding back before, not saying what was on my mind, not becoming incredulous when someone asked why the food for their party of fifteen wasn’t already on the table when they ordered a whole ten minutes ago, apologizing for things that were beyond my control. I’m still not verbalizing every thought that comes into my head. I try to refrain from using the words ‘bitch’ or ‘alpha male jackass’ when standing at a table. But otherwise, I’ve pretty much let loose.

And I’ve been averaging about twenty-five percent every night. Sometimes more.

Go figure.

N-O. How do you pronounce that again?

One of the bittersweet joys of living so far away from family and being too poor to travel is that I get to spend my holidays alone. Just me and the kid doing whatever we want. No splitting time between my mother’s family and my father’s before rushing the kid over to his own father’s house. No family bickering. No going out of my way to accommodate everyone else’s timelines and putting up with their little eccentricities. Just peace. And quiet. And time for silent reverence.

Ahhh.

So I was getting pretty excited about Thanksgiving. The university gives us Friday off and we only work a half day on Wednesday, so I was looking forward to a four and a half day weekend. Of course, I can’t afford to take the time off from the restaurant, but still, only working one job is a vacation. And since my availability doesn’t include Thursdays (or Saturdays – I have to have one day to do housework and grocery shopping), I’ve been looking forward to the extra full day of rest for months now.

Since we weren’t planning to go to Iowa to see family, and our kitchen is much too small for me to be preparing a big feast, I thought I’d take the kid out to dinner, overtip the poor server who had to work the holiday, then go home and spend the rest of the day playing video games and watching holiday movies while further stuffing ourselves on a few well-chosen snacks.

Exciting? No. Just what I want and need? Completely.

But it was not to be. Several weeks ago, a friend of ours invited us over for a T-Day dinner. I thanked her and said that it sounded nice, but I did not say yes. I also didn’t say no. Then a couple weeks ago, she called to ask if my son could babysit and in the course of our conversation, brought up Thanksgiving dinner. It quickly became clear that by not declining the invitation, I had accepted.

I couldn’t back out at that point, so definite plans were made. This is the same friend who gave me a place to stay this summer while I was apartment hunting, and the same friend who took me to the beach for some much needed rest. And while I don’t feel an obligation to accept her invitation, I also don’t want them to feel that I don’t care enough about them to spend the holiday with them, especially when (as most people might see it) I have nothing better to do.

And they only live ten minutes away. I figured the kid and I could still sleep in a little, get in a movie or some festive zombie-killing on the X-Box, hang out, cook and dine with my friends, and still have a few hours of down time in the evening.

This also was not to be.

The other night at the restaurant, the assistant GM sidled up to me (yes, he really did sidle).

AGM: I’m only asking you this because I have to . . .
Me: You want me to work Thanksgiving.
AGM: (slumping down by leaning on the counter to make himself smaller than me) We could really use you.
Me: You know, I used to like you.
AGM: (batting his pretty blond eyelashes) You can handle the traffic. We need the experience on the floor.
Me: I’m liking you less and less right now.
AGM: You could work morning or evening. It would really help us out.
Me: I don’t like you at all.
AGM: (puts his head on his arm and looks up at me)
Me: (in my head) Fuuuuuuuck!
AGM: The shifts are eight to two or two to ten.
Me: Is the morning busy?
AGM: (stands up straight now that he has what he wants) We’re on a wait by eight-thirty.
Me: You suck. (calling after him as he walks away) I mean that. I really can't stand you!

I need the money. Fucking money.

And I figured it wouldn’t be so bad. I have a few extra hours on Wednesday between leaving the university early and my shift at the restaurant when the kid and I can hang out. I’ll go in to the restaurant and make (I hope) some great money on Thursday and still make it to dinner at my friend’s house, then I’ll have until Friday at five to do whatever I want. Plus my usual Saturday.

So I talked to my friend a little while ago to finalize some plans for me to pick up a bed she is giving me (see, how could I turn down her invitation?). And I told her that I would have to work until mid-afternoon on Thursday, but that the kid and I would be there for dinner. No big deal, she said. She even offered to pick the kid up early so I could come straight to her house from work if I wanted. Oh, and by the way, she had some bad news.

It seems her six year old daughter (adorable) came home from school last night and declared herself a vegetarian. Eating animals is cruel. And because eating animals is cruel, she forbade her parents from cooking up and serving an already dead turkey. And because my friends are very progressive and always support their daughters in whatever their endeavors, we will not be having turkey on Thanksgiving. We will be having no meat of any kind.

Again – Fuck!

So, to recap:

dhf’s original Turkey-Day plans:
-Go out for drinks with work friends after Wednesday night’s shift because I have the next day off.
-Sleep in because I have the day off.
-Watch parades on television with the kid.
-Go out to dinner.
-Come home and eat junk food and play video games with the kid.
-Maybe go to a movie (Beowulf in 3-D at the IMAX!)


dhf’s modified Turkey-Day plans:
-Maybe have one drink after Wednesday night’s shift, depending on how early we get out because I have to be at work by eight in the morning.
-Serve pre- and post-church guests in the a.m. and lucky non-cooking bastards in the early afternoon. Hope they compensate me well for working on a holiday so they don’t have to.
-Head to my friends’ house for a lovely holiday dinner.
-Go to a movie or go home and eat junk food and kill zombies with the kid.

dhf’s final next-Thursday plans:
-Go out for too many drinks regardless of time after Wednesday night’s shift because I have to be at work early in the morning and then have a meatless Thanksgiving dinner, so why does it matter if I’m hung over.
-Drag myself out of bed and head to work where I will run my ass off for ungrateful customers who will probably bring in their kids who have likely been gorging on sweets all morning and will be hopped up on sugar, running around our restaurant with cousins they haven’t seen all year and are sooo excited to be hanging out with. Know that I’ll probably get stiffed thirty percent of the time. Two, maybe three dollars on the rest of the tables.
-Go to my friends’ house and eat vegetables and potato dishes.
-Skip the movie because I’m too hung over from the previous night’s drinking.
-Kill a shit-load of zombies because I am full of much bitterness over not being able to say no to people and spent the day doing something other than what I wanted.

Letters to my 'guests'

To the divorced dad who brought his children in for dinner:

I was standing at another table when the hostess sat you, and as soon as I finished taking their order, I greeted you. I could tell you did not think this was fast enough. I could tell by the way you tapped your polished leather shoes impatiently until I turned around. I also greeted your children who couldn’t be bothered to look up from their notebook drawings – your daughter’s of a home with two children and a mother in front of it, your son’s of a similar house on fire – long enough to acknowledge my presence or that they had been spoken to. I came right back with the tea you ordered for yourself, and nothing for your children because you bought them sodas which they brought into the restaurant. I smiled while I waited for you to decide what to eat, even though I had other tables to greet, even though you told me you were ready and seemed annoyed when I politely suggested I come back in a few moments. I only tell you this because you weren’t looking at me while you barked your order at me. And I wanted you to know. And when you told me to bring you a plate of biscuits, then as an afterthought said, “That comes with it” almost as a question, but not quite, I told you it didn’t, but I would hook you up. I did not do this because you are entitled to bread. I did it to be nice. And when I brought you the bread, and you said “the kids need some waters” – still not looking me in the eye – and put your arms behind your head, making sure to shake your shiny gold watch behind your head as you stretched and your son picked up the orange crayon to add accent to his flames, I did not “accidentally” drop the plate of bread in your lap. This too I did to be nice. And when I brought the children their water, and offered to top off your glass of tea, I understood that you were too busy staring off into nothingness to acknowledge that you had been asked a question, so I refilled it anyway. And when I brought your food out, including an extra plate so your children could split a meal, and they couldn’t be bothered to move their crayons and notebooks to make room for the plates of food and you said nothing, I only laughed and commented on how we needed to make bigger tables. And when you growled at me to “put that down over there!” even though I could not reach “over there” because your son had chosen that moment to lean across the table and throw the orange slice garnish on the ground at my feet, I did not knock him in the head with the plate, and teach him about being aware of his surroundings as I reached over him. Because I’m nice like that. And later, as I rushed down the aisle with another table’s tray of food and you stretched your foot into the aisle, almost tripping me, I did not scuff your expensive shoes. Even though I wanted to. And after you left, and I came back to bus your table, and I saw the untouched water glasses, the outside soda bottles, the pieces of wet pancake on the table and the floor, and the dollar fifty tip you left me on a twenty dollar tab, I wondered why it took your wife so long to leave your sorry ass.


To the older woman who needed to complain about something, to somebody:

You ordered roast beef with no gravy. Even though it is cooked in gravy. So I stood behind the cook while he put your portion of roast onto the grill and cooked the gravy away. I watched while he added the sides to your plate, and the moment he was finished, I brought it to your table. You might imagine my surprise when I stopped back to ask how your meal was, and you complained that it wasn’t very warm. I was almost as shocked as you were when my manager refused to comp your meal and most definitely more shocked than when you and your husband left without tipping me at all.


To the guests who come in with thirteen of your closest friends and complain to management about my service when your food does not arrive within fifteen minutes during a dinner rush on Friday night:

Go to McDonald's. Or a buffet. Or the real world. Your choice.


To the couple with the adorable little girl and the teenage son, both of whom said “please” and “thank you” and wished me a good evening as you left:

I think I love you. Please dine with us every night. Please.