I am working on Christmas Eve and we have posted a sign on our door stating that we will be closing at 9:00 this evening which is two hour earlier than normal. At about 7:45, one of my regulars comes in and whisks by me in order to seat herself at the one remaining four-top. As I begin to remove the extra place settings, she tells me that her husband will be joining her shorty but she will have a glass of Chardonnay while she waits for him. I have served this couple many times in my almost five years at the restaurant. They have always been friendly and I thought we all liked each other. She sucked down the glass of wine like she was Hoover on steroids and her husband shows up about ten minutes later. They are a middle-aged couple, probably not that much older than me. She always sits up straight and erect like she has a long stick up her ass that is tethered to her spine with twisty ties and her head is hot glued onto the end of it. In contrast, the husband’s head is so droopy it appears that his chin is permanently attached to his right nipple making it very difficult to hear what he is saying. He really pops his plosives so when he asks for Pinto Grigio, I am the victim of projectile spittle. They order their food and a second glass of wine for her and all is fine and dandy.
Eventually, ol’ Droopy Head wants another glass of wine which I quickly get for him. At about 8:25, he wants to know my name saying that after all these years we should know one another. We exchange pleasantries and he shakes my hand as he tells me his name which, thankfully, has no P’s, T’s or B’s in it. They finish their food, their plates are cleared and they sip their wine and chat. By 8:50, they are the only ones in the restaurant except for the five of us who are working on Christmas Eve. I approach the table.
“Do you folks want dessert tonight or anything else?” I ask.
Stick Ass stares into her glass which has about a half inch of wine left in it and Droopy Head tells me they don’t want anything else.
“Oh, okay. I just wanted to make sure since we are closing early tonight and I wanted to let the kitchen know.”
“Oh, we’re done. You can bring the check,” he tells me.
I do so. They pay. They keep talking. At 9:15 I go back to the table.
“I’m gonna go ahead and clear everything from your table if that’s alright,” I say. I notice that Stick Ass still has a swallow of wine in her glass, so I remove everything except their two wine glasses and their two water glasses.
“So what are you going to do this evening?” the man asks. Although he is looking at his nipple, I assume he is talking to me since we all know his nipple will be doing what it does every Thursday night which is praying to the mammary gland gods for an escape from the constant barrage of saliva.
“I have a Christmas Eve dinner waiting for me as soon as I get off work, oh in about five minutes or so. I’ll be leaving right behind you.”
I retreat to the bar where I lean up against it having already done all my sidework. The candles are out, the trash is emptied, the kitchen crew is scrubbing and Mr. and Mrs. Getting On My Fucking Nerves keep talking.
When my manager turns off the music and the lights in front of the restaurant, this is my cue to again go to the table. It is now 9:30. When I get there, the woman turns her head towards me so quickly that for a second I think someone reached into her ass and twisted the stick for her.
“Can I help you?” she says curtly.
“Well, we have been closed for thirty minutes and I was just wondering-”
“Are you kicking us out?” she wants to know. “I would like to finish my drink!”
This is the same quarter inch of wine that has been in her glass for over half an hour now.
“No, I’m not kicking you out, but it is Christmas Eve and we’ve been closed for a while and I was hoping-”
“You have been staring at us all night and I just want to finish my drink. You have been harassing us to go and I don’t appreciate it,” she says, her voice getting louder with each syllable.
In no way have I harassed them and the only reason I may have been staring at them was because they are the only ones in the whole restaurant.
“Harassing you? How have I been harassing you? All I’m saying is we have been closed for thirty minutes and I would like to be home on Christmas Eve. That is not harassing you.”
Now her husband is involved begging his wife to be quiet and apologizing to me which tells me this dried up twat behaves like this on a regular basis.
“I don’t like your attitude and I think I’m going to tell the manager,” she continues.
“You don’t have to tell the manager,” I counter. “I will tell the manager.”
As her husband is telling her to be quiet, I go right to the manager and tell him, in a voice loud enough for her to hear, “Tom, the lady at Table 15 thinks I’m harassing her just because I let them know that we closed thirty minutes ago. I wasn’t rude to her, but she seems to think that I have been all night. I want you to know the truth before she tells you her version of what happened.” I glare back at the couple and the woman is still staring into her wine glass.
“You can go home, don’t worry about it,” he tells me. “They obviously don’t have anywhere else to go tonight. Merry Christmas.”
I do just that. I clock out and I am to my apartment three blocks away four minutes later. My dog needs a quick walk, so I grab him and drag him back up toward the restaurant hoping to see Mr. and Mrs. Grinch Who Stole Christmas Eve walking home so I can show her the real definition of harassment now that I am not on the clock and on a public street instead. They are already gone, which is probably for the best.
They will be back. After all, they are regulars. When they come in again I will know that they are not as friendly as I once thought they were. My years of serving them led me to believe that we had more of a relationship than customer and waiter, but I was wrong. They don’t care about me. And now I don’t care about them. And if he spits on me one more time, I will pull the stick out of his wife’s ass and prop his head up with it so he can spray something else other than my face and his right nipple.
Bill
Everyone has a story. They obviously had nowhere else to be… On Christmas eve. No family? No friends? Nothing but a familiar waiter who, after serving them many times over the years, simply wanted them gone.
Chesney
Bill, as BW told you the night that he served you, the restaurant had closed and it was time to go. Show some respect the next time you go out to eat.
Jan
Yes Bill. Because the sign on the door could not give them the hint that the place was closing early. Because servers have no life outside of the restaurant. Because servers live to just be a “companion” when you have no where else to be. I am sorry but that was inconsiderate of those customers to keep a place open and keep employees there because they themselves might have no place else to go for Christmas Eve. It’s called respect and nobody seems to have it anymore. It is a world of self-centered people and this just proves it.
Hillary
Yes let’s all feel sorry for the couple who has no friends or family and somehow expects a server to be that for them on a holiday. Because that’s sane. So as restaurant workers when someone is lonely on a holiday it is also our job to keep them company after our restaurant has closed? Should we just call our spouses and kids and let them know Santa may not be coming since the couple who never even bothered to learn my name is feeling a little sad tonight and on top of already having to work a half hour past closing time I’m obligated (as their server) to let them stay all night while I roast them chestnuts and give them all the Christmas cheer and memories their poor little hearts never had. Ridiculous! There certainly is a time to be caring and nice for people who seem to need it but keeping a server on a night like Christmas Eve is rude! No matter what your situation is. Maybe if they were THAT lonely and neesed company they couldn’t have chose an establishment with later hours to better serve their needs.
Alex
You go bro, i totally imagined the stick twisting reaction. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Austin
I hate people – especially the people that act so fucking nice to your face but are just full of ****. In my serving experience (in a state full of ****y people) the nicest people always seem to tip me the worse. But I’ll get total ******s who bother me/constantly need me/can’t help but be rude to me and at the end of the night I’ll still get 20% from them. All in all you can never truly judge a person as a server based on how they act, their attitude, ethnicity, etc… and when you think you know them is when they really like to surprise you!
Ps. Awesome manager for having your back. I have a manager like that too. Good managers that have your back are hard to come by. 🙂