First Annoying Table of 2014

humph!

Well, it didn’t take long for me to serve my first annoying table of the new year. On January 2nd at 6:41 PM, one of our regulars walks in and seeing that I am the only one on the floor and my relief doesn’t punch in for nineteen more minutes, they are all mine. They are an older couple who are very impatient, very particular and very messy. They have no need to say hello or wait for me to seat them and they breeze past me and choose a table on their own. I say “breeze” as if there is some type of expediency involved but the reality is they move as slowly as a snail that crawled over a line of salt two days ago and is slowly dissolving and leaving bits and pieces of itself on the floor as it tries to move forward.

“What are the specials?” the man bellows out before he even takes off his coat. I begin explaining what we have as they situate themselves, removing coats and scarves. As soon as I have finished sputtering out the endless list of specials, the woman looks at me and says, “What?” This is the same woman who last year came out of the restroom and told me, “In case you were wondering, I just dropped a bunch of paper towels into the toilet.”  Thanks, but I wasn’t wondering. In fact, I was doing the exact opposite of wondering what you were doing in the restroom which is to say I don’t want to know what you were doing in the restroom. I describe the specials again taking great care to enunciate each syllable for her aged ears that are no doubt filled with wax, moth balls and the music of the Andrews Sisters.

“As an entree, we have four lamb chops that are pounded flat and crusted with bread crumbs and parmesan and then fried. They are served with roasted cauliflower and grilled asparagus and it costs $21.”

“Well, that sounds disgusting,” she says.

“So can I assume you will be having something other than the lamb chops then?”

“Yes,” she barks at me. “I want the salmon, but I don’t want that couscous that comes with it, so leave it off. Give me spinach instead but with no oil, no butter and no salt.”

Her husband orders the New York shell steak.

“And how would you like that cooked, sir?” I ask.

“I like it hard on the top and soft on the bottom.”

Not sure if he is describing his sexual preferences or the steak, I ask him if medium-well is good.

“Medium-rare!” yells his wife who, with her hair-do and flat ass, actually looks hard on the top and soft on the bottom. “And bring bread!”

Two minutes later, I return to their table with a basket of bread and two bread plates. They brush the plates away saying they don’t need them and from previously serving them I know this to be true; they don’t need plates, they need bibs. Never have I seen people eat bread with such fury. It’s like they are angry with the bread and the bread’s punishment is to be stuffed into a mouth of dentures that have never been cleaned. Crumbs fly everywhere as the bread tries to escape its fate. The table and floor are covered in bread and they talk with their mouth full causing me to dart and duck as pellets of bread shoot from their mouths like little yeasty bullets. When their food is ready, I rush it out to them, for the sooner they eat, the sooner I can hose down their table. As the salmon with no salt is placed before the woman, she says, “Salt.”

“No ma’am, there is no salt on it. I made sure to tell the kitchen you didn’t want any.”

“Bring me salt.”

Yeah, okay, that makes sense. They eat without any problems. The husband once holds his empty water glass out to me which I take to mean, “May I please have some more water?” A few minutes later the wife holds the salt shaker out to me.

“Are you done with that?” I ask.

“I dropped it on the floor.”

“Would you like another one then?”

“No, I just wanted you to know that I dropped it.”

Yeah, okay, that makes sense. I take it from her hand and do what I do with all salt shakers that accidentally fall on the floor which is to put it on the shelf with all the other salt shakers that have not fallen on the floor. I am happy they don’t want any dessert because the special of the day is bread pudding and I have already dodged enough pieces of bread for one night. They ask for their check and I pull it from apron.

They leave me a 10% tip, but written on the credit card receipt are the words “see glass.” Perhaps the other 10% of my tip is in cash, but there is nothing under the glass. There is nothing unusual about the glass on the table: no chips, no cracks and no lipstick smear. It is incredibly greasy and there is a bit of bread floating in the water that thought death by drowning was better than going into her mouth, but other than that it looks like a normal glass. I still don’t know what she wanted me to look at the glass for.

They are gone and I am $5 richer and I have also had my first annoying table of the new year.