It has come to my attention that far too many people are leaving their retainers, aligners, false teeth and any number of dental items carelessly wrapped in napkins on restaurant tables causing them to be tossed into the garbage by unsuspecting servers. Inevitably, these forgetful customers eventually realize what happened and they call the restaurant to ask their server to dig through bags and bags of wet garbage to retrieve the precious and valuable item that they had absolutely no concern for earlier. Suddenly it’s the most important thing on the planet and they think it’s easy for the server to just “go look” for it, like there’s one teeny, tiny garbage can that’s full of clean napkins and rainbows.
People, pay attention to your own shit. Servers do not have time to be digging through the garbage because you were too busy taking Instagram photos of your Lobster Claw Bloody Mary to notice that your $5000 Invisalign got picked up with that half-eaten Cheddar Bay Biscuit. If you are one of the hundreds of customers who have done this and actually had a server find it for you, I hope you repaid the favor by digging deep into your pockets and tipping huge amounts of cash. And I’m not talking 20%. That’s the percentage we expect when we do a good job of serving you. If we crawl through the garbage looking for some dentures reenacting that scene in Star Wars where Princess Leia, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are flailing through garbage moments before being compacted, we need much, much more than 20%. And servers don’t have C-3PO or R2-D2 to help them out, so you might want to consider a 100% tip. Yeah, it might seem like a lot, but it’s way cheaper than going to your orthodontist and paying them for another set of retainers. And if you’re leaving your false teeth at the restaurant, how is that even possible? Don’t you need your teeth to eat or did Applebee’s add a creamed corn and applesauce entree to their menu?
If you’re one of those servers who has done this for a customer, you are a good soul and truly wonderful person.
I, on the other hand…
demoncat_4
we had a simalar thing happen at work a kid left his retainer on his lunch tray and me and my coworkers had to dig through the trash and manage to find the thing and the kid was grateful and learned to be more careful with his stuff for otherwise he would not be so lucky next time.
Mereloo
I did this once in middle school, and they let me search through the garbage for it with my mom. As awful as that was, I’m glad I was able to get it back. Damn, ADHD.
Jennie
Yeah, if I did something like that with my retainer, I would fully expect the restaurant staff to allow ME to search the garbage for my own damn stuff.
Sandie
We had a customer come in frantic when his teenage boy left his Invisalign retainer wrapped in a napkin.
He had us dig through several cans of trash and god knows what to find it.
Well after 45 min and crap from our elbows to knees we found the damn thing. He was forever thankful and gave us money for the nasty stuff we had to go through to find it but gross. Never again!
Linda
Waitstaff did not have to do the digging. However, we were allowed to invite the customer to do it themselves. I saw it happen a couple of times. And you can be damn sure that person never forgot again! ?