Billy Is Saving This Seat

Ok, so when I go out to eat, there are certain things I expect. One, is probably something bacon related in my meal. That's just who I am. We all know this. Second is decent service. I developed a new appreciation for people in any sort of food industry after working in a pizza place and then a supermarket for a combined 5 years, and I understand that customers are very picky and annoying people that want things just right. They are perfectionists and expect things to be handled perfectly for them in any situation. As us REALISTS understand, sometimes, things change. Bastards.

My rant today though, is about waiters and waitresses working in restaurants. I can appreciate not wanting to come off as a douche that doesn't really care about our food and our drinks orders and whether or not we get what we're looking for. You want to come off as a nice guy. That's great. Good for you. Has anyone ever had a run-in with the overly friendly waiter? That might be the worst one of all.

So, I'm out to eat, and the waiter comes by and asks if we want to get drinks. We order drinks. The waiter compliments all the drink orders. "Oh, Blue Moon, that's a great choice." "Can't go wrong with that." "Awesome. You'll love it."

He comes back with the drinks, and we start to order food, and we discover that one of our favorite appetizers is off the menu now when he says: "I'm sorry, we discontinued that." We were bummed, and started scrambling through the menu for backups. As we did, the waiter looked around, saw an empty seat, pulled it over, and sat down next to us. He put his elbows on the table and is like, "So...what can we get you instead?"

Hey, you can get the hell away from me buddy. Here's this guy, who works at an Applebees, who thinks that his best chance at a good tip is to pretend he is one of our friends. Just one of the guys. Just kicking back and relaxing. I dunno if he thought it looked natural or if it looked inviting, but it mostly looked creepy. Like it was a guy who didn't have many friends, and started working at restaurants to meet people who were ok with his particular brand of crazy. Pass, you psycho.

Bacon was good though.