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Written by Grouchy Joe
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Now what the heck is going on with restaurants these days!?!
It was my lady-friend Marge's birthday last Thursday so we went out for
a nice big steak dinner. I couldn't believe how bad the service was!
We
were seated by some young girl wearing far too much makeup and far too
little clothing. Then this skinny guy came to our table wearing a tie
and a little apron, and he started talking about wine and features and
sauces, and he just kept rambling. He should have just
asked me what I wanted and then told me about that. Why in tarnation
would I want to hear about food that I'm not even going to eat!?!
I got tired of him jibber-jabbering about cream sauces and asked: "Hey
skinny, how much for the biggest steak that you've got, with a
lobster?" He just stood there for a moment looking up in the air and
then replied: "That would be around thirty-five dollars."
"Thirty-five dollars!?!" I said. "That's it Marge, we're going to
McDonalds!" The guy just stared at me blankly--like I was talking
Chinese or something. Thirty-five bucks is a heluva lot of money.
At that point Marge started getting upset. She looked around at all the
other restaurant customers--who were now staring at us like it was
their business or something.
Our waiter tried to cover his ass by pointing out some other steaks on
the menu. Marge told him that we were going to need a couple of
minutes. But she did ask for a glass of red wine for herself and
ordered a pint of beer for me. I think she must have had some big
pension checks coming in or something. Or maybe she cashed in a bond!
Just to be cheeky I added: "How much are your pints, thirty-five dollars!?!"
It turned out that the pints were four dollars each, so I had four of
them. We wound up having a couple of the smaller steaks and to be
honest, they were pretty darn good. The skinny guy came by to see how
everything was and I said that it was all great.
After dinner "Skinny" came by again and dropped off a check for eighty
dollars! Marge casually laid down four twenties and I threw in an extra
dollar for him.
He took our money away--with the check--but then brought it back with
my dollar on it! Didn't he want my dollar? I guess he felt bad for
trying to rip me off with that whole thirty-five dollar steak and
lobster thing. So, I took my dollar back.
When I was standing by the front door waiting while Marge was using the
little girls' room, Skinny walked up to me with my bill and asked me:
"How was everything?"
This guy's little apron must have been on too tight because he didn't
remember that he already asked me that! "What are you, an idjit? You
asked me that when I was eating my steak and I said that it was great!
You kids need to listen more!"
He just stood there and gave me that blank look again. Just then, Marge
came back from doing her business, and I just shook my head and we left.
You're darned sure we'll never go back there again.
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