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I’m Welcome

We went out to dinner the other night, and I ordered roasted chicken with steamed vegetables, and to start, a wedge salad (wedge of iceberg, with crumbled bleu cheese, bacon, and tomatoes) with the dressing on the side. The waiter repeated back the fact the dressing was supposed to be on the side. He also named the wrong type of dressing. I told him the correct type and reiterated “on the side”. He named the correct type and parroted back “on the side”.

I freely admit it. I am high maintenance. At a really amazing restaurant with an excellent chef, I will eat whatever the hell they want to serve me, but at a marginal restaurant with marginal food I need to make some adjustments so that it becomes tolerable. Dressing on the side is one of those adjustments. I am picky about dressing and I think most of them are, at the very least, not worth the calories and the sodium that I would far rather wolf down in some other fashion, and a good many of them are downright disgusting.

Most interesting salads (like those with real bacon on them, which is a great way to consume calories and sodium) have enough stuff going on that they taste good without any dressing. Boring salads are fine with pepper and some lemon on them. Some places have good dressing and then I pour it on.

The kid ordered a kids meal, which comes with a drink, but the menu did not specify what the drink options were. She asked the waiter if she could get a hot tea with her kids meal. I wouldn’t have been shocked if he had said no, but at the same time the hot tea is the same price as the sodas which I know they offer, and cheaper than the lemonade which I also know they offer with the kid’s meal. He said that would be fine.

We waited and waited. Our salads arrived. Mine had dressing on it. It was drowning in the stuff. We told the waiter that I had ordered it with the dressing on the side. He stood there looking at me blankly. I repeated myself and he looked at the salad. I explained that I don’t like very much dressing, so I get it on the side so that I can control the amount. He kept staring at me. We had to detail out that I wanted a new salad, with the dressing on the side. He agreed and wandered off.

Thirty seconds later our dinners arrived. By our, I mean not the kid’s, because surely we wouldn’t all want to be served at the same time. Also, we of course don’t want our salads to arrive early enough to actually consume them prior to our meal arriving.

I sat and waited for my salad. It arrived, with the dressing on the side. It was a much smaller wedge than before, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that it was missing the bleu cheese crumbles. I didn’t ask for no bleu cheese crumbles. Those help to make it taste good. I requested that they bring me the cheese. I tasted the dressing. It was some of the most disgusting dressing I have sampled in quite a while. I pushed it far aside so it couldn’t infect my salad through osmosis.

The kid’s food finally arrived.

The bleu cheese crumbles showed up and I ate my salad, and then my meal.

When the bill came, they have charged us for her hot tea. I point out to the waiter that the drink was to be included with her meal. He looks at me blankly and then asks “Do you want a drink now?”

“Umm, no, she had the tea with her meal, but you charged for it.”

“Oh, the tea.”

“Yes, she asked if she could get that with her kids meal…”

“Do you want me to take it off the bill?”

“That would be great. Thank you very much.”

Cheerfully, “You’re welcome!”

I smiled.

Kicking Ass and Taking Names
Turn Around Bright Eyes

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