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I've been meaning to share this, and since I don't think I'm going to sleep after getting woken up by a smoke alarm, now seemed like a great time to write it out. (Smoke detector most likely malfunctioned, according to the firefighters after a thorough search. Pretty good jolt of adrenaline that's going to take a while to wear off, though.)
Okay, so the story of how our favorite server either thwarted a dine-and-dash, or was totally rude to the most unusual customer ever. Near our house is a cheap local diner. As The Husband and I are both employed and in school, we eat there often enough that the staff has gotten incredibly comfortable being, um, quite honest around us. Which is how I came to hear all of this story. Since the server was busy with another table, we grabbed drinks and menus and seated ourselves at our usual table, and noticed that the person sitting at the next table was slightly... I don't know, he just set off my "uh oh" sense for some reason. Maybe it was the pelvic thrusts in my general direction as soon as I sat down at our table. At least, I think that's what he was doing, since I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he'd gotten my attention.
When he asked about the dessert menu, they were magically out of dessert, which was really a big clue to me that I wasn't the only one who felt uncomfortable; something had been going wrong for a while. This happened the evening of food delivery day. No way should they be out of anything, and Server never misses an opportunity to suggest dessert to her customers. Creepy dude was asking weird questions, too, like how business is going and I think he asked about what time the dinner rush usually comes, so he could be sure to avoid it in the future... questions that even made me wonder if we were about to see some kind of robbery, and I'm not really one to pick up on signals like that. So he just fidgeted for a while longer, so much that the whole table was scooting this way and that, and this was about when we walked in. So maybe the possible pelvic-thrusts I saw, were just some extreme form of ants-in-pants restlessness. But anyway, he finally asked if he should pay the bill at the table or at the register. Usually you take your bill to the counter by the door, but our server told him she'd take his payment right at the table, and then she proceeded to stand by our table and make small talk with us, while watching Creepy rummage through his wallet for several minutes. It's a good thing she knows us pretty well, because we'd have run out of things to talk about otherwise. And then...
Creepy: Ah, man, I left my blue card in the truck!
Server: That's okay, just leave your lic--
Creepy: Oh, here it is! *flips wallet over with the smooth fluidity of a professional dancer and fishes his debit card out of the slot on the back*
(Of course, she was going to ask him to leave his driver's license as collateral before he went to get the missing debit card, of course, but she only got that first part out before he cut her off. It was almost like he expected her to say it!
)
After he left, Server brought her coffee over to our table for her break, and told us Creepy had left his truck idling right by the door to come in and look at the menu, before he parked and sat down to actually eat. So she first thought she was about to get robbed. But instead, he asked to be seated, which really just didn't do squat for her worries. Server showed me where, on her order pad, she'd jotted down his plate number and description, while she pretended to step into the parking lot for a quick smoke while he was looking at the menu.
Then she said that when she served his food, he ate in a huge hurry, looking around like a dog afraid of getting caught eating off the table. He fidgeted and kept acting like he was expecting something bad to happen, asking bizarre questions and picking at his fries and salad for upwards of 90 minutes before we walked in. Server, having worked at this diner 20+ years, had a good idea that he really didn't have any intention of paying, but just from watching him for 10 minutes, even I could figure out the guy was probably looking to make a run for it. Too bad he picked a diner that doesn't get a dinner rush -- he was one of no more than two tables, in the entire restaurant.
Okay, so the story of how our favorite server either thwarted a dine-and-dash, or was totally rude to the most unusual customer ever. Near our house is a cheap local diner. As The Husband and I are both employed and in school, we eat there often enough that the staff has gotten incredibly comfortable being, um, quite honest around us. Which is how I came to hear all of this story. Since the server was busy with another table, we grabbed drinks and menus and seated ourselves at our usual table, and noticed that the person sitting at the next table was slightly... I don't know, he just set off my "uh oh" sense for some reason. Maybe it was the pelvic thrusts in my general direction as soon as I sat down at our table. At least, I think that's what he was doing, since I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he'd gotten my attention.
When he asked about the dessert menu, they were magically out of dessert, which was really a big clue to me that I wasn't the only one who felt uncomfortable; something had been going wrong for a while. This happened the evening of food delivery day. No way should they be out of anything, and Server never misses an opportunity to suggest dessert to her customers. Creepy dude was asking weird questions, too, like how business is going and I think he asked about what time the dinner rush usually comes, so he could be sure to avoid it in the future... questions that even made me wonder if we were about to see some kind of robbery, and I'm not really one to pick up on signals like that. So he just fidgeted for a while longer, so much that the whole table was scooting this way and that, and this was about when we walked in. So maybe the possible pelvic-thrusts I saw, were just some extreme form of ants-in-pants restlessness. But anyway, he finally asked if he should pay the bill at the table or at the register. Usually you take your bill to the counter by the door, but our server told him she'd take his payment right at the table, and then she proceeded to stand by our table and make small talk with us, while watching Creepy rummage through his wallet for several minutes. It's a good thing she knows us pretty well, because we'd have run out of things to talk about otherwise. And then...
Creepy: Ah, man, I left my blue card in the truck!
Server: That's okay, just leave your lic--
Creepy: Oh, here it is! *flips wallet over with the smooth fluidity of a professional dancer and fishes his debit card out of the slot on the back*
(Of course, she was going to ask him to leave his driver's license as collateral before he went to get the missing debit card, of course, but she only got that first part out before he cut her off. It was almost like he expected her to say it!
)After he left, Server brought her coffee over to our table for her break, and told us Creepy had left his truck idling right by the door to come in and look at the menu, before he parked and sat down to actually eat. So she first thought she was about to get robbed. But instead, he asked to be seated, which really just didn't do squat for her worries. Server showed me where, on her order pad, she'd jotted down his plate number and description, while she pretended to step into the parking lot for a quick smoke while he was looking at the menu.
Then she said that when she served his food, he ate in a huge hurry, looking around like a dog afraid of getting caught eating off the table. He fidgeted and kept acting like he was expecting something bad to happen, asking bizarre questions and picking at his fries and salad for upwards of 90 minutes before we walked in. Server, having worked at this diner 20+ years, had a good idea that he really didn't have any intention of paying, but just from watching him for 10 minutes, even I could figure out the guy was probably looking to make a run for it. Too bad he picked a diner that doesn't get a dinner rush -- he was one of no more than two tables, in the entire restaurant.
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