February 8th

So, things have been pretty uneventful around here. Jon has been gone pretty much solid for the past two weeks, with the exception of a couple of days. We take advantage of the nights he’s home by going out to dinner. Any excuse to go out and we’re all over it. We’re trying to be better about it, because it’s so expensive..but if he’s been gone for a while, we’ll definitely go out the night after he gets home. Last weekend it was Red Robin, because I had a craving for an injection of cholesterol, so I chose a Royal Red Robin Burger instead. And a chocolate malt. Come on, this cheeseburger has a fried egg on it, it doesn’t get any better than that, really. I bet Corinne just said "ew" out loud.

Anyway, the girl that showed us to our booth was the slowest walker in history. Seriously, she goes “right this way”, and I almost ran her over because I started walking, and she was just scuffing along, looking this way and that. To the point where it was completely ridiculous. The second after she handed us our menus and walked away, we both looked at each other and laughed. We always have weird service. At Texas Roadhouse a few months ago, our waitress was one of those really annoying YOU WILL ENJOY YOURSELF types that is overly friendly, overly loud, has an overly high-pitched voice, and in general, totally fake. She took our orders, then squatted (I HATE it when they squat!) down near the table, lowered her voice a bit, and said “okay guys, this is what I’m going to do for ya. I’m going to take this order, give it to the chef…then as SOON as it’s done, I’ll go get it… bring it to you…(pause)…..how does that sound?” I guess we must have nodded or something, because she left, and then Jon turns to me and says “I really wouldn’t expect any less.” Stuff like that happens to us all the time. We once left a fifty cent tip at Boston Pizza in Fort McMurray, because I swear our waitress was on drugs. We’re really good tippers, too, most of the time. It takes a lot to make us go under 20%, and usually it’s upwards 30%. But this girl was absurd. She would seriously stop in mid-sentence to stare at the floor for 20 seconds at a time.

Leaving a ridiculously small tip is way more offensive than leaving none at all, I’ve decided. If you don’t leave any tip, the server might think you just forgot. Jon and I each have our own criteria on deciding if it was superior service. His whole thing is his drink – he will refuse to ask for a drink refill. If his water glass is empty within 2 minutes of sitting down, it will remain that way the entire meal unless the server notices and does something about it. Which seems simple enough, but you’d be amazed how many meals he suffers through, expectantly wondering if he’s finally going to become hydrated each and every time the waitress walks past. And MY biggest pet peeve is when the server asks me how my food is when I have JUST stuffed a huge bite into my mouth. What? Do you expect to me answer that? You really couldn’t have walked past and come back at a more convenient time? Really?

I’ve got another thing I was going to add to this post, which will seem random given the context of the rest, but I didn’t sit down to write only about restaurant service, I promise. My friend at work, Jesus, has a sense of humor about the fact that his name is.…very Christ-like. He’s been known to send out emails signed “Jesus (not your Savior, just Haysus)”. The other day he made me almost pee my pants laughing. He sent out the following picture to several people in the office.


And the subject of the email was “Jessie, please have people call my cell phone if I am not in the office”. (I’m the receptionist. Get it? I almost died from laughing so hard). I hit ‘reply all’ and responded “I sure will… those people need you more now than ever.” Thank goodness I have fun at work!