Food Follies

As a food service industry professional, I sometimes find it difficult to retain my tableside manner. Back in 1986, when I first strapped on my apron at Mickey’s Diner, I took the Oath of Hypocrisy: Never, ever, under any circumstances let those you serve know what you think of them.

I’m good at what I do because of this rule, and also because I tend to like most people, even when they are crabby and need French fries with a side of red bell mayo and Stoli lemonades to calm their colic. It makes me feel good to have a snarling, capri-panted, kitten-heeled Eaganite click-clock to a table, fully loaded with the day’s frustrations and ready to blow—only to see her sheath her claws and start purring when I deliver a hot basket of bread. Likewise for the fifty-five-year-old Grumpy Gus who needs a blooming onion and a Michelob Golden Light—stat! Hey, man, have at it. It’s your breath, and it’s your funeral.

A perk of working in the food service industry is the feast of conversation that I overhear each night. True, most of it is fragmented sound bites unburdened by context. I think of these snippets as appetizers in relation to the smorgasbord of banter that I share with my esteemed colleagues in culinary service. And lately, each shift has been looking and sounding uncannily like a feature-length version of that classic joke: “A man walks into a bar … .”

Colleen: “Hi, everybody! Tonight’s special is a pork chop smothered in salsa verde, and our soup is chilled pineapple mango.”

Customer #1 to Customer #2: “I’ve had that soup before. It’s weird. It tastes like flavored lube.”

Completely crudité—but consider that Customer Two ignored this explicit warning and still ordered the soup.

Overheard while filling glasses with ice water:

Woman: “Why did you order me the Caesar salad?”

Man: “You always get the Caesar salad.”

Woman: “Typical.”

Man: “What do you mean? Is it typical for you to order what you always order? Or is it typical for me to assume that you want to order what you always order?”

Woman: “I’m getting really sick of your thinly veiled hostility towards me.”

Man: “What are you talking about?”

Woman: “Oh, sure. Now I’m the one who is crazy.”

Maybe they both are. Only Edward Albee knows for sure. But I still like to guess while replenishing ketchup containers at the end of the night.

Sometimes I wonder if people say things to me only because I’m on the clock, and my time isn’t my own, and I don’t charge psychotherapy rates.

Colleen: “So, you wanted a starter of the spicy green beans?”

Customer: “As long as the beans aren’t too spicy. I like things ‘Minnesota spicy,’ you know? It’s bad if I have things that are too spicy.”

Colleen: “Well, maybe it’s better to be on the safe side. You also expressed an interest in the cream cheese wontons … ”

Customer: “No, I want the green beans, as long as they aren’t too spicy. Uh, well, maybe I better get the wontons, I don’t know. They sound good, but fatty. I’d rather have too spicy than fatty. But then the last time I had too spicy it went right through me. I practically crapped out a Chinese dragon.”

Colleen (wishing desperately for a mental defragmenter that would erase the image from her mind): “Sooooo, you’d like the wontons?”

Customer: “What the hell, give me the beans.”

I’ve been in the business long enough to realize that I can’t save people from themselves. The best I can do is distract them. So much of what I do during the day is about keeping your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut. And yet the writing part is all about gathering information and experience and letting it roll around upstairs and repeating it to amuse you, the reader. Forthwith, here are my top ten favorite overheard items in the last three months.

“I can’t eat meringue. It makes my gums itch.”

“Oh my God. I can’t believe this place doesn’t have Diet 7UP. Every place has Diet 7UP. They are probably losing business.”

“Ick. Look at that girl over there. She’s dressed like a hooker.” Five minutes later: “Quit looking at that girl over there.”

“If you’re out of the sauvignon blanc, I’ll have a Godiva chocolatini.”

“That guy was too gay for me. C’mon. He irons his T-shirts.”

“Here’s my card. I would like to start a tab at this table. But just for me, nobody else.”

“Can you throw this diaper away for me?”

“Do you have any low-carb bread?”

“We have a birthday at this table. When the cake is brought out, she’ll try to run. Don’t let her.”

“Are mussels supposed to look like that?”