[date of original writing, unknown]
Worst Dining Experience Ever
So, I’m at the airport on Wednesday, February 20, 2008, about an hour before my flight leaves, and I decide to grab a bit in the concourse at JFK. I am hankering for Nachos, so I go to the one restaurant I feel will carry them. As I walk around the restaurant, I am getting no help. Finally I walk over to the bar and ask “Hi, can I be seated?’ I’m told to seat myself, and do so, but nor before scouring the restaurant’s layout to make sure I don’t sit somewhere where I will go unnoticed or forgotten. I SIT IN A PLACE BY TWO OTHER FOLKS, BOTH OF WHOM ARE STILL BEING SERVED, AND WE are in what appears to be the ending of the area wherein the most traffic is happening. I think it’s a good spot, but I don’t get any service, I continue to wait, and I watch as the waiter and waitresses stand at the bar and talk. Then a man comes over to me, and I order a water and Pico de gallo Nachos. I am then informed that said Pico De Gallo is gone, but I can put Chili or chicken on them. Now, I had assumed that what he meant was, “Because the pico de gallo is gone, you can feel free to upgrade to chicken or chili INSTEAD at no extra cost.” Unfortuntaely for me, I am an idiot, and that was not the case, but I’ll get to that later.
After I placed my order, my waiter left and returned with my water. I then began to think to myself, “if I got nachos with jalapeños, and this waiter fails to refill my water, this could go badly. Perhaps I should just sip.” And sip I did, leaving myself a good 3/4 glass of water by the time my food arrived, which was far too long for Nachos, particularly these nachos, which were shit. Now, I don’t mean that to be crass– they truly were excrement–awful crap just tossed out to get me out of the restaurant as soon as possible. I’m not kidding. It was a mountain of dry nachos, with half-melted, some unmelted cheese on top, covered with about 13 chopped up black olives and the same number of jalapeños and about 4 pieces of chicken. And none of these toppings even remotely reached the nachos under the surface, all of which were crumbs and bits anyway. Seriously, it was like they had been spit from the kitchen onto my table. So, already a bit underwhelmed by the experience, I began to eat them. The chicken was fine, but the guacamole I ordered on the side was pretty awful, and my water was fading fast.
Cut to my waiter, who had been standing 7 feet from me, resting his laurels and watching me. Yeah, no lie. He was just standing their relaxing his arms on the banister, glancing my way every 30-or-so seconds. I’m thinking, “great, he wants to watch me to be sure to refill my drink.” Yeah, remember how I said I was an idiot…I couldn’t have been more wrong here. Under the false “ass”umption, which was making more of ass of me by the minute, I finished water, thinking, “Great, he’ll stop watching me and get me a refill.” But he didn’t move, not only did he not move, he continued to watch me eat and drink of my ICE, WHICH of course means, “Hey, I need a refill, you bastard, come get my cup”. I was so disgusted I almost went up to the bar and asked for a refill, but I felt that would be spitting in my waiter’s face, so I didn’t do it.
Now, sidenote, here. I know some of you might be thinking, “but C.J., maybe he thought he would be disturbing you if he offered to get you a refill.” Well, I know that’s NOT true here for two reasons, the first of which I’ll address now, and the second of which I’ll hit upon later. The first reason I know this is inaccurate is because I was not doing anything but eating. All my notes and books were put away, and I was taking my time. I was trying to enjoy the crap laid before me, at a leisurely pace, not savoring it, but not rushing either, So the only thing would be interrupting was my thirst, which only he could have quenched by doing his damn job, which he didn’t. Again, I’ll hit the second reason later. .
Anyway, back to the story at hand. My waiter watches me eat, my mouth a flame from the jalapeños and lack of water, and I see the waiter walk my way, and all I can think is “finally, some service.” And he begins to take chairs from another table, then proceeds to line them up in the aisle where I’m sitting, RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY TABLE, essentially creating a wall of chairs between me and the rest of the restaurant. The whole time not asking me if I needed or wanted anything else. So, I lost it. I know, I know. It was wrong of me, but I lost it. “Can I get me check please?” I asked quickly, he smiled and nodded and left, returning with a check and leaving it at my table. Lo and behold, not only was the pico de gallo not comped with the chicken, but I was charged the full price for it—I must note however, that my Guacamole was apparently on the house, which was nice but seemed to be more of an oversight than a courtesy at this point. I drop twenty bucks on the table, and my waiter is over faster than a nerd on a woman in a Princess Leia costume from Return of the Jedi, and trust me, those geeks can move like gangbusters. Seriously, my man went from being Ego, the Living Planet, suspended in animation to being the damn Flash. It was ridiculous. As soon as he picks it up, I say curtly, “I’ll need my change with that, and a copy of the receipt. He makes change, right there for me, and leaves the bill, then stands there.
Now, at this point, I was prepared NOT to tip. I had received crappy food, some terrible service, and on top of that, they made a wall dividing me from the rest of the restaurant like some sort of virus-carrying mongoose, while I was still eating . My waiter still hovering, I grabbed my notebook from my backpack, and began to pen something. He walked closer to me. I asked him if I had to exit through the back of the restaurant because I had been blocked, and he said no, that he was told to close my aisle– it’s only 4:00 mind you and people are coming still sitting to their tables–but he would be ind enough to let me walk through the front if I wanted. Thanks, jack. Anyway, remember earlier, how I said there was a second reason I know he wasn’t worried about interrupting me while I was eating. Well, the first reason was because while I was doing nothing but eating, he stared at a distance. The second reason is that while I was actually trying to get something done, writing this note, he just hovered and stayed in my vicinity—yes, the vicinity that was apparently closed, at 4:00 in the afternoon, in the middle of the airport, while customers were still seating themselves in the area directly diagonal from me. So, that’s the second reason. He didn’t mind interrupting at all.
Back to the brass tacks. I’m writing a note and it reads “This service was terrible. Next time a person orders nachos covered in jalapeños, you may want to re–” and then I stopped, because once again, my waiter was standing right near me, watching. At this point I just threw my hands up with the situation, I wanted no more of this @$$hole or this shitfactory where i decided to eat, so I got prepped to leave, with one notebook still in hand, and I paused, the waiter walked away and began to help another table. I saw another woman, a short asian woman working very hard, and I thought, “do I really want to not tip at all. If they work on a tip pool, and I don’t tip, that woman may suffer as a result of my terrible waiter.” I then looked at the last notebook I had out, and I wrote one word on it, “Kindness”. I simply wrote, “Kindness”, for no reason, and I thought maybe I should tip, give the minimum fifteen percent and roll out.
But I looked up, and I saw a kindly red-headed gentlemen make his way into the food court, on the side of it close to the restaurant were I was eating, with a Burger King bag in his hand. It was honest mistake, his stumbling into this side of the aisles as opposed to Burger King’s side, and my waiter stopped him from sitting down. He told the kindly red-headed friend of America that couldn’t eat his Burger King there, that he would have to go 6 feet over and eat in the other area of the food court. I just about lost my mind with rage. My waiter took a check from another table, the Burger King Patron still smiling cordially at the watier as he walked feet to another area of the food court, and I quickly whipped out a dollar and dropped it on the able. Then I put my notebook away and left, never looking back nor in the waiter’s reaction. “Evil CJ”, who sits on my left soldier, hoped that he touched the dollar then caught aflame and got attacked by flying monkeys carrying tridents. “Good CJ” who sits on the right shoulder, on wicker chair made of kindness and goodwill, just hoped that I didn’t hurt his feelings too much, though he had taken several inadvertant steps to make me feel like a Biblical leper at the gates of Jericho. I just looked ahead and cut out the back entrance without being seen.
When I got downstairs, I realized that I had ripped the angry note off my notepad, and left it underneath the dollar, and I gotta be honest, I felt awful about it. Not so much because I left a note saying that the service was terrible, but I didn’t have the decency to finish the note and explain why—remember earlier how I had said I paused when the waiter came over So, there on the table sat my single dollar tip (on a $13 dollar tab, and a note that read, “This service was terrible. If a person orders the nachos with jalapeños at least….” Part of me, that evil/left shoulder side, says, “I hope that my lack of explanation haunts the waiter forever, that he knows not what he did wrong and that he is driven to madness by knowing he was terrible but never knowing why”…but the other part of me, Good CJ seated in the comfort of Wicker, thinks, “Of all the things I could have left, I left that confounded note, which I had decided not to leave in the first place…”
Am I bad person? I tipped under 15% (under 10% for that matter) and left a note that said the guy did an awful job without describing why. What’s worse, I teased as to why, but offered no follow through, which is almost like like saying, “you did a poor job, but you’ll never know why…may the ghost of your incompetence curse your sleep for the rest of life, which I hope is cut short by the attack of a rabid vulture while you walk in the park” I really wish it had gone differently, but it didn’t. I usually tip 20% + round up to the nearest dollar to make the check even, but instead, this time, I tipped a lousy 7% and left a cruel note. Not only that, but I left it on hotel stationery…defaming the poor hotel’s name where i stayed in the process. What d’yall think? Am I the victim or the perp in this story?
NOTE Before commenting, let me bring up an addendum to the story…three days after this post was typed. I found the note. I did not leave it. IN fact, I had hidden it in the middle of my notebook when he came over, to ensure I would not leave…good thinking on my part and now the source of much relief. So, Now, the story ends with the waiter turning from another table, and finding my table empty, less a single, solitary dollar…
I know I’ve already mentioned it, but I cannot wait for this Mr. Wink figure from Mezco Toyz, based on a character from the upcoming film, Hellboy II:The Golden Army. As I’ve said on the stage, I’m really into toys of ogres and trolls, and this figure just looks like he’d make an excellent addition to a Troll/Ogre army, especially considering that monster-gauntlet he is wearing. That thing is beastly to boot! I think this figure is going to retail at $14.99 or $19.99–an excellent price point for a troll, and I look forward to obtaining him that he may battle with my other figures! Apparently a 3 3/4″ version is also going to tap shelves, and I am thinking I should hunt down one or two of him two, make the full-size fig a parent with the 3 3/4″ ones as kids. Troll family unite!!!
