November 21, 2006
My husband and I and kids went to a restaurant on Sunday evening. It’s a place that we’ve driven by many times but never eaten there. Apparently, so we’ve been told, they have a very yummy Chinese buffet (along with some Canadian dishes). We decided to check it out.
We go in, and wait to be seated. As we’re looking around, we see an empty booth near the back and decide we’d like to sit there since we’re with the 2 younger kids and a booth always suits us well.
The waitress comes over and I ask her nicely if we could sit at the booth.
No.
No?
No. It not empty. It’s clearly empty, unless Mr and Mrs Invisible are dining out.
It’s not empty? I don’t see anyone sitting there.
No.
No we can’t sit there or no, noone’s sitting there?
No.
Alrighty, moving on, we follow her to a table that’s crowded in amongst other tables and there’s no room to move our chairs, or to have a decent conversation since it’s so jam packed in this one area. There are about 30 other tables she could have sat us at but no, she crams us in at the table from hell.
What you having?
We’d like 2 buffets please and my husband is going to take our daughter up to see if there’s anything that she likes and if so, we’ll be ordering a third buffet. My son won’t be eating here, he’s not into buffets. She stands and looks at me like I’m sporting, oh, 4 heads. I asked her if they have chocolate milk.
Chocolate milk?
Yes, I’d like to order one for my son if you have it.
Milk?
Yes, chocolate milk please.
Milk?
Yes. Chocolate. If you have it?
She then writes a giant C on her order pad.
I guess C is for chocolate?
My husband and daughter come back to the table and she decides, there’s nothing that she wants from the buffet, so as the waitress is still standing there staring at me, I ask her if we could see a menu. I’m thinking maybe they have a children’s section to order from.
Menu?
Yes please.
You still want buffet?
Yes, my husband and I do but we’d like to see if there’s something we could order for our little girl.
So a menu?
Yes. Please. Good Lord.
So she of course hands me a booze menu.
Ah, this is for beer and wine.
Yes?
I’m pretty sure I’m not going to order beer OR wine for my 6 year old. I was thinking more along the lines of say, a grilled cheese sandwich or some mac and cheese.
It a menu.
Yes, with licquor in it. Not anything suitable for a child in grade one.
She storms off like I asked her to shit on the floor and then dance through it. All I asked for was a bloody menu. She comes back and throws 2 menus down. One would have sufficed but hey, double the fun, double the pleasure. I take a quick peek through it and there’s nothing there that Maddy wants. She decides she’d rather just wait and have a sub after we are done eating. We tell her that’s fine.
Pyscho Waitress comes back with Ryan’s chocolate milk and throws the order pad on the table in front of us and walks away. Ummm, what was that for? And apparently our waitress DIED because she never came back to our table again. We did catch a glimpse of her here and there but she never came back once to ask us how our meal was or if we wanted a refill of drinks, nothing. We had wanted to order a drink for our daughter but that didn’t happen. Apparently, we were the invisible family.
We finished our meal and noticed the big sign hovering over the buffet. It stated that any food we didn’t eat, we would have to pay extra for. WHAT THE FUCK? I’m going to have to pay for my scraps? As we’re chomping down on our chicken bones and beef gristle (’cause there’s no way in hell I’m paying for that), we decided, we would not be dining there again. Just as we’re licking our plates clean, some man comes over and asks us how old our kids are. Huh?
Why do you need to know how old our kids are?
To charge you.
Charge us? For what? Having kids?
Yes. They pay by how old.
They pay? What? I’m on tv again right?
Yes. For buffet. They pay by age.
Okay, listen, they didn’t eat the buffet. Only my husband and I did.
They pay by age.
Right. I understand but they didn’t eat the buffet, so………….
I get your bill.
Super. We left there picking chicken bones out of our teeth, confused and vowing to one another, that we’ll stick to McDonald’s and Subway. Geez.
