May I Take Your Order?

I frequent a restaurant here, sometimes for the food, sometimes for the entertainment.

Because for a long time, none of the wait staff spoke English. Oh, they thought they did....

For example:

"Take order?"

"Yes, I'll have ____________."

"What dressing on salad?"

"I don't want a salad."

"What kind dressing?"

"No salad. No dressing." And yes, I started speaking louder, like that would help.

"You want no dressing?"
"And no salad."

I got a salad.

Another time, Husband, Daughter and I were seated at the hibachi. The table was already full except for our three seats.

As we listened, it was obvious the others were together and were, in fact, all part of one family. There was an older couple at the other end of the table. They appeared to be in their late sixties, maybe early seventies.

Then there were three couples with children of various ages.

When the meal was coming to an end, I noticed they got their bill and we didn't. I waited a few minutes, but when no bill showed up for us, I flagged down our waitress. I told her we wanted our bill.

"He pay for it." She pointed to the older gentleman at the end of the table.

He was staring at us.

"No, we aren't with his party. The three of us are separate," I said, pointing to Husband, Daughter and myself.

"He pay for it."

"You need to take our food cost off  his bill. We are paying separate."

"No, no. He pay."

A thirty something son-in-law leaned over and whispered to me, "Eh, let him pay. He's loaded."

You just can't make this stuff up.

When it became obvious we weren't going to get a separate bill, Husband and I both apologized to the man. "If you can tell by the bill, we'll pay our share. If not, I'll get a menu and figure it out."

The man sighed heavily. "Forget it. Just consider it an early Christmas present." I think it was October.

"We'll return the favor someday," I said, thanking him profusely.

"You'll never see me again. We live in the eastern part of North Carolina. We are just passing through.

So, yeah, he pay for it.

You get the picture. And we saw other things like that happen around us on different occasions.

It didn't matter what you wanted, you got what they thought you should want.

Daughter attempted to work there. It didn't take long before her not understanding Chinese and them not understanding English got to her. Not only the communication between herself and her co-workers and boss, but the crazy mix ups like what had happened to us.

Customers took it and responded from being amused to very frustrated, depending on the customer and the size of the misunderstanding.

Daughter once told a customer she'd take the difference and pay for it herself, but the customer wouldn't let her.

I don't know what happened, but in the last few months, American wait persons have appeared on the scene.

I am suspicious that business had drooped enough that in some way, the message got across that people were getting too aggravated to eat there.

And, free meal notwithstanding, I didn't blame them at all.

Who knows? Next time, it might have been. "You pay for it."