Friday's!

My wife Melanie and I spent the weekend surrounded by little people. No, not midgets or dwarfs, children. It was our youngest's seventh birthday. She had a little pool party - lucky kid. I remember my seventh birthday. My father had a few relatives over for a drinking party. The festivities top out when my cousin broke the bedroom window with a baseball. After everyone left I got my ass smacked for it. Anyway, after dropping the kids off at a relatives for a break we headed over to TGI Friday's. The patio was nearly empty so we thought a nice mixed drink in the sun was in order. The hostess seats us next to family with a small child. Of course, it starts squeeling like its being dropped in cooled water. The waitress comes out and hands the family seated behind me their bill and disappears. Nothing was thought of it at the time but our hunger and thirst was growing. The waitress returns takes the family's payment and dissappears again. Keep in mind it's nearly ninety outside and we're in the sun. Ten minutes has passed and the waitress returns again with the family's change. This time my wife makes eye contact with the waitress. She smiles and says good bye to the family and dissappears, again! By this time I'm starving, my sugar level is dropping and I'm irritable. So I called the resturant on my cell phone and ask for the manager. Of course, she wasn't there so I talked to the host-ass. She was clearly distracted. I asked her if they had any tables available inside? She replied, "yes we do but we do not take reservations. Its first come first serve," and hung up! Enough was enough! Most people might have left at this point but we're gluttens for punishment. We gathered ourselves and went inside. We were greeted by the same hostess. The same hostass that I talked to on the phone and had seated us on the patio. "Welcome to Fridays," she rattled in a high pitch chipper voice. Before she could get out the usual "smoking or none" question I let loose. "We've been here on the patio for twenty minutes watching a waitress ignore us! Can we get a table and some drinks please!"

By this time I'm really hungry. I don't know about you but it comes on quick for me these days. It seems the older I get the slower it is for my brain to get the info from the other parts of my body. By the time my brain realizes I'm getting hungry the info that I'm starving is arriving.

We get our seat and a nice guy comes around to take our order. Again, I'm irritable and snap at the guy. Which was uncalled for and I quietly appologized for as well as dropped a twenty-two percent tip. Less than two minutes later we had our drinks and an appetizer. The manager, who was "not in" just moments ago for my phone compliant appeared to offer us free desserts for our troubles. Which we had an awesome SIZZLING APPLE PIE A LA MODE and CINNABON® CHEESECAKE, I highly recommend the Sizzling Apple Pie it kicked ass!

Anyway, I really don't understand the logic of some people when it comes to doing their jobs. I understand waiting tables is not the best gig in the world and most customers are hungry and irriable when entering. So I can understand not being thrilled with going over board with work. But please don't ignore a customer willing to drop a decent tip for good service!