Category: Guests

It’s true, some very earnest folks out there are way ahead of the game and booking their December holiday parties. I am hanging on for dear life waiting for winter to be gone for good and the cherry blossoms to appear, and they are talking about poinsettia centerpieces. It’s like planning what to have for…

“I want to make a reservation for my sweet sixteen party,” said the young woman, clearly on a cell phone, clearly on a cell phone inside a building that limited her coverage and made hearing her a little tough. “But it’s kind of last minute. For this weekend, around dinner time.” I was only a…

“Hey, welcome! Do you mind if I take your picture?” a very perky Starbucks clerk smiled at a young woman wearing the red-and-black plaid flannel pants she’d obviously slept in, her huge sunglasses masking a face bare of any makeup. You could sense the girl’s reluctance: Uh, are you kidding me? “Oh, I know you’re…

You are hungry. You pick a restaurant and head there at 7:30 on a Friday night. No reservation, no phone call ahead to gauge the wait. You just go. And you are unhappy when you can’t get past the podium without a pager and the promise of an hour wait. “But I see open tables!”…

“Can you take my reservation?” asked the man, his voice a little shakey. I couldn’t tell if it was a bad cell connection or him. “Sure, I can help you with that,” I told him. “Oh, good, you can do this for me,” he said, sounding relieved. “Have you talked to someone else?” I asked,…

“Oh my God. Are these people ever going to sit down?” “I know. Overbooked, oversold. Takes forever to get ’em in and down.” **** “Oops, wrong button!” Giggling over the intercom. Halting safety announcement. “Oops!” More giggling. **** Enter a gate agent. “Why is she still here? We can do this ourselves. We know what…

“Gimme a table in that section,” says the man, gesturing nonchalantly toward an area of the dining room that is completely full. “Gimme a pager then, I’ll wait,” he says, when he is told that no tables are available. He is not rude, really. He is not impatient, actually. But he grates on my nerves,…

When Mr. Restaurant Gal and I were first married, our apartment-sized home was one of 20 or so identical ones in an L-shaped neighborhood consisting of two streets connected by a cul-de-sac. Many of the families could measure their time in this neighborhood in decades-generations, really. But, this was Mr. Restaurant Gal’s first house, one…

I give up. I give in. And I will give you this: Forget Halloween. Forget full moons and any other weird days of any other months during the year. The week between Christmas and New Years brings out the absolute worst in every single person on the planet–every single day. It brings out the worst…

“Tell her,” coached the dad. “Tell her exactly how many.” “We want a reservation for 20 people. And we want it tonight, okay?” No smile accompanied this demand. I eyed the scruffy-looking father and his not-too-adorable grade-school-aged daughters. Okay, I’ll grant everyone a little leeway on appearances the day after Christmas, but these three looked…