I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

I don’t even know where to start tonight.  And I never have that problem. 

Today is Monday.  Monday’s have been the worst all summer.  85% of everything really bad that happened this summer happened on a Monday. 

So imagine my surprise when it didn’t rain today.  I was in a great mood.  My staff all seemed happy. 

All of the guests I encountered were happy beyond belief.  So many first timers.  So many people who live near us, who hadn’t dined with us before. 

To of my dearest friends in the area came in for dinner and it was not great to see them and chat even for just a moment. 

I actually got to enjoy the work today.  I floated from spot to spot having fun.  Joking with our team.  Joking with guests.  Joking with chef.  It was a great shift.

And at 8:25, I was standing at the host stand, while my host went out to the patio to make sure our last reservation had been sat. 

The host arrived back at 8:30 to say our last 2 top was seated.  We were all in. 

I go to the chef and let him know that we are all in, and that we have 5 open.

In regular people speak, that means all of our reservations have arrived and that we have 5 guests, who have not ordered yet. 

It’s 8:30 on our Friday night.  This never happens.  The late reservations always come late.  We are poised to have an early night. 

This is especially great because it’s payroll Monday and I have a lot to do before I can go home after everyone is finished. 

The host arrives back at the door and we are chatting, when a car pulls into the parking lot.  I say I wonder who this could be, mentally preparing for whether or not I would seat them. 

Closing time for us is not concrete.  Our website lists our hours as 5:00 to close.  We do this because there is no way to know how the end of the night is going to go.  Some nights we seat walk ins until 9:30.  Some nights we don’t seat anyone after 8:00. 

We are all in, I’m prepared to turn whomever it is away.

The door opens and in walks a man carrying a brief case and two shoulder bags.  For a minute I thought he was carrying luggage. 

He asks what time we close and I said, we closed at 8:30. 

He replies, great, I just made it, I’d like to get some dinner. 

It’s 8:42 at this point.  I know, because I looked at my watch before I replied. 

I say, our last reservations tonight were at 8:30, I can seat you but you’ll have to order immediately. 

I tell him this, and usually any table we seat after our last reservations so that they don’t think they can wait thirty minutes to place their order.  I set the expectations and I always say, you can stay as long as you like up to 1:00 a.m. after you order, but we’ll need your order in the next 10 minutes or so. 

He responds great, I’d like a booth where I can spread out…

Oh.  No.  No.  No.  You are not going to do work here.  We are not that restaurant.  We don’t have internet.  And no.  No.  No.  That’s not going to happen. 

I say to him, at this point we only have bar seating, so let me know what you want to do. 

He asks for a second and then puts his three bags down and leaves the lobby and goes into the restaurant. 

He is gone for what seems like a million years.  I thought he’d actually gone to the bathroom to poop he was gone so long. 

He was gone so long that I told the host that we would NOT seat him when he returned. 

Finally, he comes back into the lobby and what followed was the strangest, weirdest, chaotic, eccentric, peculiar, outlandish, creepy, kooky, bizarre, unusual, odd, erratic and mystifying conversations I’ve ever had in the history of my life. 

I’m 57 years old and in all of my time nothing compares to anything I experienced tonight.  Not in the restaurant business.  Not in the theater world.  Not in the friends I’ve had who went koo koo for coco puffs.  Not from drunk people I’ve watched throw up.  Not for people hi on something who can’t string two syllabals together.  I’ve seen homeless people in NYC who are passed out on the subway be less concerning. 

My host texted me and said it was the strangest thing in her 19 years of life. 

Seriously. 

At one point, I’m pretty sure my host who was standing to the left of me started to leave and I kicked her.  Harder than I meant, but I knew NO ONE would believe me when I shared this.  Eventually, we switched sides at the host stand and she pulled out her note pad and wrote, IS THIS MAN ON DRUGS?

So let me remind you that I’m not a person who remembers conversations.  Often when I’m replaying conversations on here I’m doing a lot of paraphrasing.  I have so many friends who can quote verbatim anything said to them. 

I’m so bad at it that when the encounter was over, exactly 20 minutes later, my host and I did a stream of consciousness to write down as much as we could remember.  In fact she texted me a few things we’d forgotten after she got home tonight.

So here is what took place, in my words best that I remember them.

First, unbeknownst, to me, he did not go poop.  He went into the dining room.  Where he was in the way, but also looking around.  He then went into the bar area, looked around some more than then exited through the dining room fire exit that is not alarmed.  From there, we went to the back of the restaurant where the patio is, then came in through what we call the Gallery, inspected every room there and then found his way back to the lobby where he says,

There are a lot of empty tables in there. 

I know where this is going, and at this point he’s not getting seated, so I say, thank you for stopping in we hope to see you some other time. 

And he looks at me and I’ve seen this look a million times.  It’s the how dare you say no to me. 

He says, thank you?  Thank you?  I know what you are doing here.  I see all the cars in the parking lot.  I know what you all are up to.  I know.

I wait.

He continues.  There so many empty tables in here but I know with all the cars in the parking lot what is going on here. 

Uh, I’m sorry sir,  What is it exactly that is going on?

You know exactly what I mean.  You know. 

I assure him that I don’t know. 

Everything that followed was him insulting me, it without stating the insult.  He reminded me of the woman who kept asking if I was calling her a liar.  This guy, never said an offense thing to me, but he certainly implied a lot of offensive things. 

For the life of me I can’t remember everything, but at one point he ask me what the writing on his hat meant.  It was a chemistry equation, and I said, I have no idea, and he said I thought not.  I knew you had not idea what was no my hat.  Of course not.  How could you?

I explained I had no idea what his point was and he responded, I’m not making point but I knew you’d have no ida. 

Have you ever heard of law school.  I doubt very seriously if you even know what law school is.  It’s where people go to study the law.  I went to law school and I studied the law, but you wouldn’t understand that now would you. 

I explain that yes I know what law school is but once again I don’t understand the point and he once again replied, I’m not making a point. 

He then starts telling a story about how he went to a city south of us last night and arrived at 9:30 and they closed at 9:00.  But they knew how to treat people, and sat him right away and were courteous and hospitable toward him and that he ordered a very delicious salad to go.  He normally brings his dinner to the restaurant with him as he likes to eat healthy when he spreads out to work but last night he treated himself to a salad at the restaurant where they knew how to treat him.

I ask him if he’s suggesting we treated him less than hospitable and once again he says, I’m not suggesting anything I just know that the restaurant from last night knew how to treat people.

He continues about the city south of us, you know years ago I worked for a company that helped develop the downtown.  And I had a friend who worked for the company and he was a structural engineer and the helped develop the down town and when I went into the restaurant at 9: 30 I asked for a water view and they gave me a water view.  I bet you can’t even give me a water view.

I try to explain that we aren’t near the water but he pushes past me and continues. 

He says that he spent the day in a little town 45 minutes west of us.  He went to five meetings today.  Five.  He’s been busy all day.  And he’s driven past our restaurant many times and didn’t want to stop because he’d heard bad things but tonight he was driving and he looked up at the night sky and what would you know, the NORTH star directed him to our restaurant.  He thought, how else would you find this place out in the middle of nowhere.  And now that he had found it, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to eat there. 

He continues to make implications that we are a tourist trap.  That our restaurant is not good.  And that he doesn’t know why people come there.  At one point he does say the space is pretty but he’s not so sure about the food. 

As he is saying all of this, I’m am thinking to myself.  What the fucking fuck.

And I engage him.  Not in a negative way.  At least not at first.  I just answer his questions without answering them.  And wait for him to finish. 

At one point he takes a breath and stops and I ask him exactly what point he is trying to make and he says that this is a social experiment that he is doing and he’s not sure we are passing. 

As he speaks and implies that we are less than good, it’s now approaching 9:00.  People are starting to leave.  And about every 90 seconds guests walk into the lobby and experience what is going on.

A woman comes in who left her credit card at the bar.  She walks in just as the man implies once again that we are a terrible restaurant.  He said something and I ask her how her meal was while the host gets her card.  She can’t stop gushing as he continues.  

The host returns with the credit card and the woman looks me in the eye…think Dracula putting staring longingly at you and says, I’m so sorry I have to leave you with this. 

She leaves and he continues.  ‘

People coming and going.  Also unbeknownst to me, one of my servers has gone to drop a check at a large party she had, and they tell her something is happening in the lobby.  You can’t get through and there is a man lecturing the hosts. 

She appears and witnesses a few minutes on the drama.

He continues.

At his point it’s been well over 15 minutes and I am starting to get pissed.  I tell him several times that we are an amazing restaurant and perhaps he should try it sometime.

He keeps asking questions, deflecting when I respond with a question. 

At one point he asks if I’m the manager or the owner.  I tell him it’s really none of his business but I am the General Manager.  He makes another comment implying that I’m not educated and I snap saying that he needs to stop and that I happen to have three degrees all from reputable schools and that unfortunately none of my degrees are law degrees or chemistry. 

He asks for a card at one point and I give him the generic card we have out with just our phone number on it.  He makes a comment that it’s been years since he saw a business that didn’t print people’s names on their cards.  He makes another snide comment about the card and I say, sir if you’d like a card with a name, here is my business card and this has my name AND my email if you need it. 

He continues and continues.

People come and go.  What is most notable, is not one person left without making a point about how great the experience was.  I’d stop listening to the man and would comment. 

People come and go.  I look up and very attractive man (not important to the story, but it he was a nice distraction while it was happening) is leaning against the front door frame waiting for his wife to come out of the restroom.  He is listening but trying to be as small as possible not to be drawn into the conversation.  His wife comes out of the restroom as the man…

Is finally done.  I motion for them to wait. 

I don’t remember what caused him to leave but he picks up his three bags, puts them all on his shoulder.  Makes three or four more strange comments.  And walks out. 

I hold up my finger in a 5^th grade school teacher sort of way, so that everyone knew NOT to speak until the door closed.

It closed and I said to everyone, that was the strangest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced in my whole fucking life.

The couple were very understanding.  And asked lots of questions.

They got to experience my rant as I could stop exclaiming how ludicrous is was.

They finally leave and I turn to Olivia and say, get some paper lets write this shit down.

And for 10 minutes we wrote everything we could remember. Servers came with requests and I did the 5^th grade finger thing again and told them to come back.

For Olivia and me it was stream of consciousness, just me saying things and her writing them down.  We had 3.5 pages when she was done and it didn’t come close to capturing the realness of what had happened.

The first thing I said as she started to write was OF COURSE IT’S MONDAY!!!

I also said he continue to insult me, without actually saying anything offensive.  He’s walk up to the line, spit over  it but NEVER step over it. 

Meanwhile, I’m exhausted from the experience.  I have three more hours of work in front of me.  Chef had told me he’d cook me steak at 8:30 and now it’s 9:15 and my steak is sitting on the chef’s table getting cold and continuing to cook. 

It’s 2:00 and I’m as exhausted thinking about it now as I was then. 

Just think, at 8:30 I was going to write about the couple who complained about the chicken because it was difficult to eat because it was NOT skinless. 

And now I have a short play just waiting to be written. 

And when I write the play I’ll get someone famous to play Olivia who just stands there and listens and gets kicked every so often. 

It’s late. I’ll edit this when I retire. I apologize for any grammatical mistakes.