A chain my man likes is having an anniversary week thing, where they have a special for each day this week. So, though we typically go around once a month or two, we’ve gone four times this week now.
Tonight, we had to pick up my car from having work done on it – covered under manufacturer’s warranty, the window regulator broke, if you recall that as having happened just after my jury summons stuff had ended – across town, so we went to a different location of the restaurant.
After we’ve been seated and ordered our beverages and first round of appetizers and it’s all come out, our waiter takes a little time to chat with us. The section is not busy at the moment, so we think nothing of it. (You can tell this is going somewhere now, though…) He asks if we come often tot he restaurant. We mention how we do not normally come very often, but that we have come almost every day this week for the fun specials. We give various details about it, and we all laugh about how ridiculous it all is.
The waiter casually asks if we normally come to this location and if we’ve been coming here all week, and we easily explain that, no, we haven’t. We’ve been going to this other location, which is by where we live and where we normally go. And he says, ‘Oh, so you were there on Monday night,’ and we say that we were.
And just before my man, as is quite common at times, dives into some other comment that kind of cuts off someone else, the waiter adds, “I remember y’all. I saw y’all there.”
……..
My man, somehow, completely misses this casually commented fun-fact, and just keeps sharing about something related dinner that night and the specials we had all had at our table (my brother and sister-in-law had been with us). I dive in about Really?! You did?! You were there?! We’re you working?! And he says where he was seated, just by the hostess stand. I misunderstand briefly and ask if it was on the side by the bar, which was where we had been, with only a Hispanic family right near us that I could recall, though someone else had been there first… At this point, my man is listening newly, realizing that he clearly missed something in the conversation, and he catches up quickly.
We clarify where our waiter had been sitting, and that he had seen me waiting by the hostess stand on my own first, and then with my man, once he had arrived (the wait was long that night, even though we’d gotten on the wait list long before arriving in person), and before we went to the bar to get a round of the discounted drink (and then were seated almost immediately at our actual table). As it turned out, he had wanted to have the special that night – it was $1/chicken wing and $2 (certain) draft pints, though I suspect he wasn’t old enough for the latter – but was embarrassed to go eat at the restaurant where he worked, so he went to the next closest location… where he saw us standing right by his table for fifteen minutes or so. 😛
Pretty silly and bizarre, to be sure, but I’m really glad he told us. He even said that he recognized us immediately, but that he didn’t want to start off the waiter-patron relationship that way, too intensely right off the bat. It was a good call. We would have been fine with it, but it was the safer bet and we probably enjoyed it even more discovering it after establishing a positive rapport with the kid. We ended up having a great time at dinner tonight, and had a surprisingly good time chatting off and on with our sweet (and good quality) waiter. It was really fun, and I’m so glad we stopped at it all worked out as it did.(!)
Thank you, God, for this surprise blessing. Thank you for this life. Help us to see clearly our next step, please. Help Dylan(sp?) to find his next step, especially in regards to University and his own development Persia lulu and academically. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
hannah ananas 