This week’s column was inspired by the future cult classic Waiting- that hit theaters last weekend.
I believe everyone who hasn’t yet seen this movie should do so immediately, and not only because it stars sexpot Ryan Reynolds and true B.A.M.F Dane Cook and provides its audience with valuable information about habitual fornication with minors, the amazing pliability of a man’s scrotum and the delightful job opportunities that come with an associate degree from a community college.
You’d think the holidays came early with that gift basket of priceless tidbits, but the film’s generosity doesn’t stop there. Waiting… takes the audience through a typical day in the life of the waitstaff at the family restaurant Shenanigan’s (“Hey Farva, what’s the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls-?”), all the while driving home an important life lesson we as a human race should take to heart: Don’t mess with the person who handles your food.
The movie sounded this warning like the air raid siren on the campus the first Wednesday of every month. If you’ve any inkling to enter a restaurant 10 minutes before it closes or complain to your waiter or waitress about your lukewarm baked potato or the undercooked steak you received the last time you visited the establishment (whether that was three months ago or three hours ago), don’t do it. Nothing good will come of it.
I questioned numerous students employed as waitstaff at a variety of food service establishments. From what I gathered, the following rule applies when you dine at a sit-down restaurant: If the problem with any part of your meal is not going to cause immediate death, don’t complain about it.
Is your food too hot? Blow on it. Didn’t want onions on your salad? Pick them out. Unless the broccoli, not the mixed vegetable medley you ordered, that mistakenly came out with your meal is going to cause you have an epileptic seizure and vomit everywhere, pile on the salt and chow down. One uninvited occasion with an unpalatable spear will be worth every disgusting bite knowing that, if you had sent it back, the special sauce on that mixed vegetable medley would have been provided especially for you by a 300-pound man named Spanky who doesn’t get out much nor bathe on a regular basis.
The students kind enough to confess their meal-handling misdemeanors have made me reconsider ever eating out again. Sure, there was the simple taking too long with serving people in a hurry and “accidentally” spilling a beverage or food item on a customer, but light was shed on far more disturbing acts. Multiple people informed me the five-second rule does exist and there are no qualms about enforcing it (nor is there a sense of urgency to wash off the food after its fall).
Two guys told me they frequently played football with the dinner rolls. One student happily recounted a time when he stirred a particularly rude customer’s food with his hand, post-genitalia handling. Almost everyone admitted to spitting in the food of irritating guests at least one time, and many spoke of the striking resemblance their boogers had to the steak seasonings the kitchens used. The worst story came from a shameless female student who proclaimed she coughed on the meals of a nasty table she knew she wasn’t getting a tip from, the day after she was diagnosed with streptococcal bacteria – strep throat to you and me.
If, after reading this, you are still willing to dine out, do yourself a favor and don’t be a jerk. Every restaurant has a few jaded individuals no longer willing to concede to the principles of customer service, who feel no remorse for tampering with another person’s food. Press your luck and you may encounter one of these characters on the day he or she finds out his or her significant other is banging the grocery bagger at Giant.
Amie Ward is a senior kinesiology major. She can be reached at award3@umd.edu.