Rude? You ain’t seen nothing yet!

Friday night and all the waiters were hot, some hotter than others heh. Water was being consumed at vast rates, we were about to get very busy and had taken to pre-hydrating like the athletes we are. I say athletes but you know what I mean. Some of my waiter chums are 100 meter sprinters were as I am a darts player. As I am still with child, the unmovable kidney stone, I was drinking water for many reasons. I had also began pacing, people were late and I was not pleased. Don't get me wrong it was beautiful outside and if I had been off work I too would rather have been soaking up the carcinogenic rays of the sun than sitting in a restaurant with air conditioning on a par with wafting a napkin in front of your face.

Still, they were late and I was hot and bothered. Never a good combination.

But then the door opened and in walked three women.

"Hi!", began the first of them with undue boisterousness. "Could we get a table for three?"

"Ah so you don't have a reservation then?"

"Oh my god no, do we need one?", she asks as she peers around the empty restaurant. I did not care for her sarcastic tone. I do not like my act being stolen.

"Well yes, we are fully booked this evening.", says I upping the snootiness a point or two.

Feeling that the power had returned to me and having compassion for her chums who looked like they had endured enough tramping out Belfast in winter clothes when it was like 4 millions degrees outside. Heh, tourists they really do have a hard time in this town. If they had been wearing anything else it would have poured down.

"I could give you have quick one, maybe for like an hour." Yes, yes I realised it was double entendre too. Now whilst the woman doing all the talking didn't get it, her mind being focused on getting a table, her chums did. And they tittered out loud. Sake.

"A table for an hour? Yeah we'll take that."

And with that I lead them to their table and feeling that we had broken the ice with my suggestive, but innocent, remark I had a bit of chit chat with them about this and that and things to do in Belfast in the sun. They were easy to serve even though only two of them were actually eating. The other was an attractive shade of grey due to having spent the  previous night imbibing large quantities of Guinness. And even when she changed her mind and ordered some food as I was serving her chums theirs, I did not give her my two foot death stare. I even checked back on her to see if she was feeling any better.

I'm that sort of waiter.

The chat had been good and as far as I could see we were all having a gay old time.

When they stiffed me on my tip I wasn't really surprised or bothered.  Young backpacking touristy types don't have free money to be shelling out to charming chaps like me when there is Guinness to be buying. I just chalked it up as a loss and carried on. This placid and dare I say serene attitude is unusual post stiffing but I knew we had a restaurant full of lovely people who would more than make up for the loss of one table's tipage.

It, my sereness, didn't last long. As I was clearing the water jug, refilled four times, and glasses from the table there was a little message left for me on a napkin.

"Service 2.5 out of 5, we were rushed off our table. How rude!"

"Two point fucking five? Out of five? Rushed? Rude?" Such was my rage that I was unable to converse, or more importantly swear, in complete sentences.  I got them a quick table despite being fully booked, I was both charming and beguiling and more than informative than a bus load of tour guides. Rude? Cheeky feckers.

Waiter Chum 1.5 snatched the napkin from my hand and sharing this dispatch from the pen of a mentalist with my so called waiter chums had a right old giggle at my expense. Well you can imagine how I took that! So now I was hot and in a bad mood and staring down the barrel of fantastically busy night. Good times. I worked my ass off too, I had to lift a veritable barrow load of money after that attack on my skills, such as they are. And by the end of the night I had amassed a small fortune, relatively speaking of course, and all thoughts of mentalists questioning my waitering abilities had been vanquished...

...until the following Monday that is when who should wander my way? That's right chums, the three very same women who dissed me, as the urban kids say, three days before. Well you can imagine my shock.

"Oh hi", says the same woman again, with much the same boisterousness as before.

"Hello" I was colder than a meeting between jilted lover and new lover.

"Can we get a table for three?"

"No" and offering no other opening or suggestions or room for discussion I strutted off claiming victory as mine. The sight of their little fat upset faces, all blotchy from being exposed to the sun all day, will keep me warm for an age. How's that for rude ladies?

Pfft, the cheek.