Restaurants can test your patience – especially the ones getting their act together, or those that have become so chaotic that they fall to pieces.
Most people know how to handle themselves when the restaurants start acting up. But sometimes, like on a bad day, there are moments when you can’t help it and you allow your vulnerability to take charge of your emotions… and you lose your shit. How do you deal with that? Some people just give in to the dark side. Others seethe but keep it together. And still others – the coolest cats of them all – just go all zen.
Here are some situations for you. Put yourself in the shoes of the diner and try to answer the following:
1. You call the restaurant’s landline to make a reservation and no one answers. Do you:
A. Go online and shower them with vitriol.
B. Try for another 20 minutes, get really tense when someone answers, and ask for Thursday for a party of 4.
C. Put them on speakerphone and speed dial and ask yaya to keep pressing until someone answers.
2. You order a salad and you find a giant worm, albeit a green one, gently playing amidst all the greens. Do you:
A. Call the Health Inspector and tell him to bring in some major fumigation equipment and flame throwers.
B. Show the manager the offending creature and threaten to sue, and back down when he sends you some oysters, a Porterhouse, and some bubbly.
C. Let the little guy crawl up your straw and wait for it to cocoon and morph into a pretty widdle butterfly.
3. You go to a steakhouse, specifically order your steak a manly medium rare, and it comes to you blackened in soot and grey inside. Do you:
A. Cut the steak into little cubes and secretly hurl them at waiters as they walk by.
B. Use the soot and proceed to write a complaint on the white tablecloth. “IT SUCKS!”
C. Ask for bread and make a sandwich.
4. You arrive starving for your 1230 ressie, and they have you waiting for another 45 without a table for you in sight. Do you:
A. Go ape shit and bawl out the manager.
B. Go on social media and tell your friends to never go there.
C. Sit at the bar, bust out the Angry Birds on the smart phone, and order a Shirley Temple.
5. You find a questionable strand of hair deep in the bowl of your chili con carne. Do you:
A. Insist on lining all the staff and cooks up firing squad style and inspecting their dos.
B. Wrap it in Kleenex and put it in your bag – to be attached later to a letter to the restaurant owner.
C. You haven’t flossed yet…
6. The clumsy waiter trips and spills red wine all over your designer tank top and meggings. Do you:
A. Take your shirt off and squeeze it dry on his head.
B. Go to the john and dry it inside the jet hand dryer.
C. Sit out in the sun til it dries and rock your new printed tank top.
7. The whole table has their food already, and you follow yours up, and apparently yours was forgotten. Do you:
A. Challenge the waiter to a duel.
B. Just order again and get even when tipping time comes.
C. Get a fork and pick from everyone else’s food, and basically having a free meal.
8. You order an espresso, and it comes all watery and tasting of swill.
A. Go make some Pollock-esque coffee paintings on your table.
B. Look for the nearest plant and use the coffee for fertilizer.
C. Happily ask for ice cream and make an affogato.
9. You excitedly order a side of fries, which the menu says is “so crispy because it’s fried in duck fat”, but they arrive soggy and limp.
A. Throw them like shurikens at your waiter’s chest.
B. Have them sent back and fried again.
C. Ask for bacon, because everything is good with bacon.
10. You follow up your bowl of ice cream three times, and it arrives, mostly melted because it was just sitting at the pass.
A. Simulate the “ice bucket challenge” on your waiter’s back with it.
B. Raise your eyebrows and thank them for your milk shake.
C. Have it sent back to the freezer and wait til it hardens.
11. You order a burger and it arrives without a burger patty inside. Do you:
A. Attach it to your waiter’s ears and make him go all Princess Leia.
B. Put it to use by blotting out the oil on your face.
C. Smear it with condiments and just pretend it’s a “vegetarian burger”.
12. You ordered an extra cup of garlic rice. It arrives, but only after you’ve given up on it and eaten all your tapsi. The waiter says he’ll have to charge you anyway. Do you:
A. Smush it, pour ketchup, mustard, patis and toyo on it, top it with used Kleenex and say “if I can’t have it, no one can!” #sprak
B. You start feeding it to the cute dog beside your table.
C. You take it as a sign from up above – and order more tapa.
IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY A: You need anger management.
IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY B: Your have frazzled nerves. Enroll in some yoga and meditation classes today.
IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY C: You have the inner peace of the Dalai Llama, and will probably live to be 120.