What Bugs Me: Where's Our Food?

When the three tables around us at a restaurant get their food even though we’ve been waiting 45 minutes, I start to feel annoyed. We walk into a restaurant starving. We get seated right off and the hostess hands us our menus. The server comes by and gets our drink orders and then our food orders. All is going well. We figure we’ll be eating within minutes. Only we aren’t. We sit there about twenty minutes getting hungrier. In the meantime, people who have come in after us are getting their food. Then we notice all the tables around us are getting their food, some of them have finished eating and are leaving. By now we’re drooling. Even the bowl of greens and the fried liver on the table next to us are starting to look good.

Still our server passes by our table without a glance, no mention of refilling our drinks, nothing. When we finally catch her attention and ask about our meals, she goes to check and says they should be up any minute. She hands us a basket of bread and hurries off. Still our meal doesn’t arrive. We begin to focus on her like ravenous dogs staring into a butcher’s shop as we finish off the bread. Finally she comes around and says our order got mixed up, but assures us she has it straightened out now.

Finally, a young woman, her face flushed from hurrying around and tense from approaching yet another unhappy customer, arrives with our order. We’re missing the mashed potatoes and there’s no coleslaw. Instead we have a bowl of greens and a bowl of tomato, cucumber, onion salad, heavy on the onion. The meal has been sitting under a heat lamp and is dried out. We see our server eyeing us from across the room, realizing she overlooked our meal and is now hoping we’ll accept what was brought and not say anything.

We take a deep breath and call her over, trying to hold on to our Christian values as much as possible. She apologizes profusely and asks if we want a free dessert. Chocolate cake with gooey syrup perhaps? Now things are looking up. We can just taste the rich concoction. “With ice cream?” I ask. She nods. In no time at all we’re happy again and are already agreeing that this was a one-time thing and we should definitely give the place another chance.