Keystone Waitresses

Date: 10 Nov 2000 
 

A couple nights ago I was at a restaurant with a friend. This
restaurant has a sign at the entrance saying 'Please wait to be
seated". So we wait by the door, and Waitress 1 notices us right
away- it was pretty early in the evening, and they weren't very
busy yet. She sweeps her arm to indicate a wide swath of empty
tables and asks us to choose one. So we pick one against the wall.
This table hasn't been set up yet- no napkins or silverware, and
still some crumbs left over on the tabletop. So she tells us to
wait a minute and it would be set up.

Waitress 2 comes along and notices us at our bare table. She asks
us, in a confused voice, whether we've been served, which of
course we haven't. She points to the sign by the door and says,
"Because you're supposed to wait to be seated...", and then she
hastily adds "But that's OK!", and grabs a couple menus for us.
Since we already know what we want to order, we stop her from
leaving, and she takes our order and takes the menus back.

Waitress 1 goes by and notices that our table is still bare. "I
thought Amanda was going to serve you..." she says. Then she
gathers the cutlery, glasses of water, etc. for our table. Lastly,
she hands us menus, and she leaves too quickly for us to tell her
we don't need them.

A minute or so later, Waitress 2 is going by and notices us with
our menus. She double-takes, glancing from us to the slot where
the menus are kept. "Did you take your menus back? I could have
sworn I took them from you..." Then we tell her that another
waitress had given us menus. They must have straightened out the
table assignments then, because after that, there was no more
confusion.

Joel T.