Okay, we have some catching up to do...

We'll start off with The Regulars.

These people come into the restaurant about twice a week. They're very friendly, tip well and almost always have a decently funny joke to share. The Wife has a relatively complicated order, lots of no this, no that, extra this, light that going on...and on occasion, it gets messed up. Either by the server or the cooks. This week, it was my fault. When I brought the fixed item to them and apologized for my mistake, The Husband said, "I'm sure it wasn't really your fault. Those damned cooks can't speak a word of English. You should tell them the next time they mess up you'll call immigration. That'll get them to pay a little more attention." I dropped off their check right then and never went back to the table.

Next, we have Elderly Black Ladies.

The first lady asked for sweet tea. I told her, "I'm sorry, we don't have sweet tea, just regular iced tea, would you like that?" to which she replied, "Ooohhhh, child. I'm going to have to look to find something to drink." The second lady asked for sweet tea. I told her again, that we don't have sweet tea and asked if she'd like something else instead, to which she replied, "Well, if you don't have sweet tea, then I don't want anything." I offered her water and she said, "Child, what part of 'I don't want anything' did you miss?". I ignored it, and asked the third lady what she'd like to drink...yeah, she ordered Sweet Tea. I repeated myself for the third time, she ordered a root beer and the first lady ended up ordering one as well. When I came back to take their order both needed refills on their sodas because they'd given the second lady half of each of theirs so she'd have something to drink...I filled both of their sodas and told the second lady that I was going to have to charge her if she was going to have a soda. She clucked her tongue at me and rolled her eyes, "Child, do you what you got to do." Then the first lady tried to order fried chicken, I told her we don't have fried chicken. She ended up ordering lamb chops. After I was done taking the other two orders (which took nearly ten minutes in total, between telling them we don't have rolls or corn bread, I can't have the cooks take the breading off the fish and chips, we don't have asparagus, we don't serve grits after 11 am...etc) the first lady said, "Now don't tell me you don't have mint jelly to go with my lamb chops. I'll walk right out that door." "No, actually, we don't have mint jelly. Would you like me to get your coat?" All three of them laughed so hard, which was good. Everything else went fine...until after they'd left. On the table where each had been sitting was one quarter. Yes, folks, a seventy-five cent tip. Huzzah.

I did have more for you, but that last one was way longer than I expected, so I'll stop there.

Happy New Year.