Friday Fun With Coffee. #1 Odd Days.

Good morning and Happy Friday to all of you! It is a beautiful, partially sunny morning here. The trees still look beautiful with their frosty white branches. This frostiness is lasting a long time, which is fine, it looks beautiful out there. Though I am happy to be inside looking out right how. Still, it is quite mild with a temperature of 9F (-13C). There has not been much bird activity yet this morning, and that is certainly odd. Several goldfinches were here yesterday.

But just in the trees, they did not come down to the feeders. There were a lot of evening grosbeaks here yesterday as well, for about 5 minutes, then they left and never returned. There were also a couple pine grosbeaks here yesterday, but they also stayed in the trees, and they left with the evening grosbeaks. Very odd winter indeed.

Kind of reminds me of an odd restaurant I stopped at one time years ago. I went to this small town bright and early just for something to do that day. It had several restaurants, but only one that was open early. That is fine, it looked nice, and it overlooked a nice lake. In I went. The sign said to seat yourself. So I did. A waiter came over. “You are supposed to wait to be seated,” he said. “The sign said to seat yourself,” I told him. He went to check and turned the sign around.

“You are supposed to wait to be seated,” he repeated. There must be an echo in here. “The sign said to seat yourself,” I said again. I figured it must be polite to repeat yourself at this place. He just looked at me. “Do you want something?” he asked. That is usually why someone comes into a restaurant. I did not say that however. The waiter should say something like, “what may I get for you”. Oh well.

“I would like some coffee and a menu,” I said. This should be interesting, I thought to myself. He brings the coffee and menu. Hey, not bad. Things are improving. It took a while for him to return however, and there was only one other person in there at the time. He comes back. I give him my order and ask for a refill of my coffee.

“Refills are only free with a meal,” he said. “I just ordered my meal,” I said. “But you ordered the coffee before,” he said. “I just ordered my meal and it said the coffee is included,” I reminded him. “But you ordered your coffee before,” he said again. This guy is going to lose his tip soon. “Then forget the refill, I will just take the free coffee that comes with the meal,” I said.

He thought for a moment, then left. He comes back with more coffee. “The boss said you can have free refills since you ordered a meal,” he said and left again. He has not smiled once yet. He brought my breakfast. I had ordered whole wheat toast. He brought me rye toast. “I ordered whole wheat toast,” I said. “We do not have any whole wheat,” he said. “I do not want rye toast, I will take white instead,” I said.

“I am sorry, you cannot change your order after we bring your food,” he said. “I did not change my order, you did,” I reminded him. He just looked. “Bring me some white toast,” I said politely. He came back with my white toast. “I will have to charge you extra for the toast,” he said. “May I have that?” I asked, and he handed me the small plate with the toast.

I took the toast off and put it on my plate, and put the rye toast on the small plate. “Would you mind holding this plate?” I asked politely. He took the plate. “I did not order that toast, it must be for someone else,” I said, “and I am not paying for someone else’s order.” He just looked at the toast, then walked away. He comes back. “Where is my juice?” I asked.

“Sorry, we have no juice today,” he said, “but I will have to charge you for it anyway since it comes with the meal.” He walked away. I stared. He brought me the bill and left. He did charge me for the juice. I paid and said, “since you charged me for juice I didn’t get, I subtracted your tip from the total,” I said and left. He was just staring. Odd things happen to me, is what I am trying to say. Sigh. Have a great day everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.