Thursday, July 25, 2013

Oh Be Careful Little Mouth What You Say...

On Thursdays Dave does his south run down into Cleburne and is occasionally back up north in time for us to meet for a late lunch. Today was such a day. We met in Midlothian at Jimmy’s Pizza.

We were seated at a booth near the kitchen. In fact, the entrance to the kitchen was right behind us. The place was pretty empty, mostly because it was 1:30 in the afternoon and the lunch rush had already cleared out.

We ordered our pizza and unsweet iced tea. Dave and I both thought the iced tea tasted funny. It was very weak and overall tasted odd. Not a big deal, everyone makes their tea differently.

When the waitress came by the next time to ask us how everything was and tell us our pizza was on its way, we kindly asked her if we could have water (and a coke for Dave) instead. We were very polite, smiling, and non confrontational. It was really not a big deal.

She gave us a funny look so I explained by saying, “It tastes a little off, I think.” Also very politely. She took our glasses and went into the kitchen.

Once she was gone Dave said he’d heard her say, as she walked into the kitchen, “Well, that’s because I blew my nose in it.” in a very snotty (pun intended!) tone of voice.

I was astonished. We’d not been rude. We’d not been demanding. We’d not been angry. We simply asked for different drinks.  I told Dave that I thought perhaps we needed to leave as I was no longer comfortable eating here if our waitress was going  to say such things.

Obviously, she’d overheard us, just as we’d overheard her. Before we could get up and leave she came with our pizza. She set it down on the table and said, “I didn’t blow my nose in the tea. We’ve just had a lot of complaints about it today.” And she left.

Um, what? First of all, I do appreciate that she didn’t actually blow her nose in the tea. I didn’t think she really had, but her saying that does not negate the fact that she was rude and insulting to her patrons. And how do those two items go together anyway? She didn’t actually apologize for her snotty comment, nor did her second statement explain why she would say that.

We went ahead and ate our pizza, and she kept coming by and asking how everything was, like everything was normal. It was so odd.

I really want to like this place. I am all about supporting our local business, but this is the 3rd time we’ve been there and had astoundingly lousy service.

I learned two things today. One, watch what you say! If it’s something you would not want a certain person, or group of people to here, for goodness sake, JUST DON’T SAY IT!


And second. Jimmy’s Pizza in Midlothian is now dead to me. 

No comments: