Welcome, Ven a gozar!

I had a call to go to a lunch from a friend I have not seen in quite a while. Of course I said yes. We set a date and time, and met for a meal at a coffee shop. I had not seen him in quite a while and I was excited to catch up on old times, and find out what has happened since the last time we met.

When I arrived, my friend was already seated at a table waiting for me to show up. We did the usual hello’s people do who have not seen each other in a while. As soon as we sat back down my friend said the table was not in a spot he wanted, but was told that the table he wanted was in an zone where the waitress was too busy.

We sat chatting and a waitress walked up to take our order. I told her what I wanted, and my friend did the same. The first thing my friend said was the woman did not look like a very good waitress. She looked too preoccupied about something else, and did not seem to be as focused as she should have been on us, her customers.

The meal finally arrived, and we had to ask for silver wear so we could eat what we had ordered. Neither meal looked that great, but it was a coffee shop, and my expectations were not that high. I was not disappointed looking at my choices. My friend found pickles in his sandwich. He had asked for his sandwich to be made without pickles, and he made a point of it. He called the waitress over and told her what was wrong with his plate, and asked that his sandwich be remade without any pickles in it, not even the flavor from the juice.

We were close to finishing our meal when the waitress appeared and asked my friend who still had about two bites of his sandwich in his hand, if he was done? Of course he was not, but he said yes, and she took away his plate leaving him nowhere to set down his sandwich. Of course this brought about further commentary from my friend which had elevated up the level of flat out complaining about the poor service this place was providing to its customers.

When I had eaten the last bite of my sandwich the waitress showed up as I was still chewing and asked if I was done…I shook my head yes, and she took my plate and disappeared. This interrupted my friend’s conversation, and started another round of complaining about how bad the service was.

Eventually as we talked, sitting there with no plates, no drinks, and no bill, the waitress did a drive by and dropped the bill. My friend looked it over as I reached for my wallet and pronounced that this was the worst meal and service he had experienced in a long time. I agreed and tried to get the conversation back to us, but he was distracted one to many times, and was fuming about how bad everything was. What could I do but agree?

What stuck out in my mind about a cheap lunch with my friend was I was there to talk to him and catch up on what has changed since we last had met. My friend started out with that intention, but became upset over a cheap meal, that took his focus from us, to everything going on around us in the coffee shop.

I left feeling we missed out on a lot of good conversation, and I am sure once he cooled down sometime later he did too. I thought we met with mixed intentions, and that created a less than good get together. I went there to celebrate my friendship and catch up on what went by, and he allowed himself to be distracted by things that really did not matter. Yes the food was less than good. Yes the service was less than satisfactory. The main point is we were there to see each other, not rate the coffee shop’s food and service.

Comments (0) Feb 25 2008