say when

It's getting late and I'm tired. My brain doesn't want to slow down though. Hannah and I went out of town to register for our fall classes . I saved 20% and got free shipping by going. I was trying to decide if the 20% would cover the cost of gas but needed to go to Sam's Club anyway. It was kind of the old "two birds with one stone" concept. I let Hannah choose where to eat lunch. It was after 2:00 p.m. and neither of us had eaten. She chose Olive G.

I'm wondering if they have certain qualifications for their waiters. It seems we always get one with absolutely no sense of humor or one like today. First let me back up. Enter said restaurant to a very loud and boisterous greeter/decider of where we shall sit. She's honey-ing and sweetie-ing and enjoying herself immensely. Hannah kept giving me those looks which said she wanted to laugh but would be nice. I'm wondering what she's been drinking........the lady, not Hannah. She seats us at our table and then returns to the front to await her next hungry patron. Once they arrive she starts her scenario over again, much to her own delight.

Then our waiter comes offering us appetizers (for a small stipend of course) and taking our drink orders. Water and water, please. "My pleasure" he says. Everything was his pleasure. Each time he returned to our table and Hannah thanked him for something it pleasured him greatly. From taking our order, to bringing our water, to grating the cheese on our salad and then on our meal, and bringing the extra plate for the meal we shared, everything was his pleasure. At first I thought it rather quaint, but after the fifth or sixth time of him repeating the same phrase I began to wonder if it really did bring him so much pleasure to serve or if he just had a limited vocabulary.

You may remember the commercial where the waiter is grating cheese on some one's meal and tells them to say when. The pile of cheese grows and grows and they still haven't said when. Several years ago we were in the same restaurant chain and I was trying to be nice and make small talk with our waiter. He was much too dignified and rather obviously showed us he didn't care to talk. Stoic and staid describes him perfectly. While he was grating some cheese for our meal I remembered that commercial. I started laughing and tried to tell him why I was laughing. He kept a straight face and didn't crack a smile. That just made me laugh harder. He was much too restrained to succumb to my laughter.

I'm wondering if they have special training to teach them how to be so dignified, stern, and unapproachable. I bet if I ate there often enough I could coax a smile. Kind of like, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it."