Ripped off and pissed off
I may not have mentioned this before, but Swedish Girl has a penchant for cheap eats. Don’t get me wrong, she loves fine dining, but she’s strangely fond of dives like IHOP. I’ve tried to put my foot down several times, but we keep finding ourselves at IHOP. The one in my old neighborhood is filled with thugs, punks, crying babies, angry waitresses, annoyed patrons, and after sitting in maple syrup for the last time, I think I’m safe from ever having to go back there. But that only means more trips to Bickford’s! Yeah for me. While in my old neighborhood yesterday, Swedish Girl had a hankering for breakfast and we found ourselves in a marginally more civilized version of IHOP.
We walked in to find the place empty, save for one table of diners, so I thought we were in good shape. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The teenage waitress, Marie, was a nightmare. From the opening bell, we were in for trouble. The glass of water she brought Swedish Girl had some black specks in it. Strike 1. I encouraged Swedish Girl to ask for another glass. Afterall, why put up with that nonsense, right? Next, she brought my sandwich without the fries that come with it. Strike 2. It took me 10 minutes to get that rectified. Then, the cranberry sauce (Cool Jesus can’t live without cranberry sauce, soy sauce, and garlic powder) was left off my hot turkey sandwich. Strike 3. That was a quick fix, but her spit might have been consealed within. Once all this was taken care of, I had to ask for my raspberry iced tea that I had ordered 25 minutes earlier. Strike 4. With each request, this girl was getting more and more exasperated. And that’s putting it kindly. Her short “okay” retorts were sufficiently vicious. “Can I get anything else for you?” No, Marie, you’ve done quite enough already.
I won’t really call this strike 5, but Marie put so much whipped cream on Swedish Girl’s strawberry pancakes, that one would have thought that Swedish Girl requested extra, extra, super duper, keep it coming whipped cream. I asked her to scoop all the excess right onto the table so Marie would have to clean it up, but she wouldn’t do it. Eventually, we finished our food, Marie’s spit and all, and got the check. By my calculations, lovely Marie overcharged us by over $5. Strike 5. Taking my life into my hands, I brought this to Marie’s attention and asked her to double-check it for me. My stupid error was to also leave the money on the table, which she grabbed, returned with our “change,” and told me she was right all along. I should have pressed further, but I backed down. I regret it still. We should have left no tip or a teeny tiny tip, since she already pocketed a sweet tip by overcharging us, but I broke down and left a borderline standard tip (a shade less than 15%, but if you factor in what she stole from us, she made out with over 40%).
We couldn’t approach the manager, because he looked to be no more than a couple of years older than Marie, in addition to looking pretty chummy with her. We knew he’d side with her. I regret not leaving a pocket change tip, but I had the opening sequence from Reservoir Dogs racing through my head, not to mention The Incident. Cool Jesus has zero luck with waitresses. Thanks for letting me rant. I’m off to Arbie’s!
