posted by: jennifer
thursday night my husband and i were able to go out on a real date....that is we left the house without the kids in tow, and were served dinner at a nice restaurant.
this is saying something, as our typical date night of late is eating after the kids are down... or at least after the youngest is asleep. if we waited until the oldest was asleep, well it would be new york late. i know that the cool people of the world eat dinner at 10:00, but really.
anyway, our hot date usually involves one of us going and getting takeout, and then watching a couple of shows on netflix as we eat our phil's bbq or greek chicken.
the other night, there was not an episode of weeds to be seen (yeah, we are a little behind on the shows we watch) and dinner did not come in a styrofoam clamshell. we were celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary, and we were going to mix it up dagnabit!
we arrived at heat bar + kitchen about 45 minutes prior to our reservation.... and happily, a happy hour was going on. we started talking to a gentleman sitting next to us at the bar, had a nice conversation, and then said goodbye when our table was ready. stay with me, there is a point this tidbit. (honestly.... it will come back around)
we had a great dinner... had the best seat in the house, i made sure i mentioned when i was making the reservations that it was our anniversary.... (read: free dessert and more leverage for a good table) during the course of my dinner however, i bit on a piece of plastic that had made it into my food... in something that had been pureed... i think it might have been cauliflower, or maybe turnips, i am not really sure, something white and creamy... whatever it was it was delicious. (and just to be clear i do know what my dish was... duck breast and farro.... i just don't know what it was resting on) and i didn't even want to stop eating after i discovered the plastic bit. but my ever responsible husband thought we should tell the server as i may not be the only person to get it in my food. the server was extremely concerned and apologetic. she had another plate made. and it was good... but in during the last couple of bites, yep, another bit of plastic.
at this point i thought she was going to think i was planting things into the dish to get a free meal. and it brought me back to 15 plus years ago.....
we were at a fancy restaurant in coronado, peohe's, with my husbands dad and his wife. this was back in the day when we could not afford to go to such an establishment if we had to pay for our meal... or maybe we just didn't have the credit we have now, hmmmm. regardless. during the course of my dinner i had a fly in my ice cube, i kid you not. and i had a big ass rubber band in my salad. i was informed the rubber band was probably from a lobster claw.... they put them over the claws so they don't amputate part of the chef's finger when they are being lowered into their jacuzzi tub of cooking water.... or something along those lines. i swear that they thought i had a bag of tricks i was reaching into to try to get a free meal. but come on, i already was getting a free meal by way of my in-laws. oh well. to be young and discriminated against.
back to more recent days.
when we got the bill they had taken off my meal, and the dessert was free (snap!) but the bill was still way to low. i mean we had ordered a bottle of wine... and the bill was $54.00. i realized they hadn't transferred our bar tab. i was determined not to seem like we were cheats trying to get a cheap dinner, and so i called it to the servers attention, as my husband was practically kicking me under the table let it slide... $54 dollars... and you want to make it $90... not really, but kind of. she checked into it, and the guy at the bar had taken care of our bar tab for us. now you see, if i hadn't said anything we would have thought we had gotten away with something and not known about an act of kindness bestowed upon us. and it got me to thinking about money and honesty and how it is kind a funny thing for me.
i love to find money on the ground, and when i do i kind of look around to see if someone may have dropped it, but it doesn't take long before it is in my pocket. and i am sure that when i was a kid i wouldn't have even looked around before i pocketed it. but i witnessed a 6th grader a few months ago find a $100 bill on the ground at school, and hand it over to the first teacher she saw. i have no idea why someone would have a $100 at school (dear god, not for some drug deal i hope.... great something else to worry about), but i hate to say that when i was in 6th grade, i don't know if i would have turned it in. i hope i would have but i don't know.
and i used to get so upset when my sister or husband would sample the bulk brach's candy at the grocery store. i thought i would end up in jail or something. maybe it is just guilt from my days of petty shoplifting.
like the time i really, really wanted my mom to buy rainbow mini marshmallows. she said no. so i, oh so sneakily, went to put them back, and on the way tore open the bag to grab a handful. at the same time a store employee came down the aisle. i dropped the handful down the front of the brown corduroy overalls i was wearing, and as i walked, they went down the leg and i left a rainbow trail behind me.
or the time i stole a few random adhesive address numbers from fullerton hardware. i got them home, and hid them under the carpet in the living room of my doll house. there they stayed, while i sweated bullets every time my mom came into my room sure she was going to lift the blue carpet and discover them. i finally threw them away.
but i can't let store errors go unnoticed. and have actually annoyed an employee who really doesn't care about the $1.50 item that i forgot to put on the conveyor belt... just take it, i don't care... the line is 10 people deep...nope i insist on them ringing it up on a different bill. this has only happened with male checkers... they tend to be less concerned with these matters it seems.
and on our summer road trip, i ordered a margarita. i have recently become an margarita connoisseur... this after a long hiatus from them due to a bad night of tequila shots and red wine. i couldn't stomach the smell of tequila for about 15 years or so. i can now. and a good margarita is a good thing. a bad margarita, not so much. anyway, i ordered a bad margarita. after one sip i decided i would rather have a beer. so i flagged down our waiter and told him i didn't like the margarita, and could i please have a negro modelo instead... i finished with "i will pay for the margarita though"(because i felt bad?!?) well, after a graceful display of squeezing the lime into the beer bottle, covering the bottle opening with my thumb and turning it upside down... only to have the beer spray all over me, the table, and perhaps the ceiling... the bill came with both the beer and the nasty ass margarita charged. and obviously it is still festering.
why?
well you know what? as i reflect on what is just wrote, i just shot my theory out of the water. my original post was going to be why do i not worry about money honesty some of the time, and other times it is great to get away with something. but i just realized that i must be maturing. i think i am pretty honest these days. huh. and as long as you make it right, and don't charge me for your sub par margarita from a plastic jug from smart and final that i didn't even drink, i am good. i will be honest with you, but i would appreciate it if you were fair with me.
and by the way, i no longer even like marshmallows. or adhesive address numbers. or brach's bulk candy...... except the butterscotch ones. only if they are already paid for please and thank you.
cheers!
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