More Parents of the Year (and other Dubious Honors)

And now for another Fucktarded Moment in Restauranting . . .

There I am on a Saturday afternoon, bartending.  In my restaurant, the building is divided into two halves, the dining room and the lounge/bar, like many casual dining establishments.  A wall, albeit one with windows, separates the two areas, which means that I necessarily have limited contact with the other side of the restaurant.  A middle-aged woman walks into the bar from the dining room.

CUSTOMER: "Did a little girl with pigtails come in here?  She wandered away from our table."

Wait, you're saying these need supervision?  Weird.

Seriously?  Not only did this woman utter these words with a straight face, she seemed almost as unembarrassed by the implications as she was unconcerned about the possible answer.  It was all I could do to keep from bursting into a fit of laughter.

ME: "Oh, yeah, she went off with some guy who was sitting in here.  That cool?  Ha, just kidding!  Seriously though, I didn't realize it was my turn to watch her.  She took off out the side-door, and since we're not allowed to restrain or verbally reprimand customers' kids, I figured there wasn't much I could do."

Sadly, that response occurred only in my mind.  One of my less-snarky coworkers happened to see the child in question enter the bathroom moments ago, and answered for me, fortunately.

Silly Casey, it's not that hard to get rid of a child.  (What, too soon?)

Meanwhile . . .

Some guy waltzes into the bar without pausing to see if anyone is going to greet him.  He's got his laptop in-hand, sunglasses and unbuttoned powder-puff-pink shirt on - clearly, he's too important to wait like a regular person.  He struts up to the bar rail, where I am posted, eagerly awaiting an interaction with just such a "guest."

HIM: "Hey, do you have outlets?"
ME: "Nope, sorry, our building is actually too old, so they didn't install them everywhere."
HIM: "No?  What about up here? (indicating the bar itself)
ME: "No, not really any that your cords would reach, because they're behind all the coolers and stuff."
HIM: "Oh."  (visibly discomfited)

At about this point, a woman of roughly the same age catches up to Pompous McPinkshirt.  Without asking me any further questions, he mutters something unintelligible to the woman, and they proceed to seat themselves.  Or, rather, they try to seat themselves.  With mounting agitation (on only the man's part, I might add), they go back and forth between three different tables in the same vicinity, spinning in circles and generally resembling nothing so much as guinea pigs cornered by a rambunctious terrier.  Either that, or one of those AI characters in a video game who glitches out and locks up the whole system by repeatedly running into a corner.

I am still trying to figure just what criteria, aside from a total lack of power-sources, they are using to decide between these tables in the Bar-muda Triangle when they leave in something of a flustered tizzy.  Really?  You can't enjoy your casual lunch with what appears to be your significant other on a Saturday afternoon because you cannot plug in your laptop?  For that matter, just how old is your oh-so-vital computer?  Because my puny netbook can run for well nigh four hours before the battery is totally drained.  Were you planning on an intense realtime MMPO gaming session that would suck your electrical stores dry in minutes without continuous current?  Last time I checked, PowerPoint isn't exactly a nuclear telemetry-running program, and, as far as I've heard, restaurants are primarily for eating at, not crafting and troubleshooting multimedia presentations.

Pictured: What this guy apparently thought he would be doing in my bar.

Maybe this is just me being overly-critical and kind of a dick, but I find people's technology fetish, and resultant inability to function without it, pretty damn amusing in cases like this.  Oh, and the restaurant actually does have one table with an outlet, but I don't like to publicize it.

Finally, a vicarious experience from another coworker of mine.

CUSTOMER: "How's your grilled cheese?"
MY THEORETICAL REPLY: "It's cheese between two pieces of bread.  Grilled."

This has been another Fucktarded Moment in Restauranting.

*NOTE: I am aware that I told certain individuals I would next be featuring a guide to women's fashion.  Rest assured, it's in the works.