Saturday, September 25, 2010

Waiter Boy

For the record, before I begin, I want to say that I am breaking out the reserves on this one. This happened in the fall of my sophomore year at UD—not recently sorry. But I feel like I must tell this story.

Once upon a time, my foster brother married this girl that my family didn’t know very well- like at all. This girl had a daughter. A nice girl, decently well behaved but at that age that I find annoying. So here my family and I are trying to adjust to the fact that I now have a new niece who isn’t a baby but a 7 year old. It was a little awkward at first, not gonna lie. I do think that over time though, we’ve adjusted nicely and love her to death. But yea… so we knew about her when they got married and life was fine.

Then, one day my dad drives me back to school after spending a weekend at home. We stop at this restaurant, a nice one that old people like in Cecil County called Wesley’s. They serve very good dinners and I was excited for seafood- until we are seated and the waiter comes out.

This guy must have been mid-to-late twenties- maybe the age of my brother or a little older. As he hands us the menus and asks what we want to drink, he stares at me very oddly. In fact, I was quite uncomfortable. And then he left and brings us our drinks and we order.

Of course, my father would order the salad bar and walk away from me leaving me all by myself at the table. As soon as my dad walks over to get his food, the waiter (his name was Blake) is magically by my side kneeling down next to me to talk to me. He asked me if we had ever met before. When I said ‘nope’ he said, ‘Hmmm… I feel like I have met you before. School maybe? Do you come here a lot??’ ‘Nope.’ ‘That’s odd. Oh well.’ And then he walks away because my father was done filling his plate and was coming back to the table. My father of course was completely oblivious to this whole interaction.

Through dinner, Blake STILL kept looking at me funny. As I’m distracted by this awkward waiter (who wasn’t very attractive and kinda balding at a young age), I am informed by my father that not only do I have another step-niece that my new sister-in-law had (before she married my foster brother) BUT apparently there is another step-niece MY OWN AGE!! Needless to say, that was a bomb dropped on me and it took me off-guard and took me a very long time to comprehend and accept this fact. I was very disheveled.

As we get up to leave, I’m still processing how crazy my family is so of course I would have trouble getting my scarf and jacket on because I just learned I had a niece that was my age. My dad wasn’t paying any attention to me (bless his heart, he’s an old man engineer) and started walking out the door leaving me behind in the dining room. All of a sudden, good ‘ole Blake was by my side, hands me a card and says, ‘If you ever want to get together or give me a call, here’s my number.’

Greatttt. I WOULD have a waiter give me his number when I’m eating dinner with my 66 year old FATHER! To all you guys out there: DO NOT DO THAT! If he had turned around then who knows what type of situation would have occurred and how much harassment I would have gotten from my family for the rest of my life.

Also on my mind: all I said was, ‘Thank you’ as meekly as I could and sprinted out of there. I need more advice on how to reject guys or have fun, witty comments. (Maybe I should buy that book The Art of Rejection, bahaha!) My fun, witty comments are only ever thought of for other people’s situations or after the fact. So if any of you girls out there have good comebacks to when awkward guys hand you their number, I’d love to hear them.

Guys- let’s recap because you all always need help. Things to consider:

1-Don’t tell a girl you might have met her but can’t figure it out. It is insulting to the girl if you have met her and you don’t remember her and if you haven’t met her, now that’s just awkward if you can’t play it down (and this guy couldn’t). Or at least be cool about it and don’t stare at a girl the entire time she’s eating with her father.
2- Don’t give a girl your number when she’s eating with her father. That’s just weird.
3- When you work at a restaurant that serves the older generation, look at my face. I know that it is not common when young people don’t go to the bar but to the dining room, but seriously, that’s gross. You serve my grandparents and parents too! I want respect!

That’s all I got. Hopefully this story will tide you over until my next awkward encounter. Otherwise I may have to go back to my old stories again and pick out a good one.

PS- Apparently people didn't realize that coupon boy (last blog entry) was Asian. I'm also told that his race makes the story all that more amusing. Not sure how I feel about that.