The Weird and the Wonderful # 1

Whatever it is that gets us servers down, you will rarely hear us moan that we are bored. With every table being so very different, there is always fun to be had.

Take the Friday night just gone. I had a table of rather old, yet springy, couples on table 55. Well spoken and all in a very good mood. They have come out to be well fed and humoured, my favourite kind of table. I was charming, and so were they, they enjoyed their food, and I enjoyed serving them.

Nearing the end of their meal, one of the old men, a writer, I was told, asked me my name. I’ve noticed that slightly older, distinguished men simply must know the name of their server once any sort of rapport is established.

They think it rude not to know and call you by your name once they like you enough.

You spend the rest of the evening feeling like you are about to be told off whenever you hear yourself being asked by name.

Anyway, my actual name is rather unusual yet famous, for various reasons. In this case, as it does for men of a certain age – in fact – of any age, it inspires a rather all-knowing titillated sigh. I’m 22 years old, and it’s weird.

The women then ask me to guess what all the men do for a living. I was essentially being asked by four women to flirt with their husbands. I then have one of the men looking intently into my eyes explaining ‘I’m a gynaecologist, any problems – down there – come to me. I’m the man to speak to’.

The entire situation was made somewhat more – interesting, shall we say, by this man’s hand gesture, which is impossible to describe, as he kept telling me that he was a gynaecologist, and using my name in every sentence. His wife told me he was a farmer, and no one looked at all embarrassed by this exchange, apart from me, apparently.

The imagination of us under-stimulated waiters got the better of us. I spent the next half an hour dragging a certain waitress back from going over and explaining her lady problems to him.

I am now convinced that table 55 were geriatric swingers priming themselves for a good time! An unappetizing picture, perhaps, but a very amusing one nonetheless.