well, as many of you already know, last sunday night my family and i went to angus barn to celebrate my 30th birthday.
angus barn at christmas is quite a sight to see. it is beautifully decorated. a huge tree. wreaths and ribbon everywhere. even real live elves! in fact, i have some lovely pictures to share. ohhh wait, no, no, i don't. because out of the six of us that were at dinner, no one brought a camera. brilliant.
anyway, dinner was great. as to be expected from this high class restaurant. we had a very pleasant waiter. however, things just didn't seem to go his way that night. i must preface this with, sometimes my family can be difficult to please when it comes to restaurant service. i suppose we feel well versed in eating out and perhaps that leads to high expectations. plus we know what we want. and if you can't get it, we are going to let you know how we feel about that.
soooo...we sit down and the waiter, ben, takes our drink orders and also promises crackers and cheese. we were starving and couldn't wait for crackers and cheese. however, he returns with a relish tray. pickles and peppers. because they were out of crackers and cheese. i was ok with it. at least he brought back something, right? he returns again with cheese....no crackers. anyway....it took awhile for the crackers and cheese. upon which he claims "this almost never happens...."
after he gets our dinner orders he promises bread. which he delivers on. however, he had to individually give each person their bread. this became a problem when he got to stephen. now, i didn't see this, but he apparently threw stephen's bread at him, in some fashion. i am sure it just slipped from his utensil. but still.
once we are eating dinner, mom is enjoying her crab claws (it was either crab or lobster, i can't remember), and she really wants one of those little forks to scrap the meat out of the claw. so, dad asks ben to bring her one. he brings the fork and claims it is the "last fork in the restaurant". mom thought it was a weird comment. dad was miffed that ben gave her the fork that he asked for.
on the bright side, i introduced my mom to merlot. yummmm and yes! she loved it so much that she wanted to buy a bottle to bring home. so after we were all done with dinner. mom ordered a to-go bottle, dad asked for the to-go birthday cake (since that is the reason we were there after all), and gave ben his credit card to get our check.
well, here is when it gets real interesting. dear ol' ben is gone for a long time. a really long time. we are thinking, "how long does it take get wine and cake?" so we are wondering what went wrong?
earlier in the evening we had discussed a time when mom and dad had been to the angus barn with our aunt and the service was so slow that they received their dinner for free. and keith told us a story about the angus barn that he saw on the news of how a lady put a fly in her soup (to see what would happen), then she told the waiter about the fly...thus she got her meal for free and a limo ride home.
so, we started to wonder if this storytelling of previous negative experiences was starting to rub off on our night...hmmm.
alas! ben comes back some what frantically with wine and no cake. well, he had a dessert. because they ran out of birthday cake. and that "almost never happens." i was really upset because i really like the birthday cake they have there. however, the next day i became un-upset when i tasted the most delicious chocolate pie (other than my mother's...of course) i have ever had.
anyway, so ben drops off the cake and wine. and says that he will return with the bill. again, he is gone for a very long time......
keith joked that they lost the credit card. no one found this funny nor wanted to believe him. moments later the gayest manager ever came to our table and informed us that our credit card was missing. and that that "almost never happens".
you've got to be kidding me. he takes our name and number. says they will look everywhere until they find it. the kicker, he wanted us to sign our bill before we left.
now, i have no problem paying for what we (or my parents) owed him. but they caused us to stay at least an extra half-hour (at this point). they should have at least indicated that they were going to comp some of the bill. for losing the credit card and wasting our time. i mean, this wasn't the applebee's we were at.
so the manager runs off. he is gone for another 15 minutes. we decide, enough is enough. they have our number, they can call us. so, we start to walk out when some other manager/owner lady walks up with a bag FILLED with goodies. she apologizes, again. tells us more of the same nonsense we've already heard. then the gay manager comes up, with no bill in hand. again, they claim they will look for the long-lost-card.
we all head home to my parents house. what do you know...they called! but, no card. however, dinner is on them. well, of course, how can the charge us now? we aren't there and they don't have our credit card.
a very expensive meal plus a goodie bag, all for free. too bad the credit card was lost.
after some real birthday cake, keith and i head home. on our way, my phone rings. i assume that i left something at my parents. it was mom calling to let us know that the 'barn just called to say that they found the card! phew.
it turns out our waiter had gotten so frantic with directions, bill, credit card, wine and cake. that he couldn't keep up with everything. he was in the kitchen getting my birthday cake and apparently he set the credit card down on a shelf while he was getting the cake. once he boxed up the cake, he ran out of the kitchen. leaving the poor credit card behind. which in turn, started the great credit card search.
we just hope he didn't lose his job over this.
it was an eventful night to say the least. i've said it before and i'll say it again "you can't make this shit up."
and keith and i would like to say "you're welcome" to everyone. we are the reason this stuff happened. we bring the crazy :)
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