the problem with "the customer is always right" is that the customer is generally a friggin' idiot

Nuts to the guys who can't order wings competently; I have a new arch nemesis. Idiot mothers. Specifically, the idiot mother who brought her 12 year old and his four sidekicks for a birthday dinner today. She didn't have her glasses, so she made me read sections of the menu out loud, and then tried to repeat them to her wards, who were too busy putting pepper in each others' drinks to pay even the tiniest bit of attention. The nicest kid was the Asian one, whose order was dispensed with quickly--except for the fact that the idiot woman asked him three times what his order was so she could tell me. Three times after he'd told me and I'd already written it down. Then, she asks me if we have hot dogs. No, I said. Sausages? NO, I said. It seriously took me ten minutes to take six food orders. I ended up deciding what some of them would eat mostly on my own. At the end of that particular ordeal I was an entirely different human than the perky, optimistic young lass who'd started work only fifteen minutes before. I would go so far as to say that I was a shambling wreck. But then I actually had to serve them their food, which was delightful, as the kids had occupied their time by emptying the ketchup and salt into a cup of iced tea. "There's something wrong with my drink, can I get a refund?" they shouted joyfully at me as I deposited their food. By the time they'd left, the cup had celery and chicken wings floating in it, and they'd kept demanding their "refund" every time I walked by.

Then I had to bring out the birthday cake she'd brought and sing. I really wasn't going to sing, but Maria helped me bring the plates out, and she started, so I had to join in. And then the little angels decided not to eat the cake, but instead to run around the restaurant. So we had to pack the cake back up and get the bill, which came to $100.26. The woman hunts me down and, with the air of conveying a favour, says, "Here. One hundred and five dollars and twenty-six cents!" I thank her civilly, thinking that I would give HER ten dollars to leave RIGHT NOW. But three of the kids have gone missing, so she and the other two roam the restaurant for ten minutes, until she thinks to ask someone about them, which is when Jamie tells her that three kids went tearing off into the parking lot a while ago.

And then I have to clean the table and refill the salt and sugar shakers.

So I was not in the most tolerant of moods when a bunch of guys came in later, bypassed the hostess stand, and started hauling tables together. "Can I HELP you?" I ask, appalled. Does no one understand how restaurants WORK anymore? "We need two tables, so we're just going to move these ones." I grit my teeth and help them. They chose the worst possible place for their little party, so I made a point of hip-checking their chairs everytime I went by, and greeting their feeble attempts at flirting with stony-faced indifference and cold politeness. Their leader fully planned to make me stand there while they nattered amongst themselves about what to order, so I just walked away. I pretty much hate corona night with a passion.