The manager sighed and showed her how to simply deduct a dollar. From the sigh, it was obvious he did
this quite often – probably way too often from his point of view. I've got news for him – it's getting worse.I offer as proof this example of "dinner mayhem" – occurring when I took my kids to a local
restaurant for dinner. I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich.
Now, a grilled cheese sandwich isn't a complicated dish. It's only has three ingredients: butter, bread and cheese. And it's easy to put one together. You
butter the bread and put it butter-side down on the grill, toss on a piece of cheese and another slice of bread, butter-side up, then turn it and brown it on both sides. Not exactly rocket fuel science.
The sandwich I
received bore no resemblance to any grilled cheese sandwich I'd ever seen. It consisted of a piece of cheese between two pieces of white bread. No butter. No grilling. It was slightly warm, though.
So I went up to the counter and handed it to the young lady working there.
"I ordered a grilled-cheese sandwich and this is what I received," I said, and paused expectantly.
She looked at the sandwich,
then looked back up at me, puzzlement crawling her features. "And?"
"It's not brown," I said. She rolled her eyes, took the sandwich and turned to a young man who was also behind the counter.
"She wants this toasted," she said in a tone of voice that indicated I'd just asked her to serve it while swinging upside down from a trapeze. But the young fellow – bless him – he understood where I was
coming from.
"It's supposed to be toasted," he said. "It's a grilled cheese."
Sighing, she took it back to the kitchen and said she'd bring me the new one when the cook was finished with it.
I
waited a few minutes, then she emerged from behind the counter with my grilled cheese in hand. Or, at least, her version of one: two slices of toast with a cold piece of cheese in the center. She obviously was the
literal sort.
I ate it and was grateful for one thing – that I didn't ask for "SOS." As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.
