didn't your mother teach you any manners?

it's snowing unmercifully outside, and since i'm not going to step foot into the outdoors until i absolutely have to, i thought that i would write a little piece on a particular subject that has been getting my goat lately. (getting my goat? is there a better phrase that i'm grasping at? i don't talk like that...i'm not an 80 year old appalachian woman.) anyhow, i've recently decided to be a little more confessional in this blog since i'm sure the only people who read it, if any, are my friends, so they will indulge me for putting this kind of junk out there in the ether, or wherever it is that electronic ideas end up.

so.

when i was young, i thought that adulthood was this slick and intricately choreographed dance that people would just naturally know how to participate in. once you passed a certain age threshold, you just KNEW WHAT TO DO. and somewhere in all of this intrinsic knowledge lay the ability to go out in public (say, to a restaurant) and be able to conduct yourself with civility and decorum. (sure, i wasn't using these words as a child in prospecting my adulthood, but i really think i had the basic gist of it.) as i mentioned in an earlier post, i've been serving for years now, and i've seen some bizarre, confusing, hilarious, and terribly offensive things. most of the time, i'm not the target of any of this lame behavior, but in this past week i've had two incidences that take the cake. i ask this question: when did it ever become ok for people to forcefully grab the arms of their server? what part of going out to eat at a nice restaurant makes anyone think that they are renting an indentured servant for the night? what happened to the dignified and gracious manners that our parents tried to instill in us? essentially, why are diners so freaking crazy?

i'm asking this because i have been grabbed by the arm on two separate occasions by women this week at work. the first incident was with an overly aggressive woman who wanted me to take a photo of her family. (aside note: your servers aren't party paparazzi...it's super-annoying when people want you take their picture, especially when it's busy. i don't really mind doing it when the group is respectful and gracious, but usually it's a drag.) this woman had already demonstrated herself as being demanding and a little unpredictable, and she seemed incapable of politely asking for anything she wanted. rather, she would just kind of whine like a child who was on the verge of a tantrum. i had more competent manners when i was in grade school! now, i'm not passing total judgement on these kind of people...i'm sure they are great in their own respects, and they love and have people who love them, but it's almost like they go into panic mode when they dine out and their distinct awkwardness forces things to come out of their mouths that maybe they never intended. i digress. so as she hands me her digital camera, she grabs my arm and starts pulling me to the side of the table. i mean, pulling...like a frustrated dog own pulling their resisting pit bull away from the tasty mound of trash that they are nosing through. i was instantly so stunned by her actions that i started leaning away from her and tried to pull my arm free, but her grip was ironclad. i had the flash of an instinct to rip my arm away from her, but thank god i didn't or we could have had a problem. more idiocy followed with some really ignorant and rude remarks she made regarding the fact that i told her i was actually a photographer and could handle this little chore, but i won't get into that. the real issue that frustrates me is that she felt like she could grab me... i don't know if it's motivated out of a false sense of entitlement, or if she thinks we are conspirators, or if she just thought i was a blithering idiot.

and as luck would have it, i waited on a table headed by a gregarious and gravel voiced matron who immediately launched into grilling me about a football score for a game that was happening that night. i don't know what people think that chefs and servers do back in the kitchen of a monumentally busy and classy restaurant, but i'll tell you it isn't watching tv or listening to the radio. i have pretty much zero time to do anything but run my ass off. when i told her i didn't know the score, she just exploded into chiding me about sports and ended her tirade by GRABBING MY ARM. hey grandma! i'm not your snot-nosed little niece who you can manhandle and fling about like a rag doll. i'm actually a 6 foot tall woman who is 2 feet away from a pile of polished steak knives!! all jokes about violence aside, the whole experience was so exaggerated that i started looking at the rest of the table in confusion with a silent plea in my eyes: is this for real? will someone please rescue me? i don't consider myself to be a diminutive person, and i'm trying to figure out why people have been groping me so freely. maybe they just don't know how to behave, and by treating me like i'm beneath them equalizes the stress of eating out. i don't know. i'm many things: teacher, server, artist, lame party paparazzi....but i'm no psychologist.

i'll be back in the saddle tonight, and who knows what kind of crazy interaction i might have with the patrons. as much as i and my fellow servers gripe about these kinds of issues, it's usually entertaining to watch people just make total goofs of themselves. but i'm still hoping for the day when people remember that their server isn't a moronic auto bot, but a cultured and nuanced person with an outside life who doesn't deserve to be grabbed like a misbehaving child.