Hotter.

Through the course of my mucho double shiftage this past week, I ended up working some lunch waitshifts – something I pretty much never do. The lunch crowd is a different breed than the dinner crowd in many ways and the lunch regulars are in an alien class all their own. Those amongst our servers who work lunches regularly have all cataloged the various peculiarities of these regulars and are able to administer individualized service to them sans verbalized requests. Ironically, my four-year tenure at the restaurant was invisible to these lunch regulars who have never seen me before and, on more than one occasion, I was asked “are you new here?”

The three little biddies on table 14 didn’t bother asking if I was a newbie and my fellow lunch workers, Drew (who infamously dodged the butter bitch) and Sherry, who sat them there, knew that these wrinkly, diamond-deckered women were not exactly low-maintenance – they just didn’t bother to tell me so.

Wrong-Shade-of-Lipstick and Mini-Beehive arrived before WAY-Too-Tan, but didn’t want anything but water while they waited for their friend to arrive. A few minutes after WAY-Too-Tan arrived, I stopped by the table to see if she would like a beverage.

“She just got here! Give her a chance to look at the menu!” Wrong-Shade-of-Lipstick and Mini-Beehive ordered, almost in unison.

I told them that this was no problem and that I’d check back in a few minutes. Later, while I was inputting their order of three identical appetizers and one Caesar salad to share, I learned from Drew that this is the same thing they order every time.

Although I have excellent balance and strong arms, I can only carry three large-sized plates at a time. I’d asked the women if they wanted their salad to be served first and they said no, that they wanted it all at the same time. So I deliberately refrained from placing the salad first, so they wouldn’t think that I was disregarding their wish to have all the food simultaneously. As I’m placing an appetizer plate before each one of them, Wrong-Shade-of-Lipstick pipes up, “you forgot our salad.”

“Actually, ladies, I’ll be right back with your salad – I can only carry three plates at a time.”

They said nothing and the look on Mini-Beehive’s face told me that they may or may not have believed that I really didn’t forget about their salad. I returned immediately with a solitary Caesar salad, as well as additional plates and freshly ground pepper. At this point, Mini-Beehive requests a cup of coffee black and asks me to microwave it for 15 seconds so it’ll be hot enough. As this is a frequent request of several of our elderly regulars, I often pre-heat the mug with boiling hot water before pouring the coffee in and decide that I will do this for Mini-Beehive instead of subjecting her coffee to the myriad other flavors roaming around the microwave. All of my other customers have been content with the pre-heated mugs. But not Mini-Beehive. She consumes about one-third of the coffee in the mug and when I offered a refill, she asked that I take her existing coffee and microwave it for another 15 seconds. When Drew and Sherry see me at the microwave, they laugh and remark that they forgot to warn me about her.

“Thanks guys,” I tell them, as they continue chuckling at me.

“At least they’re decent tippers,” Drew advises.

I deposit the freshly nuked coffee in front of Mini-Beehive. A minute later, I return to ensure that her coffee temperature is to her liking.

“It’s okay,” she tells me. I don’t know if that means that it’s okay, meaning just right, or if she means that it’s not what she wants and is tired of me trying to get it right and failing miserably. My guess is that it’s the latter, but also figure that if she wanted me to do something about it, she’d say so. I decide to just leave it at that. As I’m walking away from the table, I hear Wrong-Shade-of-Lipstick say to Mini-Beehive, “is your coffee okay?”

“No, it’s not hot enough,” Mini-Beehive confides to her cronies. I make an about-face and return to the table.

“Would you like me to re-warm your coffee?”

“She heard you!” Wrong-Shade-of-Lipstick proclaims, clearly mortified.

Mini-Beehive allows me to take her coffee away for another 15 second treatment and I return moments later with a cup that is steaming so much, you’d think it was on fire.

When I check back a moment later, Mini-Beehive frowns at me and tells me that her coffee is fine. Again, as I’m walking away from the table, I get the real scoop.

“It’s too hot now,” Mini-Beehive complains.

“Send it back,” WAY-Too-Tan advises.

I decide not to return to the table and hope that the natural cooling-off process will suffice for Mini-Beehive and her coffee. After clearing away all of their plates, I return with their bill.

WAY-Too-Tan attempts to hand me her credit card, but Wrong-Shade-of-Lipstick reaches across the table with an interception. She slaps WAY-Too-Tan’s card out of my hand and tries to give me her credit card instead. Mini-Beehive speaks up, “no, I’m paying…take my card.”

It should go without saying that I really hate it when people fight over the check – particularly when it involves physical contact with my hands (which have been slapped and grabbed before under similar circumstances). If you genuinely want to buy someone’s meal, do it without a production: slip your credit card to your waiter when you have excused yourself from the table to go to the loo (this is what the people with class do). People who make a show of picking up the tab and who grab me/the bill/the other person’s credit card do not impress anyone – they create a situation that is uncomfortable and embarrassing for all. If you don’t see me wearing a shirt with black and white vertical stripes, then it is not part of my job to referee disputes over the bill and I have no grounds on which to determine whose credit card I should accept. A couple of times, I thought I had the perfect solution of taking all of the cards being offered to me and splitting the check, but nobody was happy when I did this – especially me when they left me crappy tips for not doing it the way they wanted.