Wednesday, July 9, 2008

There are a couple of reasons why I wanna work as a waitress despite the long working hours, hardwork and pathetic pay. One of them is due to my love for food. The other is because I get to meet interesting people, which sometimes can be amusing or irritating.

And many interesting people I meet.

This happens last week. Well, actually I dunno if I should classify him as interesting or just plain stupid. What happens was like this…

I was doing my usual duty as a waitress. So he called me to take his order. He inquired about the lunch specials (basically value-for-money lunch sets). It’s ok to inquire; many customers do that to ask for recommendations and to verify. But then he pointed to the first line on the menu which says “Chicken Katsu Curry” and the line after that which says “Rosu (Pork) Katsu Curry” and asked, “Umm, may I know what’s the difference between these two?”

I thought I heard him wrongly. So I asked him, “The difference between these two, sir?”

He said, “Yea, what’s the difference?”

I almost rolled my eyes. I mean, how difficult is it to decipher what those lines mean? Obviously one is chicken and the other is pork. It’s not like the menu is written fully in Japanese, you know.

I was so tempted to say, “One is chicken and the other is pork. DUH!”

But of course, I couldn’t do that and have to smile and answered him, “Well sir, the difference lies in the type of meat. This one (pointing to the first line) is chicken and this one (the other line) is pork.”

He nodded and looked like I just solved a really difficult problem.

Then he flipped the pages and stopped at the “Katsu Curry” section and the “Half-size Curry” section. But then he asked while pointing at the Chicken Katsu at both section, “then what’s the difference between this chicken katsu (pointing at the Katsu Curry section) and this chicken katsu (pointing at the half size one).

Seriously, I had to make a conscious effort not to slap my forehead. I mean, the headlines on both sections are pretty big, you see. So it’s hard not to see. Besides, the prices are different, with the half-size one being cheaper obviously. I wanted to say, “Goodness me, do you even know how to read English? Obviously half-size means smaller portion lah.”

But of course, again, I couldn’t say that. I had to pretend like it was indeed difficult to know the difference between those two chicken katsus and that his questions made total sense and answered, “Well sir, the half-size one is smaller in portion.”

Then he said, “Oooh, ok then. I’ll have this….”

Oh I forgot to mention that he was with an older man and I can swear that man was looking at him as if he couldn’t believe that guy just asked such a ridiculously stupid question. I pity him. I wonder what kind of conversation they had during their lunch.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

maybe he was hitting on you! =x

Just.Me. said...

oh puhleeese... he was like how urgh can LOL...