I know this sounds horrible, but I hate old people.
I mean, I love my grandparents (or the one that is still around) but truthfully, I don't really visit her much, because (sorry Grandma), I don't dig senior citizens! That's not true, I don't visit her because due to Dementia, she doesn't know who the hell I am. But still, old people and myself to not jive.
I just find it highly ironic that while the elderly love to bitch about how youth today are so rude, disrespectful, blah blah blah, they are THE rudest people I serve. Case in point; my first table yesterday is a couple, probably in their 70's, and a kid about 15, I am assuming their grandson.
"Hi folks, how are you today?"
without looking at me; "fine."
"Well, my name-"
"I want a water with lemon."
Okaaaay, I was gonna get to that asshole. Now, there are a lot of people that do the "greet cutoff." Sometimes we walk up and before we even say hi, the guest immediately says "I want water." I get that maybe you think we are going to try and sell you wine, or you just know what you want and think you are helping us save time, but interrupting is rude, regardless! Just let me do my thing (which, by the way, we are REQUIRED to do) and when I come to a pause, order your goddamn, water, soup and salad. Anyway, old people are the main offenders on this issue. They know what they want and how they want it and they better get it that way and NOW.
Of course, you better not bring their food "too quickly." I do try to take into consideration that it takes old people about 10.5 times longer to eat a bowl of soup than the average person, but if it has been fifteen minutes, you're getting your food! They are of course invariably pissed off when you bring it, and if I didn't already know you were going to tip me a dollar maybe I would care, but I don't.
Old people are also notorious for forgetting what they ordered, or ordering wrong, and then claiming that you messed up. When you order fettuccine alfredo, that's just pasta and sauce. No chicken or seafood. So when you ask for fettuccine alfredo and get pasta and sauce, please don't yell "where's the chicken?" and get all pissed at me. Well, I guess it's not your fault you can't remember shit, so rather I will ask people who dine out with old people to listen to when they order so that when they claim I got it wrong maybe you could back me up?
Other things old people do that they seem to find perfectly acceptable include; waving their arms and yelling "excuse me, waitress" while I am talking to another table. I know you learned your manners in 1910, but let me give you a refresher; attempting to talk to someone while they are talking to someone else is called interrupting, and it's rude. Wait your goddamn turn. Also, grunting, gesturing or other non-specific or non-verbal communication doesn't work as well as asking for what you need. Just because I am holding a cheese grater, and (while not looking at me) you grunt and point at your plate, I may not gather that you want more cheese. I may just think (or hope) that you are choking on your spaghetti.
Don't even get me started on the dread that sets in when you walk up to a table of 5 old ladies, and they already each have their coupon sitting out on the table in front of them, and you better not forget to take their 2 dollars off!! They invariably don't realize that they coupon is for two entrees, and they have to only have $1 off, or combine their check with a friend. No, ma'am, I cannot split the coupon and take $1 off your check and $1 off your friend's.
I guess this is one of the many ways we revert back into children as we age. We forget our manners, demand things angrily, and think that the rules everyone else follows shouldn't apply to us. And we smell. EW. I really hope I don't become one of the old people I serve everyday. I hope I am a bad ass old lady. I better be, or someone please keep me from eating out.
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