Biting Your Tongue. Hard.

Last weekend, after cheering on my man as he completes an 8K run, his parents take him, myself and his brother out to breakfast to celebrate. His mother notoriously takes an agonizingly long time to order when we try someplace new, so I am relieved when after only two return trips by the server to see if we are ready to order yet, she orders a short stack of blueberry pancakes (yes it took her 15 minutes to.decide on that). A short time later another server comes out to deliver our food.

"short stack of blueberry pancakes?"


I motion to the correct person and the server begins to set down the plate when BF's Mom stops her


"I didn't order that..."


Oh no. She did not. just. do. that. She's about 55 but that is not old enough for her to be doing the old lady "I have no idea what I ordered" thing. Of course, I immediately intervene. I have stood there one too many times while someone at a table denies ordering what I am 200% sure they ordered and no one else at the table helps me out.


"Yes you did!"


Thankfully at this time the BF's fam chimes in and confirms that yes, she did in fact order blueberry pancakes, and she takes and eats them because she likes blueberry pancakes, but just didn't intend to order them.


I find myself in this kind of situation quite often when I dine out with my boyfriend's parents, because...and I will say now and reiterate again and again they are wonderful people and I like them, I really do... they do many of the things that I bitch about in this blog. No the kind of things that make you hope your table gets into a debilitating car crash on the way home, just the ones that annoy you enough to maybe mention in the side station "man, table 16 is driving me nuts!"


I know we've all been in the situation a time or two, dining out with someone who definitely never worked in food service and biting your tongue when they do annoying crap. I mean when it's my own family I'm like "hey douchebag, don't do that!!" but I would never, could never, point these things out to my (hopefully) future in-laws lest they find out that I am, in fact, not the sweet girl they think their son is dating and am actually a raging bitch (Oh no!)


One of our co-workers told me about his mother who is a huge evil bitch of the variety that gets spit in her food when they eat out. Makes a scene and yells. How horrifying for someone who has been on the other side to watch this happen and not be able to say anything. Thankfully my experience has been nothing of this sort, but does include on every dining occasion three things that drive me nuts:


1. Hot Tea. Every time. His Dad orders it sometimes, but also might get coffee, water, juice, whatever. Mom orders hot tea 100% of the time. The sun could be melting and the world imploding and she would enjoy a nice hot tea. Will always need a refill on hot water.
2. Taking 600 years (approximately) to order. As noted before, the server will inevitably come back at least twice to see if we are ready yet. Often she will also ask what vegetables are in the "mixed vegetables" and once getting the answer will need more time to decide. Mom can never decide, whereas Dad usually waits until the server is there taking his order to look at the list of sides and see which one he might like to enjoy. On Father's Day we sat there for at least two whole minutes while he read over the list of sides and the server stood there...and stood there...and started looking around....and smiling painfully...I wanted to rip my fucking skin off.
3. Not paying attention while others are ordering, which is important when there is some choice of sides, dressing, soups, salads, whatever. It's always Mom that isn't paying attention when Dad asks what the soup choices are, and then proceeds to ask what they are ten seconds after the server has just listed them. This also happened on Father's Day, right after the never-ending sides debate.


Again! Disclaimer! They are wonderful, giving, kind people. So great. They are just annoying guests!


I have also been known to piss off my boyfriend (current and pasts) by pointing out things they do that I personally find annoying from a service standpoint. One guy I dated would always refer to the dishes or items as belonging to the server. As in "can I get your chicken sub and your chicken noodle soup." This bugged the shit out of me, not sure why...


I have chided the sexy hunk of man I am so fortunate as to have in my life now (hey baby ;) ) for saying his name when he calls an establishment, no matter what the reason. As in "Hi, this is hot guy, what time do you close?" because it irritates me when people do this, as there is no reason I need to know your name in order to answer such a question. Of course he points out that it's harmless and I am a fucking bitch, I agree that yes, I am, but can he still not do that?


So basically it puts us in an awkward, uncomfortable, and unfortunate situation that we know exactly what the server is thinking when one of our well-intentioned dining companions ask "is it free refills?" before ordering anything (my love has a tendency towards this as well).


So what kind of painful bystander situations have you found yourself in? And did you say anything?