Scraping By
Working in the service industry is not always the best time. I’m sure you have heard this even if you haven’t worked in it yourself. Crazy shifts, crazy customers, crazy managers. The list goes on. It’s enough stress to attempt to please the public without adding additional factors in there. Of course, it is too much to ask for some people to be decent for one night of their lives. We all know or have seen someone like this. They have no dignity whatsoever. Specifically, people need to raise their children better. Manners are becoming increasingly harder to find each year.
“Bonnie” was working at a fancy restaurant when she encountered some crazy youngsters who were out for a wild night. The place was French and dramatically overpriced. Bonnie was trying to get through college and make enough to get her through. However, she made minimum wage plus tips. Working on any sort of commission or tip can be risky and hit or miss. But you got to do what you got to do. So there she was, serving in a fancy french restaurant, barely scraping by when she got a table with two arrogant, “rich kid of Instagram” type individuals. A young couple, maybe in love, definitely annoying as heck.
The restaurant was near a university and the owner donated a substantial amount every year to the college. It’s pretty safe to say college students are not usually the most financially secure. To find them in a pricey restaurant was throwing Bonnie for a little bit of a loop. It was busy and unfortunately, the couple was only going to make her night more interesting, and not in a good way.
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Spray Tan Poseur
Everyone knows those people who have to complain about everything. They have to cause a scene. This couple was not even trying to hide their foolish behavior. They immediately began commenting about Bonnie, the music, and the menu. They were obnoxious, but Bonnie felt like she could handle them. Until they ordered a $600 bottle of vino.
Bonnie did the usual and checked their IDs. She noticed their student IDs when they opened their wallets. The couple started grumbling about how Bonnie was judging them for ordering the bottle. “They insulted [her] and called [her] uneducated for inferring only adults would be such drink experts.” And then the girlfriend part of the duo said, “She’s trying to flatter you by saying you look young. Look sweetie [turning to Bonnie], it won’t get you a bigger tip, so save the kissing up.”
Bonnie was taken aback at the tone of this “orange fail spray tan high school freshman poseur.” However much she wanted to snap back, she stopped herself and went to get the bottle for the two imbeciles.
After the vino, they started ordering, but they were not done tormenting Bonnie. They began to ask her ridiculous questions about why she was working as a waitress instead of “having a real job.” They questioned her about if she was married and if her husband was a deadbeat. This made Bonnie’s heart clench because her husband had been a soldier and had not made it home. How dare these kids come in here calling her sweetie and act as though she isn’t a human. Bonnie had dealt with “all kinds of customers” though, so she held her tongue.
I may have snapped back, and I’m sure some would have thrown a punch. Little did she know she was going to have the chance for some revenge, it’s rare in the service industry.
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Fetch
While ordering, they decided on “the most expensive things on the menu.” And after barraging her with insensitive and demeaning questions, they went to “taking tons of duckface selfies.” Both of them were sitting in a beautiful, pricey restaurant and they were taking selfies. Bonnie rolled her eyes and continued to fill their waters, and although she wanted to smack the guy, she would “fetch him another item off the menu.” Yes, “he actually used the word fetch.”
After getting criticized for not speaking French in a French restaurant and being put down for how much waitresses make, Bonnie was happy to serve her other tables she got sat with. Finally, some new people. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be like the young, arrogant couple. She could use a break.
Her two other tables were “nice and friendly.” It was like a breath of fresh air. Until she went to grab more napkins. The cloth napkins were in a “small nook behind where the snooty couple was sitting.” They couldn’t see her or hear her. They must have thought she was somewhere else in the restaurant as they began to talk about her.
The guy called her a “loser and a pathetic waste” and the girl chuckled saying they should “dine and dash, make [her] boss stick [her] with the bill and be fired.”
Bonnie stood there, wondering how anyone could be this rude and insensitive. She didn’t even know these kids! They knew nothing about her, and she had no idea why they were treating her like this. The couple continued to chat about how they would never “waste their life being a waitress.”
Bonnie walked away and “was angry of course, but you know how people are, talk is one thing, and action is another.” However, she thought, ‘I ought to be ready for anything.’
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Time For The Bill
It was nearing the end of the night for the pompous pricks. Bonnie could tell they were about done. “Sure enough the boy says he needs the bill, looking all smug.” Did he know the bill was close to $1200? Did they care? Or had it been their plan to skip out the whole time?
Bonnie’s last hope of the kids turning out to be decent people was crushed when, “as expected the girl excused herself to the restroom, then a minute later just went out into the parking lot, called the valet, and went off to get their car even though she doesn’t have their ticket.”
Bonnie had seen her fair share of dining and dashes. It wasn’t complicated. And they had been dumb enough to talk about it at the table.
Bonnie went to the valet and let him know what she assumed was happening and “told him not to give the car to the girl unless [she] texted him the boy paid.”
The valet understood the assignment and went to wait for everything to hit the fan. The boyfriend was thinking he was clever while he waited until the perfect moment to saunter out the front doors, leaving his bill behind him. What he didn’t know was Bonnie was three steps ahead. She had already informed the maître d of the situation. The prick was locked in.
Everyone knew the manager of the restaurant wasn’t the best guy. He would not care the dashers were kids, he would put the blame on Bonnie and take the bill out of her pay. So everyone knew their part to play to make sure Bonnie wouldn’t get saddled with a $1200 bill at the end of the night. The host kept a careful watch on the boy. And the valet was not going to let the girl out of his sight either.
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“Forgetting Something?”
“So as predicted, the boy sat around and then got up like he was going to the bathroom because he saw his car (convertible BMW) has pulled up outside.” However, the valet informed the girlfriend she couldn’t leave without the ticket. This wasn’t technically true, it wasn’t a big place, they would have given her the keys, but Bonnie had told the valet what was going on, so he was not letting the girl get away with anything.
“The boy thought he had an opening and made for the door but OOOF! It wouldn’t open for him!” He looked like a deer in headlights, his eyes flickering about trying to find a new way out. He was trapped. There was only one more exit, but it was for employees only and in the kitchen.
He obviously didn’t know what to do. And the maître d was watching very closely. He was deliberating when suddenly Bonnie was next to the maître d “holding the boy’s unpaid check.”
The maître d said, “Forgetting something?”
As the boyfriend is cornered, Bonnie looked up to see “the boy’s totally disloyal girlfriend trying to pay the valet so she could get away.” The valet shook his head and stood there. There was no way he was giving the car up. The girl began screaming about calling the police because he was obviously stealing the car. Bonnie could hear her shouting through the door.
“The maître d said that’s a good idea, and he called the police.” The boyfriend was trying anything he could to get out of the situation he created. He began to try and act tough, but one look from the maître d “moonlights as a taekwondo teacher” was enough to shut him up.
Then suddenly the restaurant manager appeared. This was all happening rather quickly, but still, it took him long enough. “As expected he took the boy’s side at first, but by this time several other customers noticed what was going on,” and explained what they had seen.
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Paying More Than Just The Bill
They all witnessed the young couple attempt to dine and dash. Some of them even said they had heard the things the pricks had been saying about Bonnie and it was disgusting. Everyone stood up for Bonnie.
“So the manager filled out a police report and the boy was telling the policeman his dad could pay and we were making a big deal out of nothing.” Of course, he would bring up daddy’s money. The tool was about to get what he deserved.
But then the karma got even better when the restaurant manager noticed the student IDs. These kids went to the university he so proudly donated to each month. The manager “got ticked off and told the school about what thieves the little rat boy and his loser girlfriend were.”
The school was not happy about the conduct, or lack thereof, of their students. Later, Bonnie found out the two of them had been expelled and they had a permanent record now “because they tried to steal and commit fraud for more than $1000.” As adults, it would be tough for them to get their record to look good. They didn’t go to jail, not a lot of rich kids do, but they now had felony records.
Bonnie was able to leave the serving job only three months after the event and “got a better job working as a teller in a bank.” And soon she’ll be able to get on with her career of choice once she finishes school. Sometimes she thinks back to the night those kids tried to dine and dash and how their lives must have been altered afterward. She thought “Everyone has a different path in life. Those two had a path involving checking the box ‘yes’ next to ‘ever been convicted of a felony?’”
They got what was coming to them. And it isn’t often a waitress is able to see karma right away for people treating her terrible. All in all, it was worth it, just to know they got what they deserved.
Bonnie’s words of wisdom are, “Regardless though whatever your job as long as you’re earning an honest living no one can shame you. There’s nothing wrong with being a server and those two kids were [pricks] for thinking like that.”
So whatever your job is, as long as you are doing your best and working towards your own happiness, just know, karma will get those who wrong you. And sometimes, you may even get to see it bite them in the butt firsthand.
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