Customers Suck: The Toast Incident
I used to work in a 24-hour family-style diner. It was the only 24-hour place in town, at the time, and in reasonably close proximity to three or four busy bars. So, of course, when the bars closed, we got our asses handed to us.
The job had some deeply shitty points, but the good thing was that you could pretty much say whatever you wanted to the clientele on third shift, because they were drunken assholes. You could also throw their asses out and bar them, even as a lowly server, no management permission necessary. Six or seven years later, I still miss these perks with all my heart and soul, though I don’t miss the job much at all.
Despite the fact that fights and scuffles broke out with alarming regularity in the restaurant, we never had a bouncer or any security. It was up to us waitresses to police the place, and do any throwing out that was needed. And, it was frequently needed. Having the waitresses do the “security” worked amazingly well. The only time we ever called the (male) manager in was when women were fighting, and this is because, as a general rule, the guys would back down to the female waitresses, because, as a general rule, they wouldn’t hit a woman. (I had a few scary close calls, though.) However, women will hit another woman who gets in the way, so the manager handled those kinds of fights — mostly by picking up the offending female and carrying her forcibly out of the restaurant. that only ever happened a couple of times, though.
“Security” was handled by myself and another waitress, Mary. We were the enforcers, and we were really good at it. We were not intimidated, we didn’t back down, and the drunks listened to us.
So, it’s Friday or Saturday night, I don’t remember. Bar slam is just winding down, and it’s been a long, rough night, and we’re in no mood. Over in the corner, we’ve got a table of four people, two guys and two gals, who are painfully drunk, and think that they are above reproach. They start throwing small things around. Not really at anything or anyone — yet — just tossing little items and bits of food. This is what we called “a fight waiting to happen”. They were sure to piss someone off with their asinine behavior, and then there would be a fight.
I asked them, nicely, to knock it off. They continued to throw crap. Mary asked them, nicely. Still they were throwing crap, and giggling, and generally being dicks about it. You could tell that they thought they were really getting away with something, and that it was simply the funniest thing on Planet Earth.
Our tempers and patience are pretty much shot at this point, and we were in no further mood to tolerate any more drunken foolishness. So, one last time, I sternly inform them that they’re to stop throwing crap, or we’re tossing them out. As I walk away, they’re snickering and giggling, and I turn just in time to see a piece of toast zing through the air in a random direction.
I circle around, scoop up the manager for back-up, and drag him along with me, informing him as I go that it’s time for this table to go. We arrive at the table, me standing with the boss at my side. I’m all of five-foot-five, 120lbs soaking wet, and I’m standing with my fists planted on my hips, glaring hatred and death down at the table, as the manager — politely — informs them that they’d been warned, and it was now time for them to go.
They protest, of course, and I snap out — “He said it was time to go. You’re going.”
They insist they want boxes to take the remains of their food with them, since we’re also forcing them to pay us. The manager, a far kinder person than I, agrees. (I routinely tossed people out who hadn’t gotten to eat, or hadn’t finished, and still made them pay me.) The manager goes to get them boxes, and I begin to step away from the table, also. They call out another slurred, giggling protest to me, “Why are we getting thrown out?” And I turn to answer. “You were asked not to throw things, and you kept on doing it, so now you’re –”
The piece of toast that one of the drunken barwhores had tossed bounced harmlessly and painlessly off my chest, flopping down onto the table. I look down at the toast, and back up to the woman, who points and giggles at me.
At this point, all the lights in the building went out, and the fiery pits of hell opened up and unleashed gouts of roaring hellfire and brimstone to light the place in an eerie, blistering red illumination. Simultaneously, I grew ten feet and turned green as my uniform ripped at the seems from my suddenly bulging muscles. As I gripped the edges of their table and thrust my face down into the woman’s, the voice of Satan rolled up from my throat, and I bellowed, “YOU ARE LEAVING RIGHT NOW, OR SO HELP ME GOD, I AM DRAGGING YOU OUT OF HERE BY YOUR HAIR. GET OUT! GET OUT RIGHT NOW!”
Meanwhile, hearing my roars of unrestrainable rage, the manager and the cooks came running out to see what in the hell was going on. The found me, clutching the table, screaming down into the face of a suddenly-terrified drunken woman, who was scrunched up in the corner of the booth in a feeble attempt to escape my fury.
The manager grabbed my shoulders and pulled me off the table as the drunks scuttled up from the table and flew to the register. Forgetting their boxes, their food, and any remaining shreds of dignity they may have had, they tossed some money at Mary, who was at the register, and escaped with their lives, as I stalked through the silent restaurant to the back, to smoke. I was literally shaking with rage.
To this day, I have no idea what it was about that harmless piece of toast that caused me to so utterly and completely loose my shit. The only single thing that stopped me from snatching hold of the woman, dragging her from the booth, and beating her with my bare hands was the thought that I couldn’t afford to make bail. Before and after that time, while I was at the job, I dealt with far more insulting assholes, but I had never, and didn’t again, lose my shit like that. I didn’t have to, because regulars who were there are, six years later, still telling this story to people — I’ve overheard them doing it.
