Host: “Hello” (smiles)

Guest: “How long is your wait?”

Host: “It’s about twenty minutes.”

Guest: “OK, thank you.” (walks off to the side to wait)

Host: (calls out over the noise to get the lady’s attention)”Miss? Did you want to get your name in?”

Guest: “Oh, yeah.” (gives name)

Host: “How many people are in your party?”

Guest: “Oh, right, we have three adults, one kid and a baby.”

Host: “Will you need a booster or a high chair for the child?

Guest: “Oh, no. He’s like nine.”

Host: “OK. So, you need four chairs and you also have a baby.”

Guest: “Yes. Well, it’s not my baby.”

The host ignores this last statement.

Host: “Will you need a high chair for the baby.”

Guest: “Oh, um. I’m not sure, probably? Yeah, probably”.

Host: “OK, so it will be four and a highchair?”

Guest: “Uh. Yes.”

Host: “OK. Let me have you put your number in here and we’ll give you a call when your table is ready.”

Guest: “Oh, OK. I just put my number in here? My cell phone number?”

Host: “Yes, and we’ll give you a call when it’s ready.”

Guest: (starts to put in number) “Wups, I did it wrong.”

Host: “No problem. We’ll just clear it out and do it again.” (clears out the number) “There we go.” (smiles) “It is a little weird to type in your own number.” (quick little laugh, for empathy’s sake)

The guest ignores this nicety.

Guest: (starts to type again) “Oh, shoot! I did it again.”

The host clears the number again. This happens twice more before the number is finally entered correctly.

Guest: “So, you’ll text me?”

Host: “We’ll call you.”

Guest: “Oh, my ringer is off. You said it would be a text.”

Host: “It will be a call.” (smiles with much effort)

The lady walks away looking at her phone. Several other tables check in. The lady returns.

Guest: “My phone died. Can my brother-in-law come in and give you his number?”

Host: “No problem, yeah, we’ll just have him put his number in and we’ll call him instead.”

A few moments later guest #2 walks in

Guest #2: “Hey, how’s it going? I just put my number in, here?” (starts pushing numbers before the host had time to set it up for him)

Host: “Hello. Oh, sorry, here, let me just clear that out and get it ready for you. There we go. Yep, just type it in, right here.”

Guest #2: (looks at the first lady) “Did you tell her its going to be six of us, now?

Guest (lady): “No”

Guest #2: “Yeah, we actually have six in our party, now.”

Host: “OK. So, it will be six and a high chair.”

Guest #2: “Yes”

Host: “OK guys. No problem. It shouldn’t be too much longer.” (smiles)

The host gets to their name on the list and calls Guest#2’s phone. There was no answer the first time. She called back a minute later. He answered on fifth ring.

Host: “Hi. This is the host. Your table is ready if you’d like to go ahead and come back to the host stand, we’ll get you seated.”

Guest #2: “Do what, now?”

Host: (hesitates and thinks to herself, ‘you can do this, process of reasoning, process of reasoning, I believe in you’)

Guest #2: “Oh, our table. Ok. Sure. Ok. Yeah, thanks.”

They all come in to be seated. There are four adults, one nine year old, two toddlers and two babies. Both toddlers need booster seats and both babies need high chairs. Each baby is in a stroller and one of the adults is eighty five and can’t go up any stairs.

90% of all large parties are seated on the patio which is up a flight of three stairs.

Host: “Oh, so we have seven who need seats and two high chairs?”

Guest (lady): (looks at her sister, one of the mom’s) “I told her that, already.”

The host wilts internally at the thought of having to tell them, it isn’t ready- she was planning for something very different that what stood in front of her.

Guest #3 (one of the mom’s): “We need to sit somewhere where we can keep the strollers close by and just take the carriers out and then have the high chairs, just in case. We’ll probably use them.”

Guest #4 (one of the dad’s and grandson-in-law) “She can’t go up any steps.” (referring to grandma) “So, we need to be somewhere on the lower level. I know you guys have that patio area. I’ve been here before.”

Guest (original lady): “Oh, and I don’t think I was counting myself. There are five adults.”

The host ignores this last statement.

The host has to skip two parties who, of course, were the two parties standing around watching the host’s every move to make sure they weren’t skipped, and explain to them what was happening and promise that they were the next two in line once they got this table seated for which she was given very hateful looks.

Please,

Pick someone who knows what the hell is going on (in life) to be your party’s ambassador. Every single detail given to the host about your party and your needs was either false, incorrect or left out completely and not amended until you were being -called to your table- like, to sit down. The particular recipe for your party’s needs, alone, was already a twenty-five minute long concoction for the host staff to stir up for you. But, more, as it turns out, it was all wrong. Not to mention the fact (let’s go back) she almost walked away in the beginning without giving ANY information, at all. And for the record, what’s almost worse than any of this is the self-serving manipulation of the words that were spoken. The host never said the word, ‘text’. In fact, you were told, twice that it would be a ‘call’.

It’s not magic, folks. That’s about all I’ve got left after something like this. It’s not magic.