Customer Service at It's... Weirdest

Customer Service at It's... Weirdest, originally uploaded by reasonenoughtocelebrate.

Tonight -- Holly, Karla, Anna and I tried to go out for dinner. Sounded simple enough. Maybe we'd even catch a movie later. But dinner first... and not even anywhere too crazy. Red Lobster. Easy, right?

Apparently. Not.

I made the mistake of asking our waiter if we could move to a booth. We had been seated at a four-person table under the most ridiculously bright lamp I've ever seen in any restaurant anywhere. It was definitely a little warm in the restaurant because of the lamp.

And plus, Anna and I felt like we were under interrogation. So we (okay -- *I*) asked to be moved. But no. That was too difficult. Instead, our waiter proceeded to stuff menus into the lamp above us.

At first, the menus didn't fit. They were just too big. Then again, it wasn't their fault. It's not like they were created with this purpose in mind.

Then the waiter disappeared and came back with smaller menus, which unfortunately fit. That blocked out some of the light -- but he even made a joke telling us, "Let me know if anything catches on fire!"

Within a few minutes he was back at our table. (Honestly, there were times during this meal it felt like he'd just never go away.) Maybe this *was* too much of a safety hazard, he thought. He then took the menus out of the lamp... and his bright idea was to use aluminum foil instead.

Piece by piece, he stuffed them into the lamp in order to block the light out. By the time he was done, we were incredibly uncomfortable. People were laughing at us from other tables, the waiter had over stayed his waiter-at-table welcome, Holly was mortified. We almost had this mini relationship going on with our waiter, he was at the table so much... a relationship that's weird and uncomfortable and unwanted, mind you.

Us: We are so, so, so sorry you have to do all of this...
Waiter: (stuffing the lamp) I'm not doing it to kiss your guys asses or anything.

Finally, he left our table.

Only we tried to continue with our meal and... now, it was incredibly too dark.