“That woman just discriminated me!” She hissed this at me, I am starting to think of her as a snake in my mind, it helps to keep me smiling.

“In what way ma’am?” I asked her.

“She was taking the table’s food order and passed me up, for a man.” She hissed the word man out in her snake like voice.

“So you believe that the waitress discriminated against you because you were a woman?” I said the words deliberately, trying to point out that it was doubtful that a woman would discriminate against her because she was a woman. She became unglued at this point. She hissed some words at me, but I literally could not understand them, as they were in rapid fire Spanish and the hissing didn’t help. I stood for a moment and waited for her to calm down.

“You are not going to do anything?” Was the next sentence I could understand from her.

“Ma’am I said I am going to get you a new waitress, what else would you like me to do?” I was a little confused as I had already conceded to her initial demand.

“I want her fired for discrimination!” This was hissed so loudly that many of the customers turned to face us.

“Ma’am I cannot bring a discrimination suit against one of my employees based on the fact that she took a man’s order prior to yours.” Your eyes bugged out and she stormed back to her table. The table was C5, that’s right, the cursed table (see http://www.authspot.com/Journals/C5-The-Cursed-Table.586475 for more on the cursed table). I sighed and found a new server for the table. I then went and located the old server and had her tell me the tale.

It turns out that the woman had arrived to the party last. So the server had wanted to give her extra time to look at her menu, so had taken her order last, or at least had attempted to take her order last. By the time she had made her way around to her she was angry and would not talk to her. I went to the new server and told her the story so that she would be prepared. Also I told her to comp the woman’s meal. I then told her I was going to talk to the lady and explain what had happened.

“Andrew, please don’t go talk to her.” She pleaded with her eyes as well as her words. “I just got her calmed down, and I think she thinks your the devil or something.” I laughed and told her that I had to go and talk to her, it was my job. When I approached the table the other customers saw me and got a little nervous, perhaps fearing another confrontation. The lady and I spoke briefly, she was almost cordial and certainly not rude. She denied that it had happened as the waitress had said and told me that she and her company would no longer be dining in our establishment.

A few weeks later the same group came in sans the snake lady. I was informed that she was a big wig from out of town, I was also informed that they would continue to come and eat at my restaurant, as they loved it here. I told them they were more than welcome, as long as they left the “big wig” at the office. We both laughed and moved on with our lives.