Wick of the Moment

I have this funny story, and the friends and family members I've told it to in person have laughed heartily at it, but I know the story is very dependent on vocal inflections and physical gestures of incredulity, so I know I'm gonna blow it by writing it here, and if I see you soon and you've already read it here, it'll have ruined the whole thing for you, but check this out.

I took a date to an Indian restaurant based solely on the recommendation of a co-worker whose judgment I'm seriously beginning to question. The first sign something was amiss was that there were only 2 other tables that had people seated at them in the whole place, and it was a Friday night. We were seated by a hyper-gracious Indian man who brought us very delicious, but mouth-searingly spicy papadam.

The waitress came to our table right as we sat down and asked, "Who had the Iced tea?" We told her that we hadn't ordered anything yet, and she stood there with a totally inappropriate amount of befuddlement for way too long, and then muttered something like, "Oh...it must have been one of the other people at..." and then she very slowly wandered off. There were only two other parties in the whole place!

At this point, I should mention that, although the people who ran the restaurant were clearly Indian-born, the waitress was most definitely from here, so there wasn't a, "Language barrier," as each listener has suggested to me so far. Good suggestion, though.

She came back to take our order, and we told her that were were going to get the "Bombay Special" or the "New Delhi Special" or whatever it was called. It said on the menu that we could choose chicken or lamb for the main dishes, and we knew we were going to get chicken because
neither one of us ever eat lamb, ever. Never ever.

She said, "Ok, I just have a couple of questions for you. Would you like lamb biryani or chicken biryani?"

"Chicken biryani," I said. "Actually, we're going to get chicken everything. No lamb."

She scribbled on her waitress-pad. "OK...and would you like that mild, medium, or spicy?" We remembered the papadam and agreed on, "Medium," just to play it safe.

"OK...and would you like tandoori lamb or tandoori chicken?"

"Um, chicken. Tandoori chicken." My date and I were kind of chuckling uncomfortably and looking at each other, trying to figure out if the girl was trying to be funny, and trying to laugh with her if she was.

"Actually, to save you the trouble of asking all these questions, we're going to get everything chicken and everything medium. No lamb."

"OK...and would you like that mild, medium, or spicy?"

"Medium," my date and I said in a somewhat sing-song-y unison. I continued,"Heh, heh, gotta ask the questions, right? Medium, though. Seriously, everything chicken and everything medium."

"OK..." She jotted. "Now I just a have a couple more questions for you...would you like chicken curry or lamb curry?"

"???!!"

"Umm, chicken?" I said. "And medium on the chicken curry, too, please? Everything, um, chicken, and everything medium, too, just to make it... easy?"

Then she began to read the order back to us, "OK, you've got lamb biryani-"

"No," my date interrupted, bemusedly. "Chicken. No lamb. Everything chicken."

"Yes, chicken biryani," she said, as if that's what she had said the first time. She then rattled off the rest of the order correctly.

"Just to be clear," I added, "Everything chicken and everything medium. No lamb." She confirmed that she understood.

You have to think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not.

Of course, when the food came, everything was lamb, except the tandoori chicken, so we called her over. "Hi, I think there's been a mistake. This is lamb, but we ordered chicken. Remember? 'Chicken everything?'"

"No," she said, with a completely straight face, "You ordered lamb."

You should know that I'm not one of those people who's demanding of servers at all. I've had lots of friends who've worked in restaurants, so I know all the stuff they hate, and I go out of my way not to do these things. I always tip well, I never send food back, and I go out of my way to ask for all the stuff I need at the same time, so they don't have to keep running back and forth for me.

After many moments of stunned silence, she said, "It doesn't come with chicken. Only lamb."

We assured her that not only did the menu clearly say that it comes with lamb or chicken, we reminded her that she had also asked us which one we wanted, and that we told her chicken, no lamb, repeatedly.

"Let me check the menu," she said, and she walked away, leaving my date and I to shrug at each other. When she returned, she looked at the menu, and without showing it to us, triumphantly said, "Nope, see, it only comes with lamb!" My date said, "Can I see that," and began to tug at the menu, which eventually the waitress relinquished.

"No, see right here, it clearly says that the biryani comes with, 'Chicken or lamb.'"

Long pause.

"Well...it comes with lamb. Nobody ever gets chicken."

"Look, I said, it's no big deal, it's just a mistake. We ordered chicken. Can you just take it back, please, and get us the chicken?"

Long pause.

"It only comes with lamb."

"Well, OK, let's forget that for a minute," my date said, pretty annoyed by this point, but still being a really good sport. "This is lamb curry here, we specifically asked for chicken, and the menu is very clear about this. Look, it says,'Your choice of chicken or lamb curry. There's no way to misinterpret that.'"

After a pause, the waitress looked right at me and said, "It's chickenlamb."

CHICKENLAMB!!!

I'm not making this up. I have a witness.

My date said, incredulously, "Chickenlamb. It's, 'Chickenlamb?'"

"Yes. Chickenlamb."

Pause.

"You know," I said very calmly (and you have to be wondering why I didn't say this earlier) "We're...we're gonna leave."

Right then, the gracious guy from earlier ran over and vowed to fix everything, and we wanted to leave anyway, but we didn't, and then the chef came out and was overly apologetic and ashamed, but we told him it was no big deal, that it was just a mistake, and then we got our correct food, and it was quite good, and the waitress came over and apologized as if she had insulted us, which she had, and everything was really awkward, but I didn't even care, because I like this story.