Coffee Urinal

I have no idea what I did to deserve this great couple to sit in my section, at my table at the restaurant yesterday, but I have to say thank you to whatever power, supernatural or not that made it happen.  As some of you know and some of you may not one of my jobs is waitressing at Jim’s, a family restaurant in San Antonio, and I happen to love this job very much and don’t really have a desire to do anything else at the moment.  Now, in general I tend to use my sense of humor in my work, often giving my customers a hard time and joking, sometimes even being “on” like I were an aspiring comedian at open mike night.  This particular day however, I found the one person that had no appreciation for this fact though my reaction to the situation had less to do with my sense of humor and more to due with his lack of one.

So I have this 30 something couple come in, we will call them Mr. and Mrs. Joe Blow (it out your ass) for the purposes of the story. They sit at the table and I approach ready to take their drink order as per usual and then give them time to decide what they want to order to eat by the time I return with the drinks.  In this case, however they are ready to go on with the whole shebang which suits me fine.  Mrs. Blow puts in her order and asks for a glass of milk to drink, then Mr. Blow follows suit and decides he would like some coffee as his beverage of choice.  Now what he asks me next will always lead me to wonder if he had killed some brain cells in his past and was really this stupid, or if it was a simple moment where you mean one thing and say another while still being a fairly intelligent human being.  Judging by his completely childish reaction to my reaction to it I will go with stupidity.

The man proceeds to ask me if we have “any of those urinals” while holding his hands in such a way as to show me the sizing.  I pause as I am thinking, surely I heard him incorrectly and I ask him to repeat himself.  He asks again, “You know do you have any of those coffee urinals that you fill with coffee and leave at the table?”  To which I bust out laughing hysterically!  Not a giggle people, but a full on, from the belly, laugh!  I know this is a mistake to keep laughing as I see he is not amused and really has no idea what I was laughing at.  When I realize he does not get his mistake on his own I decide I shall tell him.  I say, “Hun, a urinal is what men use in the restroom, now I believe you meant an urn of coffee and no this is not IHOP.”  Well that went over like a lead balloon, only a lead balloon that was getting the most evil look possible as it thunked to the ground.  I decide a bit too late for this idiots benefit to try to smooth things over and save his ego by saying, “Well, usually you don’t need a urinal until after you drink the coffee and if you don’t mind I would prefer you to do that in the restroom rather than at the table.”

This was just getting worse, especially because his wife totally had a smirk on her face until she realized he was totally pissed about what was happening.  That woman wiped that grin off and feigned indignation at my gall to laugh at him in such a manner and then further go on to joke about it.  I however, have now had a full on giggle box turning over moment and walk away still laughing at what he said.  The situation was even FURTHER worsened by the fact that the other waitress working that area yells out at me as I was walking away, “WHAT ARE YA LAUGHIN’ AT, TAMMY?”  And I am now frantically mumbling through clenched teeth, “It’s nothing, I will tell you later!”  This was the moment I see out of the corner of my eye, Mr. Blow saying something quietly yet with some anger to Mrs. Blow, and the two rise and slink out the door.

At this point I think it prudent to take my boss aside and tell him what has happened just in case the dumbass calls corporate to complain.  My boss is completely at a loss for words and of course laughs too. I tell him I highly doubt the ego bruised baby is going to call corporate because there is no way he can explain it to them without telling them that he asked me for a urinal at the table.  A couple of hours later I approach my boss and say,  “you know how the other day you were asking us if there were any other dishes, or cups and such we thought you should order, I just realized there is something we are short on.”  He had forgotten of course and did not see where this was going.  I tell him, “Yeah, I think you really need to order some more coffee urinals, we don’t have near enough.”  He threw something at me.

In all honesty I have no idea why people don’t have a sense of humor about mistakes that are made.  I make them all the time and if I did not laugh about it, I would be miserable as it is a daily occurrence that I screw something up.  At this point I just hope that what I am screwing up is not important, like calling an urn a urinal, or messing up my kid for society to have to deal with in a couple of years, you know, the little things.