Served!

It's one of those things you hope never happens to you. You've seen it happen to others and you always thank God that it wasn't you. Maybe you've even seen the movie where bullies go around doing it to nice people.

Sadly, this weekend it happened to me.

I got served.

Never have I been so humiliated in all my life. It's the kind of soul-crushing experience that you're never able to shake. It stays with you like an albatross tied around your neck. Like Hester Prynne, everyone knows your secret shame. You've been served.

And in public of all places! I mean, if i'd been served where no one else could see, that would have been one thing. But you figure you go to a place like Ruby Tuesdays and you'd be safe from that kind of life-sucking embarassment. You're not, though. And apparently no one is.

So I'm sitting there, debating over getting the Southeastern Texas Style Cheeseburger Extravaganza or the Vernon Parish Louisiana Chicken Fried Tuna Sandwich, and out of nowhere this lady comes over and says "Hi I'm Cindy and I'll be serving you today!". Then she gives me a glass of water and says she'll be back.

So not only do I get served RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF A SEEMINGLY ORDINARY RESTAURANT... but she's coming back! To do what? Rub it in? Gloat? Do some sort of sexually explicit dance towards my general direction that's only meant to belittle me and bruise my already fractured ego?

I call over the manager, who immediately asked me if there's something wrong with the service. Service, he says to me! The nerve!

I told him that I don't care how he polishes up the word with his fancy suffixes. Service, servitude, serv-a-lama-ding-don g... whatever. I'd been served by some high-strung high school hottie and now I was expected to PAY them for this?

The manager looked perplexed and wandered off. So I did the only thing I could do. I took the water over to the waitresses station, sat it down in front of Cindy, yelled "Who served who NOW?! Woooooooo!" and ran like hell. My revenge was sweet, if only for a moment.