A tale of two "dogs".

My tables last night were all full of the crazy. Just bad attitudes and weird requests at every table, and topped off, naturally, with bad tips. But one bulldog-faced bitch of a woman stands heads and swinging jowls above the rest.

At first, I thought I was just getting another table of cranky old people (who had apparently sprung a mass break-out from the home). He was a scrawny quiet old man who I think was blind in one eye, and she looked like the lovechild of Jabba the Hut and a bulldog. In glasses and a flowery shirt. This mental image wasn't helped by her barking voice and general rudeness, either.

They ordered two glasses of wine; someone else delivered them while I was taking an order. As I turned around with a stack of menus in my hand, Bulldog snarled at me, "I need another wine! This glass is dirty!" I picked up the offending glass, not seeing where it was dirty, and assured her I'd get her a new glass right away. "It's dirty!" she repeated, and again I said I'd get her another glass.

When I came back, she didn't even give me a chance to ask if they were ready to order before beginning to do so. She ordered for her husband (riblets) and acted offended when I asked him directly which type of sauce he wanted. Then she jabbed a square, garishly painted nail at a picture in the menu and grunted "I'll have that."

My server intuition niggled at me; I just had a feeling she was going to send it back. So I repeated her order very carefully to check that she wanted the steak and garlic shrimp, which she confirmed. She then said she wanted her steak cooked medium, and asked if she could get onion rings. When I said it was a dollar to substitute onion rings, she got all huffy and sourly informed me she'd choke down the vegetables. I was already ready to tell her to choke on her vegetables at that point.

Five minutes later, I'm again just barely leaving another table when she hollers at me, "can we get another glass of wine!" Her glass was empty; her husband's was half-full; and since she had used singular words, I foolishly assumed she actually meant another glass. Of course, when I took it to them the husband asked, quite bitchily, "what happened to mine?" I apologized and said I misunderstood, and would be right back. "Well! I said can we get another glass!" was Bulldog's huffed response. Whatever.

Well, we were absolutely slammed, and the bartenders were buried, so it took a couple of minutes for said wine to be poured. Not more than five -- and remember, he still had wine left! -- but that wasn't acceptable. As I watched one bartender pour the wine, I saw another contending with a familiar bulldog-faced bitch who had wandered to bar to personally bitch at the bartenders! You'd think the fact that she had to shove her way through a full lobby, and then through a layer of people all the way around the bar, might have clued her in as to the fact they hey, cuntbag, we're busy! But noooo. I don't know exactly what she said to the Lawyer and Chrissy, but they were both really offended.

Two minutes later, as I was entering an order for a five top, I saw Pixy standing at my table, being berated by Bulldog. Then she came back -- surprise! -- carrying the beautifully prepared steak and shrimp.

"Alright, what's the bitch's problem?"
"I didn't even get to set this down or anything before she started yelling! 'What's that, I didn't order that, I don't want that!'"
"Oh for Christ's sake. What did she say she ordered?"
"Plain grilled shrimp, an appetizer of onion rings, and a salad with Italian."
I literally stood there and stared for five seconds before I started laughing. Then I took the plate back to the kitchen. "Rehab, we're up a steak because this crazy bitch said she didn't order it." I ordered the new, completely different order and then went to tell Lapdog -- making sure to tell him that I repeated her order and she was just crazy. He said he'd take her salad out when it was ready, so I got a refill for another crazy table and then stopped and braved the dog.

"We'll have your dinner ready shortly, ma'am." I said with my best smile, but absolutely without apologizing. "How are your riblets, sir?"
He just nodded at me with his mouth full, then spit out a little square bone. Classy. Bulldog, however, naturally had something to say. "Tell your chef that those aren't riblets!"
Oh jesus, here we go. I smiled the best I could. "They aren't?"
"We're from Nebraska and we know meat! Those are featherbones!"
"Oh. Would you like something else?"
"We know meat! We're from Nebraska! Those aren't riblets!"
"Well, they're what we call riblets." I said as cheerfully as I could. "Would you like something else?"
"He wanted something he didn't have to chew around! He has false teeth!" She continued. Lapdog walked up with the salad, so she re-directed her energy to him. "We're from Nebraska! Those aren't riblets!"
I walked away at that point, but heard him say "well, we've called them riblets for 15 years."

Next time I saw Lapdog in the kitchen, I grinned at him and he laughed and said "she's a real ray of sunshine, isn't she!" Then he said he'd deliver her food himself, which I was very grateful for. I was also not entirely surprised when a few minutes later he came stomped back to the kitchen, carrying the grilled shrimp and looking pissed.

"She decide she wants chicken now?" I joked.
"Apparently I need to re-train my staff," he snapped, "because she wanted cold shrimp and sauce."
"What?"
"Yeah, that's what she said, that I need to retrain my staff." He was really irritated, but I knew it was at Bulldog -- he doesn't like it when people say things like that. All I could do at that point was laugh. Lapdog took her a plate of shrimp on ice, like shrimp cocktail, and a side of cocktail sauce, and apparently Bulldog deemed that acceptable -- although I later overheard her bitching more, saying, "who serves shrimp on ice!"

When I offered them dessert, she snapped that they'd "had enough here." She looked over the ticket carefully, grumbling to her husband the whole time and looking even more sour. I'm sure she thought her food would be on the house because of all her griping, but for once Lapdog didn't buy everything just to shut the customer up!

I wasn't surprised to get no tip off the bitch. Actually, they left five cents less than the total bill, and if they hadn't already been out the door when I got to the table I would have stopped them and demanded they pay their five cents, the bitches.