Friday, August 26, 2011

This is not an allergy attack.

(Managed to tether Internet through my phone, hooray! Have some negativity! ;) )

Tonight at work I was standing on a bench, wrestling with the retarded fucking excuse for blinds that our store has, when Nick interrupted me.

“Do the fajitas have mushrooms in them?”
I looked down and saw him and his table staring expectantly up at me. “Nope, no mushrooms.”
The biker-looking guy at the table promptly snapped, “I just ate two of them!” He then reached across the table and started stabbing at the fajita veggies, searching for mushrooms. His wife just sat there staring at Nick.
“Well, they're not supposed to have mushrooms.” I said pleasantly.
“Should I get HotPants?” Nick asked. I looked at him quizzically. “They said she's allergic.”
I felt my eyes widen. “Yeah, get HotPants.”

From then on, it was just a fucking circus. The couple insisted that there had been mushrooms in the fajitas – yet conveniently, they had already eaten all of them. The woman made a big show of holding her head in her hands as if upset, running to the bathroom with her hand clapped over her mouth, pacing up and down the aisle nervously, and even retching in the bathroom – with the stall door open – a few times. Meanwhile Nick is worried, HotPants is digging out the customer injury forms, and I'm laughing my ass off at the woman's over-acting.

It was just stupid on so many levels. First of all, if you're “deathly allergic” to something, you don't just forget that. Anybody who actually has a severe, life-threatening allergy to a common ingredient fucking asks if it's in every item. Even if it's stupid. If she were really allergic to mushrooms, she'd be asking if the fucking lemonade came in to contact with mushrooms – let alone sauteéd vegetables! Secondly, when you have an allergy like that, you carry an epipen and you whip it out to be ready for use at a moment's notice. Thirdly, severe allergies manifest as swelling, hives, closing air ways, etc. This chick had no visible symptoms and could obviously breathe just fine.

But of course, the real clincher came when I heard her tell HotPants, “I don't think we should have to pay. It's not fair to us.”

Allergy my ass.

10 comments:

Deanna said...

What is wrong with people?

I have a couple of food allergies and they aren't even life-threatening, and I make a point of asking if things come with them. Sometimes the server will look at me like I'm crazy and say "No, only what's listed on the menu as coming on it" and it's embarrassing. But it's still better than finding out later.

Anonymous said...

Scammers!

JoeinVegas said...

Did anybody take time to ask the cook?

But yes, just wanted a free meal.

Just Sayin... said...

Where do you live?
People dont drink beer on patios on hot days, and constantly scam for free food!!!

And you nailed it! All points of having a severe allergy. They clearly did not.

DMT said...

Ah good old fashioned lies. Considering mushroom allergy is one of the rarest of the rare food alergies, mostly found in people who work with them and have become sensitized by constant exposure, and it causes asphyxiation I think that its something that you would have to be practically brain dead to forget to mention something like that when ordering

FYI in future if someone calls some bs like that make a show of them pull out you iphone look up the symptoms and run to the manager saying we need an ambulance now look it causes asphyxiation! atand make it a case of actually phoning that should derail any assholes plans to scam because they can be charged for wasting the hospitals time and fraud

jacy said...

ha-reminds me of one of the few times one of my rib-loving managers exhibited a spine-

Remember the whole salmonella thing with the tomatoes a few years ago?

Well, a couple of days after restaurants everywhere started getting tomatoes again, two college age girls sat down at the bar, ordering a metric shit ton of food, everything with extra tomatoes. The first half of the meal they spend flirting with the bartender, constantly squealing over how good the phone is. Then, about halfway through, the needle drags across the record, and they become all frowny faced,complaining about an upset tummy, and demanding to see the manager since we had given them salmonella poisoning. the chick in charge actually brought out the book they gave out at her food safety class, describing the signs of symptoms of salmonella poisoning, including the time of onset, which fun fact, is about 12 hours after ingestion.

After the MIC called bullshit, and told them flat out that they would in fact be paying for all of the food that they had ordered, their last question was "well, can we at least pack up the leftovers to go?"

Love the blog, btw. I think I might actually be a former server at this point, but it paid my bills for over half my life.

Anonymous said...

I have a tomato intolerance (can't eat fresh tomato), so traditional pizza, pastas, lasagne, can't have. But I'm not deathly allergic.

withing 12 hrs after having tomato, I have hives, itching and vomiting. So, livable, but I prefer to avoid it.

People who claim allergies that are false annoy the shit outta me, because it means I get laughed at when I have to ask for sans-tomato.

purplegirl said...

Deanna, asking ahead like you do is exactly what I'm expect anybody with an actual allergy to do! Sorry people look at you like you're nuts, I think it's perfectly normal -- the menu doesn't always list every last ingredient!

Anonymous, you're dead right. And so over the top about it!

Joe, Hotpants did ask the cook, who kind of looked at him like he was nuts and said no, the fajitas don't have mushrooms, why would I put mushrooms in it?

JustSayin, I'm in a smallish town in Colorado with way too high a population of snotty bitches. :)

DMT, that would be hilarious! I just might have to have to do that ... OH GOD! SOMEONE CALL 911! Hahaha!

Jacy, that's hilarious! "Oh we're sick, your food made us sick! ... don't take that, I'm eating it!" HA!

Anonymous, I know what you mean. My mom is allergic to bleu cheese -- her face swells up -- and every time we go out and she tells the server I can pretty much see them restraining themselves from rolling their eyes because they think she's being a drama queen. That must be really rough, tomatoes are in so many things!

Jeni said...

oh how i love the allergy that isnt an allergy. pisses me the F off because i have family WITH SEVERE FOOD ALLERGIES. this lady is a drama queen and wants free crap. She is a poor actress. maybe she should have attempted to choke and turn blue as it would be a better representation of a food allergy!

Matthieu said...

discovered ur blog today and read a lot of entry. keep up the good work...

Read also ur not so fine now so take care!