Cheer: “Do you have any questions about the menu?”
Lady: “Do you have breakfast?”
Cheer: “Shit no! Do you really think I’d work somewhere that required me to serve breakfast? It’s hard enough for me to be here at 10:30 to set up for lunch.”
Lady: “See, I haven’t had breakfast yet. And I have to have breakfast before I can have lunch.”
Cheer: “Well, you’re weird, and you’ve come to the wrong place.”
Lady: “Don’t you just have some toast? With butter? And jelly? That’s what I’d like. Just some toast. With butter. And jelly.”
Cheer: “OK. That’s lovely. I’ll just waste a bunch of time talking to the kitchen in order to get them to make fucking toast, without a toaster, because we’re not a breakfast establishment, and don’t have a goddamn toaster, just so you and your requirement for breakfast before lunch, even though it’s 1pm, will be fulfilled. While I’m talking to the kitchen, sending my busser to find your stupid jelly, and entering toast as an open food item in the computer, all my other tables will suffer, because your obnoxious desires threw off my rhythm. I will do this because it’s my job. It will result in a $4 bill. I hate you.”
Lady: “Oh, perfect! I’d like some coffee too.”
Cheer: “OK. Your bill is up to a whopping $6.50. Let me just step to the side here and do a happy dance.”
Lady: “But, I don’t want the coffee right away. I want it at the exact moment that the toast arrives at my table. So it’s still nice and hot. And though you will send the order for the coffee just before the toast arrives, I will send the busser and the coffee away for bringing it too soon. He will come to you and tell you I wanted it with my breakfast, not one minute before. He will hate me too. You will punch me in the face in your mind.”
Cheer: “I wouldn’t be so sure about the ‘in my mind’ part.”