Monday, June 06, 2005

Open Letter to That Asshole at Twin Dragon

"How was everything, sir?"
"The food was good. The service was not good."
"Haha, you are so funny, my friend. So everything was okay?"
"No, everything was not okay. I said the service was not good. Where have you been?"
"I'm sorry, sir, I was waiting for your conversation to end before I bring the check."
"Well we've been waiting forever. Where were you? We've been getting ignored over here."
"I am sorry--I didn't want to interrupt."
"Is this food free? I'm paying for this food. I deserve respect. Is this food free? I'm paying for this food and this service and we're over here being ignored. I've been coming here since I was 18 years old. I'm friends with the owner, and I'm ignored like this?"
"Sir, I say I'm sorry. What do you want me to do to make you happy?"
"You stand there and keep asking me what I want you to do? What do I want you to do? I want you to pay for this food. This food should be free."
"I cannot do that, sir."
"I shouldn't have to pay for this food. I shouldn't have to pay for this service."
"You don't have to pay for the service, my friend."
"I've been coming here for 10 years..."

If you're getting sick of this exchange, imagine sitting in the booth next to it. I had wandered into Twin Dragon on Pico with a craving for Chinese spare-ribs, and for that, clearly, I was being punished. I had to sit and listen to this guy--slightly pudgy, mid-late-30's, baseball hat, there with his lady friend--abuse the waiter for no less than 20 minutes, then march into the foyer and repeat his bullshit to the woman behind the counter, another young woman, and whoever else was unfortunate enough to pass by.

"I've been coming here 10 years, I'm friends with Frank, Frank would never treat me this way, I spend a lot of money here, I deserve respect. Your customers deserve respect. They come here and pay money and deserve to get respect, not disrespect. Do you understand me? No, do you understand me? I spend money here and I deserve respect like every customer deserves respect. Is my money good? Is my money good? My money's not good to you?"

Man, fuck you. You don't deserve shit. Before you started your tirade, you may have deserved slightly better service than you got, but from where I sat, the waiter was doing exactly right by you, and was, like he told you, waiting for you to stop your conversation with your dining companion and the couple across the aisle, who were walking back and forth between their booth and yours. Seemed like a conversation that warranted the waiter giving you some space, especially when you started up like some bust-out asshole about how you would buy the other guy his soup, even though he clearly didn't want you to and you were making him uncomfortable. But it seems like you hadn't met your quota of making people uncomfortable even after you were done with him, so the waiter was an obvious target.

I cannot possibly give voice to how much I hate people like this guy. Toothpick in the side of his mouth, not shutting up even after he's gotten more apologies than there are staff in the place, definitely not letting go of the story about how he told off the whole restaurant and got the respect he deserved for days to come, making everybody who has to listen almost as uncomfortable as he made everyone in the restaurant while it was going on, talking about it on his cell phone at full volume so everyone around has to listen to him in line at wherever, and repeating the whole thing the next time he's at a restaurant just for good measure.

There should be a special section in restaurants for guys like this, where the food is cold, and the service is bad, and he gets even less respect than he deserves--but that would be impossible. Man, if you're reading this (right), stay home, shut the fuck up, and leave the nice people at Twin Dragon and every other restaurant in this city the hell alone. Better yet, take your shit to Cynthia's and try it with her.

3 Comments:

Blogger sarah j. gim said...

TWIN DRAGON! LOL! that place is the nastiest place EVER - but i love it. can i just say - SCORPION!!!

11:40 AM  
Blogger The Dancing Kids said...

here comes the part where I ask you... so... WHERE can you get decent chinese food in this here town?? augh!!

4:48 PM  
Blogger mughound said...

Ugh, just reading that exchange pisses me off. What a narcissistic ass.

7:28 PM  

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