I was open for breakfast for a while, basically a continental breakfast. We served gorgeous home-made pastry, yogurt with fruit and granola, a daily fritatta. Did not do food to order- I didn't want to staff it. Think of it as a higher quality Starbucks.
There were some regulars that came in. They got the concept. There are plenty of diners and fast food places around to get an egg sandwich.
One customer came in quite frequently. He had a curly bush of hair on his head left from the disco era and brown teeth, also probably stained from those days. A little guy, full of himself and one of those who'd "been in the restaurant business". Those of us who are actually in the business can tell those who really were and were not, the moment they open their mouth. He was full of it. And being the expert that he was he offered to give me his cookbooks and lots of advice. If I said good morning to him he would trap me and go on until my eyes glazed over.
One day he got ornery. He wanted eggs. He wanted them here. He wanted them now. I gently and kindly explained as I would to a kindergartener that we don't make them. Perhaps if he had been more appealing or polite I might just have done it. But I decided against it because sometimes if you do a special order once- that's it, they expect it all the time.
So brown teeth says to me, "ya got eggs? ya got a pan? Go scramble me some eggs."
I have a temper. It comes to me in a white flash and a sudden bout of Tourette's syndrome where what comes out of my mouth I cannot be responsible for. But to my credit I swallowed it. I looked at him incredulously and walked away. I wasted all that kindness on that 70's relic to be treated like a kitchen wench. I went in the back and came up with all the comebacks that he rightfully deserved to be given. Only I shared them with my staff in the back and not him. Such is the treatment we endure often. It's why we "in the business" do like our alcohol.
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