For your dining pleasure I'm particularly good at a couple things. One, spilling stuff on my clothes. Watermelon juice is very pink and oranges, well they can squirt pretty good. And coffee? Forget about it. I've pretty much spilled anything you can name. Once we were at brunch with some friends, my mom and my godmother. I picked up the ketchup bottle (for the home fries, ya know) and shook it because I hate it when the red juice comes out first (ditto for mustard. just ew). Bad move. The lid wasn't all the way on, so it popped off and I gout doused in ketchup. For about 5 seconds, no one said anything. I think they were waiting on me to either laugh or freak out. Then Chrissy took her napkin and wiped a blotch of ketchup off my face. "Oh sweetie," she said as she dabbed. What's a girl to do? I laughed. How could I not? Then everyone roared. My plate was completely covered in red as were one of my sleeves and probably a good portion of the tablecloth around me. The people at the next table escaped the red scare, thank god. I would have died. Fortunately, I was wearing a black sweater. Once we'd mopped up most of the mess, which was no easy task with a waitress who was essentially ignoring us, we continued our meal. That sweater came clean and is still in my closet. It may have been about that time that I realized I have pretty bad luck at restaurants. It's not that I always end up wearing my meals, though it IS always a danger. It's just that if I dare to try something I've never had before, it usually doesn't turn out very well. And what's happened to customer service? In a switch for us, David was the one who didn't like something he ordered at a local seafood joint we went to last week. (He usually orders the best-sounding thing on the menu because he doesn't concern himself with details like calorie counts.) He told the waiter and the waiter said, "Oh! I'll get you a comment card to fill out!" Yeah, thanks. And the week before, we were at a restaurant in Reston before a concert and I ordered some vegetable soup. It was very spicy, which I don't really care for. The waiter asked how it was because I hadn't eaten much of it. I told him I thought it was very spicy. "No one's ever told me that before," he said and walked away. Well then. Thanks much. Nabbalicious and I were at a well-respected local Chinese place last week and I took a leap and ordered something that I hadn't had before. When will I learn? When the waiter brought out my chicken with rainbow vegetables, I was a little worried. Probably because Nabbalicious' double happineess looked SO GOOD. I tasted mine. Yep. Tastes just like... nothing. Yay. Nabbalicious was doubly happy and I got a double shot of unhappy. I took a couple bites and left the rest. A waitress came over and asked if I was finished. Yes. She asked if I'd like a box. No thanks. So, with like two bites taken out of the dish, she wisks it away without asking if anything was amiss. Fine. Whatever. It's not that I'm schrewish or anything. And I'm not a very demanding customer. I don't think anyway. All I'm sayin is that if I ask for a glass of water, it means I'd REALLY like a glass of water. And if I ask for petite shrimp on my salad for 99 cents extra, please put them on the freaking salad. (These two things happened Sunday night while we were out with some friends.) Oh and once, I ordered a salad with chicken from a drive-thru and when I got to work, surprise! No chicken. Nice. That happens a lot actually. What's perhaps worse is when you order a salad and when you get to work, you find they've forgotten the dressing. A salad without chicken is much better than a salad without dressing, I spose. My favorite "something was left out" story though belongs to my husband. He went through a Wendy's drive thru once and apparently checked his jr bacon cheeseburgers (for just ketchup and mustard) before leaving. He opened up the bun to find... NO BEEF! So he went into the restaurant and said, "Where's the beef!?" And no one laughed! Can you believe that?!