Going anywhere with my parents is usually an interesting experience. It's either one of the following:

A) Funny and entertaining that looks like the home version of "National Lampoon's Vacation".

B) A snide comment match that no one wins.

My husband and I usually end up laughing at the irony at the events that transpire, or forcing ourselves to remind each other why we have anything do with my parents.

Tonight the 4 of us went out to dinner. We told my father it was to celebrate that he finally got his special license that's on the right track for him to get into his new career. It only took 3 tries and a lot of hours staring at a computer screen taking multiple practice tests. Anyways, my husband, my mother and I had already decided to go out to dinner tonight, my father passing the test today was just a concidence. My mother worried about having to wait a long time to get our food. This particular resturant has a reputation for being slow. You order your meal and by the time it's delivered to you, you have forgotten what you ordered.

When we got to the resturant we saw it wasn't crowded at all. Maybe that should have been a sign. I saw it though and figured "Good, now we won't have to wait long." We got seated behind a 4 adults and a baby. The baby was noisy but cute. The waitress was ditzy and was obviously kissing ass. She also had this annoying laugh that you could tell was faked. That is of course after she came to the table. We had a feeling we were going to be there awhile when it took her 5 minutes to take another table's order and they only had 4 people and she talked very very slowly.

Now I like my salad a certain way. I don't like premade salad and I don't like a lot of stuff on it. One of the items I wanted this resturant didn't have. It's a very common item, you wouldn't think it would be hard for the resturant to have. In case you're wondering it's egg. They can make any kind of egg they want to go with a steak or breakfast but they can't chop up a couple pieces of egg for salads?? Go figure. Well, I planned ahead and me and my husband went to a store and bought some egg off their salad bar before getting to the resturant.

After the waitress left with our orders I looked at my husband and parents and said "Hey let's start a pool on what all she'll mess up on." It took her 10 minutes to bring the drinks and when she did she only brought 3. She looked at my father and said "You didn't tell me what you want to drink." Umm..yeah he did. We told her he did and told her the drink he wanted. She said "Umm..okay." She came back a couple minutes later. Then a few minutes later she comes out with the salads. She looked at me and said "Didn't you want any dressing??" She asked as if she was saying "Why don't you want any dressing??" I told her I did want dressing and which kind I had asked for. Well I was putting the egg on to the salad and the waitress came back and saw what I was doing. She said "Where did that egg come from?? I didn't see it before. Did I miss it??" None of your damn business where it came from. What are you going to do?? Charge me for egg we already paid for?? After she walked away my mother looked at us and whispers "What the hell does it matter where that egg came from??" and went on a little rant about the waitress.

Well the dressing wasn't that great but I didn't mind too much. It was edible. All thru the meal my father kept saying "How do we always end up with the newbies??" I told him that it's the only type of waitresses they have. They never have the same waitresses twice in a row that we go in there. They must go thru waitresses like most people go thru cigarettes.

The meal went okay. We ran the waitress all over the place. Not intentionally, it's just that we needed refills and such. The guy behind us started hacking his brains out and my mother was making faces and comments. My husband and I started laughing at the irony of how the dining out experience was going.

The barbeque sauce was very good and I asked her if it came out of a bottle or what. She said "Umm, I don't know but I can ask." I was like "Okay." She came back but never said anything. Oh well. We went to go pay and my mother felt she just had to leave a tip. She said the waitress deserved it by how much we were asking her to do. Personally I'd say she lost the tip by asking about the egg and the obvious sucking up she failed miserably at. But I guess she was friendly..I think. She said a lot of "Umm okay"'s, and that annoying laugh that always ended abruptly followed by a "yeah".

It's not that I have anything against waitresses/waiters. I just don't like the ones that are so obviously sucking up and doing so in a way that they aren't even trying to hide the fact that they are and the ones that only half pay attention and then blame you for their mistakes.

So what did we learn from this experience?? Write what you want to order on a piece of paper exactly the way you want it and hand it to the waitress/waiter.