Restaurant Rage

Talking of marinated customers there have been quite a few whom I would have liked to pickle in vinegar, impale on skewers or give a thorough gratinating, for although most restaurant-goers are out for a good time there are quite a lot who wish they were somewhere else and make it plain from the start that nothing is going to make them happy. Tyrannizing the waiters because you want to impress a client or a girlfriend or because you are ill at ease in an unfamiliar environment and are busy overcompensating are the kinds of behaviour we amateur psychologists encounter all the time, but that doesn’t make it any less tiresome. Rejecting a perfectly good bottle of wine or sending food back unnecessarily may be signs of a childhood deprived of security and approval but costs money and can lead to scenes of bloody attrition if a Stand Must Be Made. I very nearly became involved in litigation with a customer who insisted his rib-eye steak was no such thing, and had to be shown the meat in the kitchen before he would agree. Unfortunately, it turned out to be first cut from the only tough rib-eye I had ever received, so it had been sent back. One thing led to another and eventually the police turned up. This piece of nonsense fizzled out after a few lawyers’ letters but created a lot of stress for nothing. The worst thing possible had happened, of course: the customer had been proved wrong. Things were bound to go downhill after that.