#472 – Choices

At restaurants I study the menu and try to anticipate all the questions I will be asked when I place my order.

“Okay, I have to choose a potato and two side dishes from this column and then a soup from this section and a choice of bread.”

It really stresses me out when they ask me and additional question that I wasn’t prepared for.

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15 thoughts on “#472 – Choices”

  1. I ordered a chicken salad at Mimi’s Cafe. The waiter asked me what kind of muffin I wanted. I didn’t know it came with a muffin. I said “uhhhhh blueberry” and then when he left I started crying.

    1. sam says:

      I almost cry whenever I go to appletrees restaurant, I’ve been there a dozen times and I’ve ordered pretty much the same things each time but it always kind of unnerves me when they ask and I quote “Would you like toast, biscuit or english muffin?” usually run together in a slur… scariest question in the world

  2. jared says:

    strange – i have the opposite issue: i just don’t care what my sides will be. often i don’t care what the entree will be either. i annoy my wife by ordering a “medium whatever” most of the time. when asked if i’d like specific condiments on a sandwich or toppings on an entree i usually ask the waiter/waitress for their name and respond with “whatever you’d put on your own; i’d like a [name] special; there’s nothing i don’t like and nothing i’ll miss if i don’t get it”.

    the only time i actually answer a specific question is regarding how my meat should be cooked. i can’t rely on others to know that anything more than medium rare is an abomination. aside from that, i don’t care what i get. pure veggies? fine by me. ice cream soup with parsley and chicken on top? i’ll eat it. well done steak? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO POISON ME?!?

  3. R. E. Hunter says:

    Yeah, I stopped going to McDonalds for several years when they went through that phase of making everything so complicated. I just want a burger and fries, I don’t want to play 20 questions.

  4. Robin says:

    I thought it was just me. I went to a restaurant the other week and answered all the questions when I did my order, but I had a waiter who thought who would be funny and kept asking me to repeat different things for no reason. The few times I eat out a year, I’m reminded why I prefer to eat at home.

  5. kingklash says:

    I will ask what the soup of the day is, then I absorb the waiter’s face.

  6. Rick Griffin says:

    I would feel much better about this if all meal “options” were listed in brightly marked, easy-to-find places on the menu, instead of corners far away from the entrees, as though hiding.

  7. Library Lady says:

    Unfortunately I have food allergies so I ask if this or that is in whatever. It cuts down on them asking me questions. But when I end up with this or that in whatever and I can’t eat it when I made a point of asking if I could have it WITHOUT and they said sure, I’m upset. When I send it back twice I’m ready to never set foot in the place again. Absorbing the waiter’s head wouldn’t be a bad idea at that point.

    1. You might be allergic to the waiter.

  8. jammit says:

    So what’s in this super salad?

  9. pbarnrob says:

    That’s why Richard Feynman, the Nobel physicist (known for his ice-water demo with the O-ring from Challenger, as much as his way of looking at time and space) always ordered ‘chocolate ice cream’ at any restaurant. Didn’t want to think about it, he had other things to do.

  10. Mister Rik says:

    I’ve worked in restaurants for almost 30 years, and so when I go out to eat I try to make things as easy as possible for the people serving me. So I do the same thing – see what all the options are and give them to the server in one go so he/she doesn’t have to ask me. “Bacon & eggs, scrambled, white toast” (it helps that I also know the “traditional” way these things are written down – I list my choices in the order they’d traditionally be written on the ticket.

    Same thing at Jack in the Box – I know the questions I’d be asked, so I order, “Number 5, medium, curly fries, for here”.

    1. I always complete my fast food orders with “and that’s it” so they don’t ask me if I’d like anything else. Sometimes they still do. Though at least I know to say “just the sandwich” so they don’t ask if I want a meal.

    2. Charlotte says:

      I try to do that, but a lot of the time I find the waiter interupts my planned speech to ask the question I was just about to answer, which then throws me off completely.

  11. Arcan says:

    What I don’t understand is: why does it throw waiters/waitresses off so much when I answer “neither” or “I don’t want any sides”? They keep trying to get me to pick one anyway. I don’t like soup or salad, and when I order a meal the only thing I want is the meal, everything else will just sit there and go to waste.

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