I have an uncle who used to work as a server in a kosher restaurant in the Jewish Ghetto, and he has told me this tale many times.

It’s important to know that, among kosher rules, there’s the prohibition of cooking dairy together with meat. And, while most places in the ghetto usually simply do not offer grated cheese and have separate cheese boards to save themselves the hassle, this restaurant my relative worked at, by virtue of being owned by a hardcore Italki couple, outright does not allow anything dairy on the menu, not even desserts.

Not that this stops people.

A party of three tourists gets a table and orders pasta. When it’s served, one of them pipes up:

Tourist #1: *In English* “This pasta looks a little… bare. Can I please have cheese?”

Uncle: “Sorry, sir, but as we are a meat-oriented kosher restaurant, we don’t have cheese. However, if you would like some more sauce, I can add some for you no problem.”

Tourist #1: “Meat-oriented kosher restaurant? Doesn’t that just mean you can’t eat pigs and have to slaughter other animals ritually? Why no cheese?”

Tourist #2: *To [Tourist #1], in German* “I mean, maybe they’re catering to the dairy-free crowd?”

Uncle: “Actually, no, it’s not kosher to have meat and cheese, or milk, served together, so we don’t have cheese. Sorry about that.”

Tourist #1: “I mean, my pasta doesn’t have meat. It’s just zucchini and egg.”

Uncle: “Sorry, sir, but we still don’t have cheese.”

Tourist #2: *In German* “If you’re going to do this because the owner doesn’t like dairy, you can just tell us. There’s no need to make stuff up.”

Uncle: *Ignoring the comment and speaking to [Tourist #1]* “Would you like some more sauce on your pasta?”

Tourist #1: *Dejected* “If you really don’t want to give me cheese… sure.”

My uncle takes the dish to the back, asks for the cook to add a little more sauce, and then serves it back to [Tourist #1], who apparently seems unimpressed by this but still eats it all.

Then, it’s dessert time… and [Tourist #3], who has not spoken a single word up to that point, tries to ask, in a heavily accented and uneasy Italian:

Tourist #3: “Can I… get… panna cotta?”

My uncle pauses, unsure whether to burst out laughing or not.

Uncle: *In English* “It means ‘cooked cream’ in Italian. As in… gekochte Sahne. You tell me. What we do have…”

And he listed the desserts they actually had. The group asked for the check and then left. My uncle found the receipt scribbled with a drawing of a middle finger and, “No cheese? No tip!” in German under it. He preserved it, for he has found it too ridiculous to throw away.

Related:
Not Quite The Cream Of The Crop, Part 6
Not Quite The Cream Of The Crop, Part 5
Not Quite The Cream Of The Crop, Part 4
Not Quite The Cream Of The Crop, Part 3
Not Quite The Cream Of The Crop, Part 2

The board game café and pub I used to work at taught me many things, and one of those was to never mix business with pleasure without some strong guarantees.

The place’s owner had only me, his sister, and two close friends on call, with various flaky part-timers going through revolving doors for various reasons. Somehow, despite being placed fairly in the way of nightlife, and advertised in English, too, this was more than enough.

Then, one day, [Owner]’s sister found herself a girlfriend. Said girlfriend was at first merely invited to hang out at the cafè, but soon enough, she had started to invite friends over… and let them eat and drink for free.

The tales of [Sister]’s generosity soon spread to the extended friend circles, increasing the number of people occupying tables and eating or drinking for free little by little.

Things came to a head when, one Saturday night, the number of [Sister]’s friends and “acquaintances” was enough to occupy all but two seats, and the overall bill, by all accounts, should have been around 1,100€, instead of 0€. This was made worse by the fact that the people got hostile with patrons who did intend to pay to stay there and that [Sister] had forced me and a poor b*****d expecting an easy job to rush around to all the tables while being treated like dirt for not conjuring food out of our behinds.

The next week, the owner saw the expense ledger and demanded an explanation. Let’s just say it’s lucky he didn’t try to bite his sister’s head off.

As soon as [Sister] told her girlfriend that she was going to charge her for food and drink, she got ghosted.

In my time working as a waiter, both as a room server and as management, in a restaurant in the centre of Rome, there have been a lot of baffling complaints, sometimes about food, sometimes about the service, and sometimes about even the decorations’ arrangement. So, I kind of have seen them all, and I used to think I was prepared for pretty much everything.

Then, one day, during an off-season day, I see a family of four composed of two adults, one preschooler girl, and a boy who is clearly older than the girl. Beyond noticing them as they enter, I don’t pay much attention to them and let a waitress seat them, but then, after a little while, the same waitress seeks me out.

Waitress: “[My Name], the mom at table seventeen wants you to come over and talk to them. They’re foreigners, so be aware.”

And off I go. I see that the dad is saying something in his native language to the daughter fussing on the chair, and the mom is looking at me with a scowl on her face.

Me: *In English* “Good day. Have you asked for me?”

Mother: *Speaking slowly* “Yes! I asked your waitress if you had a playground here, but she said she did not understand.”

Me: *Blinking* “A playground? Inside here, you mean?”

Mother: “Yes, inside. You do have it, no?”

Me: “No, madam, we do not have a playground in this restaurant.”

Mother: *Gesticulating furiously to mimic the concept* “Again? I mean a place with small sliding things and climbing bars, not trees and sand.”

Me: “I got what you meant the first time; this restaurant doesn’t have either one.”

Mother: “Don’t be strict with words. I clearly mean a place where children can play away from the table.”

Me: *Resisting the urge to roll my eyes* “Madam, I know what you meant. In this restaurant, there is no playground, but you can have your children go around the table if they don’t disturb other patrons and the servers.”

The mother scoffs and says something in her language. I shrug and go back to my other duties until I get called again… for the same table.

Waiter: “[My Name], sir, come quick. Table seventeen is getting antsy.”

I am expecting a complaint about the prices. I am expecting a complaint about the lack of that d***ed playground.

I am not expecting to see the waitress from earlier having an incoherent shouting match with the mother, drawing the attention of nearby tables, while the girl is all red-faced and being restrained by the father, and the boy is looking at me pleadingly as I arrive. I rush to separate the two.

Me: “Wait, wait, wait! You all calm down this instant! What’s the problem here?”

Before anyone else can speak…

Boy: *In English* “Mom angry you have no play place. She ask me to pull sister skirt and do thing.

He mimes the gesture of pulling on a skirt and then pantomimes something unclear

Boy: “But I no wish to; is dirty and bad.”

The mother barks something at the boy while the waitress turns to me.

Waitress: “He’s trying to say he was refusing to change the sister’s diaper in the middle of the room. I intervened just as this lady tried to start changing the girl herself.”

Me: *In Italian* “Ah, so that’s how it is, huh? I’ll get to it.” *In English, to the family* “You pay up for what you consumed and get out.”

Mother: “No! You don’t give us access to a playground, I leave you a present. That’s my family’s way!”

At this point, the girl, well out of breath, is angrily seething on a chair, so the father is finally in condition to intervene and say something to his wife, which is enough to make her stop angrily gibbering. Instead, she leaves the bill on the table and then gets up to leave, taking the children with her. I leave to get the tab and present it to the man.

Father: *In English* “Sorry for my wife. We’re Czech, and she’s here just to take the usual pictures. She’s close-minded, and it was a fight to take her here instead of to McDonald’s.”

Me: “I could see that. But why the playground?”

Father: “A lot of Czech restaurants have one; she was convinced it worked like that everywhere. Again, I’m sorry for her behaviour.” 

And with that, he paid, tipped the customary 10%, and left in a hurry.

I used to date a guy from my same course canal at university. We were together for five years, but toward the end of the relationship, whether because he felt he “had it in the bag” and could go mask-off or genuinely got worse in his ideas, he started making off-putting remarks and puerile sexist jokes. I thought it was a phase, so I didn’t ignore it outright, but eventually, I broke up with him over a specific incident.

I attend a graduation party for a coursemate, and he (the coursemate) has invited basically everyone he knows, including a guy nicknamed “Mr. Troglodyte” because of his clumsy mannerisms, his being a pop cultural alien, and his alleged general lack of class. 

At some point during the party, while a few lady friends and I go out for a smoke, Mr. Troglodyte, henceforth called “Dude”, comes to chat us up about our careers. At first, we try to hold our eye-rolls back, but after a while, my friends and I find ourselves actually talking nicely with him.

While we’re talking, my boyfriend walks by and waves theatrically at [Dude].

Boyfriend: “Oh, hey, [Dude]! How’s it going?”

Dude: “Oh, hi, [Boyfriend]. Is the party going all right in there?”

Boyfriend: *Shrugging* “Eh, it’s going smoothly, nothing much. By the way, which of these girls do you like best?”

I wish I were kidding.

Dude: “Uh… I think I like [My Name] the most.”

Boyfriend: *Goes wide-eyed* “No way, bro! That’s my girl! I can get really jealous, y’know that?”

Dude: “Mate, you’d need to be at rock bottom to lose your girlfriend to me of all people.”

My friends and I laugh, though I admit it’s mostly out of awkwardness than anything else.

Boyfriend: “Nah, bro, what’ve other dudes got that you haven’t got?” *Mimes a pinching and slapping motion* “All you need to do to get a girl is to slap their a** good and pinch their t*ts while they aren’t looking. All ya need is confidence!”

I stare, horrified.

Friend: “No, don’t listen to him. That’ll just get you punched!” 

Boyfriend: “Ah, c’mon. Women are pretty much all sluts anyway.”

Dude: “Seriously? You’re going to say that in front of your girlfriend?”

Boyfriend: *Acting nonchalant* “Anyway, wouldn’t you prefer having [Friend] in your bed?”

I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and splash my face several times to calm down, expensive makeup be d***ed. The rest of the party goes well; my soon-to-be ex is still pestering [Dude] or drinking several glasses with the graduating coursemate’s relatives. As soon as the desserts are served and things have quieted down, I decide to confront my boyfriend.

Me: “Okay, now that you are done with drinking, can you please tell me what has gotten into you?”

Boyfriend: *Confused* “What has gotten into me when?”

Me: *Sighing* “When you called me and my friends sluts in front of [Dude]. How could you, [Boyfriend]? How dare you?”

Boyfriend: “Aw, but c’mon, honey! I was just ridding myself of competition. Besides, I don’t think you were enjoying his talk anyway.”

Me: “Just because he isn’t the most interesting person on Earth, or the most suave, doesn’t mean he’s bad at talking. Also, what competition?!”

Boyfriend: “Do you know how hard it is to find a girl these days? I can’t let you slip past me like that, especially not to somebody who looks and acts like a caveman in a fancy suit.”

Speechless and irate, I went and congratulated the graduate, took the customary bomboniera (a traditional party favor), and then looked for somebody able to give me a ride back home, as I had no intention of going back home in my ex-boyfriend’s car.

I broke up officially over a text and have been looking since. No luck so far, and the aftermath was devastating on the face of it, but at least I grew wiser from it.

I live in a university-granted apartment as the sole “stable” tenant, so I get to meet and see a lot of people on a semestral basis — some colorful, others less so. Sometimes, between the tenants, there is… quite a bit of friction. But never quite as much as in this story.

Meet [Danish Student] and [Polish Student]. The former studied Economics and basically came to Italy just to party while occasionally crunching a few numbers; the latter studied Political Science and was taking the whole “Erasmus (student exchange) is for studying experience” thing rather seriously. 

You’d think they would rarely interact with each other. In fact, you’d normally be right… but I ruined the peace.

How? 

As is tradition, I organized a “cultural cuisine weekend”, where each tenant cooked something they liked from their country. I started by cooking amatriciana (a traditional Italian pasta sauce) on Friday.

Danish Student: “Where is the spinach?”

Me: “Spinach doesn’t belong in amatriciana.”

Polish Student: “[My Name] obviously would know better than you would, [Danish Student].”

Danish Student: *Yelling* “Just because [My Name] lives in Italy, it doesn’t mean they know how to cook a good amatriciana! I’m more qualified than either of you; I took cooking classes in high school and you didn’t!”

[Polish Student] and I were taken aback but decided to let it slide to not ruin the vibes, and apparently, we all three enjoyed it.

The next day, it was [Danish Student]’s turn, and he decided to serve rye bread with cold cuts, which [Polish Student] didn’t like, and his reaction triggered an argument between the two.

Danish Student: “This is exactly how my mama makes it!”

Polish Student: “It’s just a matter of taste, and I don’t like it!”

It went on long enough that [Polish Student] stormed out, proclaiming:

Polish Student: “If that’s the standard, Danish cuisine is pigs’ food and penance diet!”

And he left to go pick something up at a nearby delicatessen.

I wanted to cancel the next day’s meal, but [Polish Student] insisted I let him have it. Dinner time came, and, sure enough, he had prepared bigos stew (a dish using cured meats and sauerkraut). It came out a little bit too salty, but [Danish Student] claimed:

Danish Student: “This is salt soup to accompany a tankard of vodka!”

Polish Student: “At least my stew has some flavour and consistency, unlike that rye bread. That was just peat that has been dried out in the sun and then mixed with kidney gravel!”

And it was at this point that, apparently, war was declared.

As much as I begged the housing service to just separate the two, they never intervened, so I was stuck tolerating day after day of one going into the other’s pantry to bin everything that didn’t fit their standards, the other retaliating in kind, and both of them shouting at each other about being either a “little provincial worm” or “a creaky piss-haired snob” and other such insults, giving each other passive-aggressive “tips” when even remotely close to the kitchen. 

Their feud apparently extended to campus, because other international students avoided them like the plague — but they still gossiped about them often enough.  the language exchange cafè’s personnel tried to keep them as separate as possible!

Peace was had only when [Danish Student] took his exam and then caught his flight out the day afterward, way before [Polish Student] was done. Suddenly, [Polish Student] became a whole new person and tried to be more cordial with me, but at that point, I was entirely burnt out on him and the other guy.

I guess in terms of tidiness, I’ve seen worse, but this was the most emotionally tiring experience of all!