A Platter Of Human Indecency

I am traveling, visiting a friend of mine and doing touristy things, and we’ve just gotten out of a show and gone for a late-night snack. We are sharing an appetizer platter when a large group comes in: three women and four or five men. We aren’t paying a lot of attention to them, except that this one woman keeps loudly talking about how she isn’t all that hungry and she isn’t going to eat much, and she is just there to be social.

The waiter comes and takes their orders, and she is very busy talking to her friends about something or other, even while they are trying to order their meals. She doesn’t even look at the waiter as she orders an appetizer platter. The waiter tries several times to get her attention to verify if she wants the platter or the meal, as the platter is larger and meant for many people, but she completely ignores him.

He shrugs, finishes taking orders, and leaves.

When the food comes back, suddenly she needs to make a big deal about how he’d brought small plates so the platter could be shared. You know, what usually happens with an appetizer platter. The others at the table reassure the waiter that it is fine, it isn’t a big deal, and they have their own food, but the one woman just keeps going on about how sexist it is that he assumed a woman would be sharing her food and that she was perfectly capable of eating by herself, despite the other two women at the table pointing out that he hadn’t done that to them.

My friend and I roll our eyes about it. It’s very much not something we want to get involved in, so we go back to talking about the show we’d gotten out of. We are there for something like two hours over coffee, so we are there when the other table leaves.

My friend nudges my shin with his foot and nods over at their table. “Check out how much she finished.”

Sure enough, she only ate about a third of the platter. The poor waiter was rudely snubbed and accused of sexism because she couldn’t stop and listen long enough to save a little money by ordering the smaller meal.

We left a larger tip out of sympathy, and for taking up his table for so long. It is worth noting that, since I’d done the ordering, he did give the check directly to me, not to my male friend, and he was very nice.