Lo Mein Character Energy

I work at a large pan-Asian restaurant with an extensive menu. It can be quite annoying when customers don’t bother reading the menu.

Customer: “I’ll get the chicken.”

Me: “What specific chicken dish did you mean, sir?”

Customer: “The chicken noodles!”

Me: “We have about eight different chicken noodle dishes. Did you mean—”

Customer: “—The chicken noodles! God! I’ve had a long day, and I didn’t come here for a conversation with the help! Chicken noodles! Is that so hard!?”

Fair enough. I take the rest of the table’s order (all of them ordered their specific dish correctly, and none of them seemed too shocked about this guy’s behavior). I check for allergens, and then I’m on my way. 

Most of our items hover between $16-$22, including most of the chicken noodle dishes. There is one, however, that is a special. It’s $45, and consists of a whole chicken, on top of a noodle sea, surrounded by smaller chicken pieces, all differently flavored. It’s meant to be a sharing item.

The look on his face when the giant dish was placed in front of him was worth any risk of him going apoplectic and sending the dish back. Thankfully, he didn’t and seemed to accept his fate. He didn’t speak to me for the rest of the evening, save for asking for some takeout boxes for the 75% of his meal he wasn’t able to finish.