That Muffin Just Takes The Cake

(My parents and I moved to London five years ago, but my much older sister still lives in our home country (USA). My eight-year-old niece is visiting at this point, and my mom and she and I decide to stop at a café for lunch while shopping in our local shopping centre. It is a chain café but we’ve eaten at different locations before and had a decent meal. Having gone in, nobody even looks at us for a few minutes.)

Mom: *signalling one of the servers* “Hi, could we get a table, please?”

Server #1: “Um… yeah… just go ahead and sit down anywhere…” *hurries off*

My Mom: “Ooookay, guess we’ll sit outside.”

(We pick a table outside, and are waiting for a few minutes before a different server approaches us:)

Server #2: “Hey, are you ready to order?”

Mom: *dumbfounded* “We haven’t even gotten menus yet…”

Server #2: “Oh! Um, I’ll get those for you.”

(Server #2 returns a minute later with menus, but before we can decide what we want, the server we initially spoke to comes over:)

Server #1: “Are you ready to order now?”

Mom: “We just got the menus less than a minute ago. Could we have a few more minutes to decide?”

Server #1: “Uh… sure…”

(We finally decide and Server #1 returns, and takes our order. Both my mom and I order dishes that involve two poached eggs, while my niece orders a blueberry muffin, as she is not very hungry and is not allowed to eat chocolate in public because she’s so messy.)

Server #1: *almost immediately after leaving with our orders, comes back* “Sorry… we don’t have any more blueberry muffins left…” *to my niece* “You can come inside with me and look at the other pastries in the display? How about a chocolate one instead?”

Me: “Oh, no, she’s not allowed chocolate.”

Server #1: *as if I have two heads* “Oh. Ooookay…? Well, I’ll take her inside and have her choose something else then.” *leaves with my niece, without my mom’s consent*

Mom: *quickly, to me* “Go with her. Make sure she doesn’t get anything she shouldn’t.”

(I go inside, and of course find Server #1 trying to convince my niece to get a huge chocolate muffin, dripping in chocolate. I intervene.)

Me: “Hey, [Niece], how about one of these fruit tarts? This one’s got apples on it. You like apples!”

(Thankfully my niece is not dead set on a muffin, and agrees to an apple tart. Server #1 shoots me a death glare for some reason.)

Server #1: “Fine. I’ll bring it out with the rest of your food.”

(I go back out to the table with my niece and wait for our food. It eventually comes, but neither my nor my mom’s eggs are runny in the centre. I don’t mind it too much but my mom is a picky eater and takes the plate inside, and tells them that the middle is solid and she wants a properly poached egg. She returns, and soon after her remade food is brought out. This time the eggs are VERY undercooked, almost raw.)

Mom: “Seriously? Come on, they can’t poach a freaking egg?”

(She sends it back again, this time cancelling her entire meal, as my niece and I are almost finished eating and we have a lot of errands to run. We eventually get the bill, and the meal she never ate was on it.)

Mom: *to me* “I knew they would try and charge me for this bulls**t.” *flags down Server #1* “Hi, yeah, I didn’t eat that. Take it off the bill.”

Server #1: “FINE.”

(Needless to say, we didn’t leave a tip.)