No Need To Get Your Skirt In A Bunch

My sister gave me a gift card to one of my favorite chain restaurants. It’s one of those places where you can dress up or not, as you choose.

I chose to dress up, wearing my favorite full skirt and a blouse. It’s a good thing I did. We were seated in a little alcove. On the other side of the wall from us was where the manager worked when not in her office — a wait station, I guess.

We ordered, and the waiter brought out our beverages. I ordered a strawberry lemonade, and as he was removing it from the tray, he didn’t lift it far enough. It was almost like watching it in slow motion; I knew it was coming but couldn’t do anything to prevent it. The bottom of the drink caught on the tray and the drink landed on its side, open end toward me. The full beverage, complete with ice, cascaded across the table and poured into my skirt.

I reacted quickly, gathered the front of my skirt, and stood up. I rushed to the bathroom, where I was able to dump the liquid and ice that were still in my skirt into the sink, rinse the front of my skirt, and dry it as well as I could with paper towels. Because I reacted quickly, the drink never penetrated my slip, so under the mess on my skirt, I was perfectly dry and comfortable.

The manager came and apologized and we dismissed it; accidents happen, I was fine, and it was okay. She comped my meal, so that was a plus — now our combined total fit with the gift card we had. The waiter felt so bad that he never came back to our table. A different server brought my freshly-made replacement beverage and our meals. Apparently, the young man who spilled the drink was very new as a waiter and felt so horrible he had to leave the building to pull himself back together. I felt really bad for him.

The funny part came at the end of our meal. We finished and were preparing to leave. While we were getting our check, a busboy was clearing a table in the same alcove. As he was walking to the entrance of the alcove, he tripped, spilling his entire tray. It made a clatter, for sure. The manager whipped around the corner and we could see on her face the priceless look that said, “Oh, no! Not them again?!“