Some People Shouldn’t Be Out Among Other People

(At the restaurant where I work, there is a server who used to work at a different restaurant chain. He had regulars there who were really strange, and he tells me about them when he first starts working at my restaurant. I guess I don’t fully believe him until a group of three people — I assume a husband, wife, and maybe adult son — comes in. They request the aforementioned server. They’re very quiet people, and the woman has a dopey smile on her face. Her clothes have stuff all over them, which I can only assume is a mixture of food and bodily fluids. Her husband only responds to any questions I ask in grunts and groans, though he will use words when speaking to his wife and son. The son is obviously mentally handicapped, so I have nothing bad to say about him, because I don’t discriminate against the mentally disabled. However, his parents are honestly just weird.)

Me: “Hey, [Server], I sat you at table 72. These people are kind of weird, though.”

Server: *his face completely falls* “Oh, God, no.”

(It turns out they were his regulars at his old job. I worked there for about two years, and until the server left to work in a state penitentiary, this group came in every Wednesday wanting to sit with him. Some things I caught them doing were chewing up their food and spitting it into napkins as if that was all they wanted, farting loudly with no excuses or apologies, asking other hosts if they would be willing to change their son’s diaper, bringing cans of soda into the restaurant — we have soda! — but not drinking them and instead pouring them into our live plants outside, and worst of all, the woman would walk to the bathroom and on her way there she would take food off of dirty tables. Yes, this was food that another customer had bought and was sometimes half-eaten. She just walked by, grabbed half a steak with her bare hands, and ate it on the way to the bathroom. Apparently, when they came in to the server’s old job, they were told he’d moved to this new restaurant, so they followed him. And since my restaurant is much more expensive than the previous one, they yelled at the server until he gave them his employee discount. Not even the right one! Employee’s family and friends discount is 50% off two meals, 33% off three, 25% off four or more. They should have gotten 33% off, but they yelled until all three of them were crying so he would give them the full 50%, which almost got him fired. Luckily, he worked there for a year before he left. They’d come in and ask for him and I had the satisfaction to tell them he no longer worked there. They’d just get quiet and shuffle out but still try again the next week, as if he might suddenly work there again.)