I’ve loved hot tea since I was young, but it took me a while to realize this was not common in the southern United States. My family and I are driving back from the beach and stop at a small roadside diner for breakfast. I’m about twelve at the time.

Waitress: “And what would you like to drink?”

Me: “What kind of tea do you have?”

Waitress: “Sweet or unsweet.”

Me: “No, I meant hot teas, like green tea.”

The waitress gives me a confused look.

Me: “Do you have hot tea?”

Waitress: *More confused look* “Well, I guess I can put some iced tea in the microwave for you if you want.”

Me: *Long pause* “You know what, that’s okay. I’ll just have orange juice, please.”

My parents and I decide to try a new diner in town for breakfast. The diner has only been open a few weeks and we’re excited at the prospect of a new place to get breakfast on weekends.

I order a waffle with ice cream which is listed on the menu and is more expensive than a plain waffle. My parents order their food at the same time and the waitress puts in our order. When our order comes, there is no ice cream with my waffle.

Waitress: “I’m sorry, we’re out of ice cream. I brought you butter for your waffle, but do you want some whipped cream, instead?”

I‘m slightly annoyed because if I’d known right away that they were out of ice cream I would have ordered chocolate chips in my waffle, but this isn’t a huge deal and I take the waffle with the butter that she brought.

We happily eat our breakfast and ask for the check when we’ve finished. On the check, the waitress has charged us full price for a waffle with ice cream. My dad flags her down.

Dad: “You charged us full price here for a waffle with ice cream.”

Waitress: “Yeah, that’s what you got.”

Dad: “No, that’s what we ordered, but you’re out of ice cream, so that’s not what we got. We just got a plain waffle with butter.”

The waitress sighs heavily, rolls her eyes, and takes the check. She walks off without a word. A few minutes later, she comes back and tosses the corrected check on the table without saying anything and then stomps off.

My dad goes to the register to pay for the meal and when asked how everything was, he explains what happened and the waitress’s attitude to the manager who is ringing him up. The manager makes a confused face.

Manager: “We’re not out of ice cream, because we’ve never had it since we’ve been open. We don’t even have a freezer!”

We haven’t been back.

My friend and I are finishing our meals at a local diner when the waitress comes by. I’ve been eyeing the dessert menu throughout the whole meal.

Waitress: “Will there be anything for dessert?”

Me: “Yes, I’ll have the cherry cheesecake.”

Waitress: “We don’t have cherry cheesecake.”

My friend and I look at each other because we both can see the picture of a piece of cherry cheesecake at the top of their dessert menu sitting beside us. I point to it.

Waitress: “Oh, you mean the cheesecake with cherries on it?”

Me: “Yes, please.”

The waitress walked away, and my friend and I facepalmed.

My friend is the bad customer here. A few friends and I are eating late at night at a diner. My friend orders a ham and cheese sandwich and modifies the order some way, but I don’t remember exactly what he changes.

When the waitress stops by and asks how everything is, my friend smiles.

Friend: “Yeah, good, thanks.”

We all ask him why he didn’t speak up and he shrugs. At the end of the meal, the waitress brings the bill.

Waitress: “Okay, guys, here you go.”

Friend: “Well, actually, as you can see, I didn’t even eat this. It was gross, since you guys got my order wrong, and I couldn’t eat any of it.”

The waitress looks confused.

Waitress: “I’m sorry. When I asked if everything was all right you said yes, so I assumed…”

She looks at us for confirmation and we glare at my friend. He rolls his eyes.

Friend: “Yeah, well, clearly, it wasn’t. I didn’t eat it, so I’m not paying for it. And the fact that your kitchen got this basic modification wrong is horrible communication.”

We gaped at him, utterly confused by this sudden behavior; he is usually very temperate. The waitress apologized and went to remove his food from his bill. The rest of us rushed to pay our bills, so we could leave as fast as possible once he was done with his.

The waitress came back and my friend inspected the bill carefully to ensure he was not charged for it.

We left the waitress a big tip and berated my friend as soon as we were outside.

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My husband and I are Australians on holiday in America. My cousin spent about two years working in America as a waitress and has drilled into us the importance of tipping our servers. Even when the service is shockingly bad, including the time they forget to put our order into the system for forty-five minutes, we tip at LEAST 18% because that is what my cousin recommended, and we’re a little stunned that servers work for pennies an hour and rely on tips to survive.

A large amount of staff who notice our accents seem pleasantly surprised when we tip them the proper amount or more. We stop for lunch in a little diner near our hotel and the waitress is AMAZING. She chats with us, asks about Australia and expresses how much she’d love to visit, tells us where to find a specific store I really wanted to visit but haven’t been able find, and is just all-around wonderful.

She is coming over with our refills:

Waitress: “Here we go, guys, here’s your—”

Mid-sentence, a small child who has been running around unchecked for the last half an hour slams into her legs. She drops both our drinks — one all over the kid and one directly into my lap.

The kid’s mother starts SCREECHING at the top of her lungs and demanding to see a manager. The waitress is trying to clean up the kid, apologise, and get us napkins all at once. I clean myself up as best I can and wave her off — I can easily pop back to our hotel to change — so she leaves to get her manager to deal with the screaming mother and her crying child.

She comes back a few minutes later with new drinks for us and is near tears; while her manager had her back, the other woman had said some awful things and her entire party of ten had left her without a tip. She drops off our drinks and we finish them, and she brings back the bill.

Waitress: *Still nearly crying* “I am so sorry about that, guys. I took your refills off the bill; those are on me.”

Feeling bad, my husband is trying to make her laugh.

Husband: “I think you’ll find they were on my wife and that demon kid.”

The waitress, realising we’re just kidding, does crack a smile as she walks off to handle another table. While we were already going to tip her about 25% on our tiny lunch bill — seriously, food is RIDICULOUSLY cheap in the States — for being so wonderful to us, my husband just rifles through his pockets for whatever he has on him in cash and shoves it into the billfold. It adds up to about $60 on our $19 bill, and we try to escape before she sees it as we don’t want her to thank us for it. 

We’re about five steps out the door when she chases us outside.

Waitress: “Wait! You guys, two of these are twenties! I know we joked that you’re used to your rainbow money but you’ve gotta read the numbers. Here!”

She tries to hand us back some of the money and we refuse to take it.

Me: “Honey, no, that’s your tip. You were amazing. Take it.”

The waitress seemed dumbfounded that we had deliberately left her that much, and my husband joked that it was to make up for the gremlin’s parents stiffing her. She legitimately started to cry and asked if she could hug us, which we accepted, and she went back inside.

I’m still stunned that she was honest enough to try and give the tip back to foreigners she thought didn’t understand. We saw her again a few times before we left — the food was incredible at that diner — and she was just as lovely each time. Tip your servers, people!

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