When I’m nineteen, I am hired on to open a new restaurant in our area. We go through the process of training in hotels while it’s being built, and I am going to start out as a hostess to get the feel of the inner workings at this particular place.

On our second night of cold opening, where you basically have to be invited — food is free, half charge on the bar, and tipping is required — it happens.

I have seated a table of a well-to-do man and a couple of his equally well-off buddies in their late forties or early fifties. It’s a lovely interaction; I expect nothing else through their visit. I get them squared away and walk back up to the host stand to snag my laminated copy of the table chart.

I walk back by this table after running through and checking on open and soon-to-be-open tables. This man slaps my a** as I walk by.

In a sheer, shocked reaction, I turn around and frisbee the chart into this clown’s neck. You know how sharp those new laminated edges are. I draw blood. The whole place just goes quiet.

Then, from every corner, nook, and cranny of that building, everyone — I mean everyone — starts uproariously laughing, even the proprietor. I’m still s***ting bricks, thinking I just slashed this guy’s jugular and now I’m going to jail.

I try to pull myself together as quickly as possible and leap to his table, just spewing apologies. (I’m nineteen, it’s 2000, and I don’t know better.) He and his bros are laughing so hard, the only noise is their wheezing. They have tears rolling down their faces.

The proprietor is now running to the table, still giggling like a toddler. Before he can even get out a response, the man starts talking, reaches into his back pocket, and pulls out his wallet. He apologizes profusely to me, saying he “didn’t know what came over him” and he wasn’t hurt by anything but “his actions”.

The guy puts five $20 bills in my hand and apologizes so many more times throughout the whole evening.

After he and his crew waddle on out, I am doing my thing with the chart again — more aware now — and random tables keep handing me money. “We haven’t laughed that hard in ages!” “You made our night!” And so on.

Forget the fact that he just basically assaulted me in front of all you. Thanks for the cash.

I profited off a booty slap, was not written up or fired, and took down a grown-a** man down with a laminated chart. I will never forget that night.

There is an upscale restaurant here where you get your food by going to various cooking stations. There are stations for steaks, roast chicken, vegetables, desserts, coffee, etc. You collect what you want and then pay at the end.

The coffee station lists various fancy coffees, including Cafe au Lait for $2.80 and Cafe Latte for $2.95. One is of French origin and the other Italian.

I catch the barista’s attention.

Me: “What’s the difference between these two coffees?”

Barista: “Fifteen cents.”

As I expected.

I’m dining in a restaurant and overhear another customer ordering a drink.

Customer: “Could I please get a lychee lime slushy?”

Waitress: “Yes, anything else?”

Customer: “Nope, that’s it, thanks.”

The waitress goes to the kitchen and comes back.

Waitress: “Hi, sorry, you ordered a lychee lime slushy?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Waitress: “I’ve just checked with the kitchen and they’ve run out of lychee.”

Customer: “Oh, okay, then could I get the watermelon lychee slushy, please?”

Waitress: “We don’t have lychee, sorry.”

Customer: “Yeah, so could I get the watermelon lychee, then?”

Waitress: “We don’t have lychee.”

Customer’s Friend: “They’ve run out of lychee! Get a drink without lychee!”

Customer: “Oh! Sorry, could instead of the lychee in the watermelon lychee, could I sub it for lime?”

Waitress: “Yes, sure! I’ll be back with your drink.”

Customer: “Thanks!”

I was the chef in a hole-in-the-wall joint and it was awesome; it was crazy busy and the clientele was hipster to the max. We had a bunch of yum on the menu. My favorite by far was the Unburger, a slab of meatloaf with cheese baked in. It was served on a chunk of French stick, topped with BBQ sauce, jalapeños, more cheese, tomato slices, and lettuce, served with homestyle potato wedges. It was bloody incredible and delicious, and it was our best seller by far.

The menu description was, “UNBURGER: meatloaf, jalapeños, cheese, in a French stick, served with house wedges.”

A local who had eaten this multiple times and LOVED it came in one day and talked to me.

Customer: “The Unburger is the best vegetarian ‘burger’ in town!”

Me: *Laughing* “It’s not vegetarian.”

She let rip — burst like a festering pustule. She demanded to see the manager. Cue the owner trying her hardest to not laugh her a** off. It’s a meatloaf burger; it’s on the menu. We laughed so hard about this for months.

A woman comes into our restaurant half an hour before closing time. She sits at the bar and has a drink. Then, fifteen minutes before we close, she decides to order a paella TO GO.

Me: “Ma’am, paellas typically take forty-five minutes to an hour to make, and they also do not hold up well for transport. I strongly recommend against taking it to go.”

Customer: “No, I’ll still order it.”

The restaurant has a policy that the kitchen stays open past close if a customer puts in an order before that time. The kitchen makes the paella and packs it as best they can.

Two days later, the woman calls and gets our manager.

Customer: “I was very unhappy with my meal! It was disgusting! By the time I got home to Toledo, the food was inedible!”

That’s an hour’s drive, a detail she conveniently left out when she ordered the food; otherwise, I would have flat-out refused to serve it to her.

Manager: “Well, yeah… That will happen if you let paella sit in your car for an hour. Why are you complaining two days later?”

Customer: “I was just too upset! I want a free paella for my troubles!”

I tried to tell my manager that it was obviously a scam, but my manager gave in just to get the woman off the phone. Luckily, I didn’t see the woman again. Unfortunately, this restaurant often gave in to such idiocy and obvious attempts to get free food.