What The Fork Are You On About?!

My first job is waiting tables when I am seventeen. An older couple has been coming in every Wednesday afternoon and ordering the same thing for years. I mean years. This restaurant was open for almost ten years prior to my employment, and a few of the staff have been there from the beginning and can vouch for this.

It’s my fourth training day, so I have learned the ropes, and it’s my last shift before being on my own. It’s my first encounter with the couple. My trainer even warns me about how particular they are about receiving their appetizers and meals.

The spinach dip is already finished without a hitch, and after I clear the table and bring their meals, I hear a bellowing that could only be described as the wails of a silverback gorilla. I immediately turn around to be met with an old and cherry-faced behemoth and his wife chugging her white zinfandel.

Me: *Politely* “Is there something wrong with your foo—”

Customer: *Angrily interrupting* “You changed your forks! They used to have four prongs, and now they only have three!”

Unbeknownst to him, I had dined at this same restaurant since it opened and knew it had the same exact silverware as my mother’s. Her forks have three prongs, as well.

My newbie a** hauled right into the kitchen after apologising and retrieved my trainer, who eventually won the showdown by appeasing the old gorilla with our PLASTIC takeout forks.

Like a spoiled and proud child, he was somehow immediately appeased and went back to eating. Maybe the extra prong helps the utensil become a shovel? Mysteriously, they still came in every Wednesday, but he never complained about the forks again, and we never had to give him a plastic one again.