Wednesday, June 18, 2008

How dare you expect napkins with your meal?


Today, while running around frantically for work, I found myself with an unexpected 30 minutes before an interview. So I pulled into a locally-owned health food store, which was near my source's house, to grab some freshly made sushi for lunch.


The store has a little seating area where you can eat, where there are also a bunch of condiments, reading materials, etc. In this same little U-shaped area, there's also a counter that is staffed by an employee. I think he was there to make smoothies or something, but at the time, he wasn't doing shit besides chatting up some crazy lady who was going on and on about her feral cats.


I surveyed the area for chopsticks and there weren't any. Here's how things transpired from there:


Me (to employee): Excuse me, do you have any chopsticks?


Employee (who was clearly annoyed at the interruption): "Um, yeah. They're over by the sushi." Then he rolled his eyes like I was the biggest dumbass in town.


I went back over to the sushi and saw an empty canister but no chopsticks. He was so rude to me that I didn't bother telling him they were out. I just decided to grab the rolls with my fingers because the fork always makes them fall apart. So, I started looking for the napkins. There were FIVE dispensers in the immediate area, all of which were empty.


Me (still being totally polite): Um, is there somewhere to get napkins? All of these dispensers are empty.


Employee: Loud sigh. "Yeah, they're over above the soups," he said, pointing back toward the grocery store part. Again, he delivered this information in a tone like I was Corky from "Life Goes On."

Oh, excuse me, asshole! My x-ray vision didn't zero in on those conveniently located napkins hidden behind three aisles of food. God forbid I actually want to wipe my hands after eating with my fingers.

Then, this jerk called over another employee and asked him if they had any chopsticks. The other guy was like, "No, we've been out of them for a couple of days."


"Well," he said, gesturing to me, "she wants some." Like I was a pariah for even asking! Disposible chopsticks are not an unreasonable thing to expect when ordering sushi... and it wouldn't even have bothered me that much if they were out, but he was just such a dick about the whole thing.


Finally, after I ate, I went to throw away my trash and they had three different garbage cans for various types of recycling and one for garbage. Every single one of them was overflowing -- like, stuff was stacked on top of the garbage can lids because there was no room inside them. I actually had to pick up someone else's trash and set mine underneath it, or the entire stack of crap would have toppled over.


I like to support local places, but I will never set foot in that dump again. I don't understand why they even have employees there. Mind you, this wasn't even after the lunch rush. It was at 12:10 p.m., and the joint was empty. The missing customers were probably all at Whole Foods, where I should have gone in the first place.


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