One must not treat children like adults
March 6, 2008 | 5:28 pm | Blog | Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? | 8
Tuesday C and I participated in our first caucus. It was a festive event — we walked the five minutes from our house to our polling location with a collapsible cooler and made friends in the line by talking about the various candidates. There were Obamaphiles everywhere and for some reason not a Clintonite to be seen. Something like 200 people filed in and out of the bed and breakfast, filling the back yard and front and hanging out by the swimming pool, which gave the entire affair the air of a block party. There were so many people they stopped asking for registration cards. While other polling locations were on the brink of devolving into riots ours was a happy hearty place which I think can be attributed to the diversity and personality of our still-thriving gay-borhood (a subject I have more to say about later).
I’ve been obscenely excited to participate in the political process this year. More excited than one should be. I can’t decide if it’s because my candidate of choice has filled me with the most hope and optimism than I’ve felt for this country in a very long time, or if I’m just glad to be back in Western Civilization and all the trappings that go along with it. Nonetheless, I’m relieved the election is over here, for the next eight months at least, because I can no longer bear to witness conversations like the one I eavesdropped during lunch on Monday, in which a seven-year-old overly-precocious boy and his septuagenarian Eastern-European grandmother hotly debated what Obama could do for the country. The grandmother (and the parents, who for some annoying reason encouraged this argument) believed that Obama was a Socialist who, once elected to office, would steal from her family all their collected wealth. I might add that this conversation came right on the coattails of another dialogue in which the three adults at the table discussed what to do with their uninhabited second home, located in River Oaks.
Now, I understand this Bloc-raised woman may have had some Ayn Rand-ian aversion to socialism and an unnatural love for capitalistic culture, fine, but the entire conversation was ridiculous and crazy-making (who argues with a seven-year-old over politics? What seven-year-old knows that much about politics?) not to mention the fact that I was annoyed anyway because these people were totally abusing their waiter to begin with, and then the entire event was brought full-circle yesterday when I spotted the kid, mother and grandmother on my turf, at the museum. AND! AND! The whole time this conversation was happening another couple was arguing politics to my right and the restaurant’s televisions were tuned to network news and so I was trapped in some kind of a Homer-esque hell of stereo political gobbledy-gook.
Then, after we voted in the caucus Tuesday evening we went to eat sushi with neighbor friends and were yelled at by an overweight female Clinton supporter with a horrible ’80s man’s haircut who was eating alone. Not to say she’s indicative of ALL Clinton supporters. It was just an observation.
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You can tell a lot about people by how they treat the waiters at restaurants. It’s a very reliable method of determining who’s nice and who’s not.
You tell me. I’m a former waitress and bartender! The curse of death is when a customer tells you “I’m going to tip you reeeeal good. That always means they won’t tip at all.
On that note, my parents’ wisdom, oft repeated:
Mom: “You can always tell a person’s class by how they treat the help.” (Translation: “Only the nouveau riche will treat the salesgirl poorly, trying to put distance between themselves and from whence they just came. “Nice” people, aka those “from nice families,”[ha!] are nice to *everyone.* You’re not better than someone just because you’re blessed to not have to wear old clothes, honey.”)
Dad: “Don’t insult the chef. He’ll spit in your soup!” (Dad was a Marine Colonel. A little more straightforward than my gentile mother)
Different motives (social class standards adherence vs negative stimulus avoidance), but same results!
Mom was (is) classy and wise.
And Dad tipped *very* well. ;)
I still stand by the belief that everyone should be required to work in food service at least once in their life. It builds character and sympathy.
I lived that and I tell all my students every year the same thing!
The BEST advice!
My ex was a waiter in college and worked for Starbucks for several years… and was the worst tipper I’ve ever known. We went out to eat for my birthday and the check came to about $80. He left the waiter NOTHING because he said the guy talked to the other table too much. I dropped a ten on the table, and all hell broke loose… ugh. Anyway.
I have been trying very hard, when ordering, to ask, “May I please have…?” rather than “I need…” or “Give me…”
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