Things you normally do

I was working a dinner shift the other week. My waitressing job-du-jour is with a chain seafood restaurant, one that's considered a treat and an attraction in this sparsely populated region of Canada. It was a busy dinner shift that evening and, in a free moment, I was helping out a fellow server who was struggling to keep up.

It was the little things I was looking after. Fetching side plates, clearing dishes, that sort of thing. At one point, I hurried into a quiet section of the restaurant with a fresh basket of complimentary biscuits. Which table was it I was supposed to-- ah, right. Table 65. A man and a woman sat there, waiting for the next course, the man poking at a smartphone with both thumbs. I smilingly approached the table.

"Here you go! Fresh-baked biscuits for you."
The man looked up suddenly and snapped, "Now, listen. I don't normally do this."
I nodded, trying to keep a pleasant server expression on my face. Uhh, what the heck, sir, I'm just the messenger.
"It's rude to text at the table," the man said. Briefly interrupting the steel-hard stare he was giving me, he gestured to his lady friend (who didn't look offended in the slightest). "I would never do this under normal circumstances. It's disrespectful."
"I'm sure you wouldn't," I agreed. Because honestly, it is tacky when people bring a companion to dinner and then ignore them all night to fiddle with a phone.
"I'm just texting my kids to make sure they're not doing anything they shouldn't."
"That's a good reason," I said.

Bringing up family meant that this had the potential to be a conversation. Which would certainly be nicer than just me getting lectured for a judgement I hadn't made! I shifted to a more relaxed, standing-around-and-chatting sort of stance.

"Do you have kids?"
Scratch that relaxation. Add me freezing up on the inside. People tend to guess low on my age when I'm in chirpy server mode -- so the fact that I dislike children and don't want any would be a bigger barrel of worms than usual.
"No," I said. Neutral expression, Heidi. Neutral expression. Don't have nightmare visions of children getting their sticky hands all over my video games.

Man and woman eyed me for a second. Considering.
"If they think I'm not paying attention," the man said, "they'll burn the house down. That's why I'm sending a message."
"Well," I said brightly, "if I were out with a guy and he let the kids burn the house down, I'd definitely be mad at him then. So it's good that you texted!"
The woman chuckled. Even the man smirked and eased up on his waitress-skewering gaze. I asked if they needed drink refills or anything -- no, they didn't -- and I made my escape.

It's the sort of conversation that happens all the time in restaurants. Can't really avoid it in a place where people serve other people, everyone carrying their own ideas and perceptions. This particular conversation just seemed weirdly … thorough. It had smartphone etiquette that has only come about in the last year or three, and it had the age-old expectations of what a young woman will do with her life. Text and subtext. It seemed like I had spent a lot longer talking with those people than I actually had.

It can be trying sometimes, and mundane at other times. But I do like waitressing. It makes me think.