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Three nights ago I tore a strip off our waiter on date night.
I’d been “off” all day and felt like shit.
When ordering, I checked with the waiter to make sure the enchiladas were made with corn tortillas, as I am allergic to gluten.
He nodded an emphatic yes.
But when my plate arrived, the tortillas were clearly FLOUR, not corn.
I called the waiter over and said “are these flour tortillas?”
Another emphatic yes.
“I asked you before if they were corn and you said yes. I can’t eat wheat. You’ll need to take it back.”
Then everything went sideways when he shook his head and said something to the effect of “it’s already on the plate.”
That’s when I saw red.
Not only did he waste my time by screwing up the order with his bad information… now he was telling me I was stuck with it and had to pay for it.
My voice was fury-soaked: “I ASKED YOU if the tortillas were corn and you said yes. YOU got it wrong, not me. I’m not paying for this.”
In the end, he brought me a gluten-free option and took the enchiladas off our bill.
My wife and I ate in silence.
When we got back in the car and headed for the concert, my wife said “that was really embarrassing. I can’t believe you berated the waiter like that.”
“Wait… you can’t believe how I treated HIM? That guy was trying to screw me over and make ME pay for HIS mistake!”
And around and around we go.
Long story short, she thought I had completely misunderstood him and that he never tried to “stick it” to me like I so clearly had assumed.
Was she right, or was I?
I don’t know.
And it doesn’t matter.
Because all I’m left with from that night is the hard truth that every time I tell myself finally, FINALLY I am justified in venting the rage I feel inside… I’m wrong.
In those shitty days I want a clear foe, an assailant who clearly deserves a punch in the face.
But that night there was no foe. Just some waiter in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We think we are finally fighting the asshole. But we are merely giving our own inner-asshole free reign.
…
I’m still pulling myself out of whatever blear-hole I fell into this week.
In fact, as soon as I finish this post I need to go downstairs and patch things up with my wife after another fight we just had.
You fall down, you pick yourself up again.
No matter how many times the darkness closes in around you, you stand up and beat it back with a fucking stick.
How long do you keep fighting?
As long as it takes to get back to the light.
Wow, this is me. There’s been a couple, OK maybe a few times at restaurants no less that I have gone off. The most recent time was at a cracker barrel. Not to go into all details but I was upset and everything went dark except the waiters face and I laid into him, then I felt my wife’s hand on my arm and it brought me back to reality. The whole dining room was looking at us. My wife takes it well when it happens and we laughed about it later. But it is as you say, my frustration with a lot of things just wants a clear foe, poor waiter. He wasn’t the foe.
Include your wife in the preparation of your own meals at home. Rest assured, your meal will be gluten-free, your wife will view you as the self-sufficient, competent, and loving man that you wish for her to see. No arguments will be had. Cathartic sex will follow. (Do you smoke grass? You need to free your mind). You might scoff at this, but it is a solution to your problems.