Friday, October 22, 2010

Dininig Experience from Hell

My sister and I had dinner at what was supposed to be the "best restaurant" in Grafton, Illinois. Unfortunately, it failed to live up to its advanced press. The pizza, which we ordered as a meal, was the size of dessert plate. The waitress never came near us, so we put in our own order and paid without getting a check. When we mentioned the lack of service to the owner, he abruptly pulled a bunch of bills out of register and slammed them on the counter. We said we really didn't want our money back. Shoving the bills in our direction, he said it would make HIM feel better to give us our money back. We escaped without taking the refund.

"Well," I asked as we drove away, "What lesson can we take away from THAT experience?" This was tough, even for two people who were determined to make lemonade out of a bunch of pretty rotten lemons. (We don't always do that.)

We had just read Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. My sister suggested that if we had read his face more carefully, we would have known what emotions were going on there. I, being the family philosopher said, "You never know what is going on in people's lives. All you know is what you see on the surface. Maybe he had a very bad day."

"Even so," she countered, "Since he owns a restaurant that caters to tourists, don't you think he could have TRIED to be gracious?" So much for brainstorming.

We drove in silence all the way back to our little cabin. Finally, my sister said, "Maybe the lesson is to lower our expectations so we'll never be disappointed." I'm sure the guy who writes the Zen Habits blog would agree. He's always saying stuff like that. It's great advice and an apt lesson; but for this mere mortal, it will take a lot of work to put it into practice. (No, that was not an intentional pun.)