Most.Awkward.Dinner.Ever.

Jason and I visited the Selfs this past weekend, and Jason's folks took the whole crew (Jason, me, Sara, Adam, Sawyer, Jake, and Beth) out to dinner at one of their favorite restaurants.

We had the world's most awkward waiter.  By the time we had placed our drink orders, he had already shared with us that he was ADHD.  Not usual dinner conversation...

Sara and Adam were running a little late with Sawyer, so we went ahead and got a table but we were going to wait to order.  The waiter, however, did not accept that.  He basically bullied us into ordering, stating that there was going to be a mad rush and that we needed to order now if we wanted to get food.  Um... ok?

When we ordered, he couldn't understand any of us and had to ask everyone to repeat themselves.  Yes, most of us have accents, but we were in a town where those accents should be recognizable!  I ordered the "Brutus" (burger smothered in cheese, spinach artichoke dip, and bacon... *drool*) and he thought I was ordering burritos, something they don't serve.  When Jason ordered fish and chips, he looked very seriously at Jason and said "You know that 'chips' aren't really chips, right?  They're french fries."  Thanks buddy, we've never heard of fish and chips before.

Sawyer (my nephew) came into the restaurant squalling because he had fallen asleep on the ride over and he was cranky.  Our waiter came over to get Sara and Adam's order (five seconds after they had arrived) and just kept saying "Is the baby ok?" over and over as everyone tried to calm Sawyer down.  Then, he turned to Adam and said "You'd like a beer, wouldn't you?"  Adam said under his breath to me, "Yep, I always drink when my baby cries...."

Once Sawyer calmed down, the waiter told us our food was ready and that he was bringing it out.  Sara and Adam hadn't even ordered yet.  We asked him to hold the food.  He came back a minute later and said that his boss told him he had to bring the food out.  Ok then, bring it out, geez!  Fortunately, the manager came out a few minutes later and apologized for the situation.  He said the food wasn't going to be as good if it kept sitting and then said that our waiter shouldn't have put in our order so early (no kidding).  He offered to make our meal half price for the inconvenience, which I thought was a really upstanding thing to do.

Other tidbits throughout the meal:
~He spilled water on my foot when refilling my drink and spilled on the table twice, once when refilling Jason's drink and once with Adam's drink.
~He couldn't remember who ordered what drink or what food, so he just started placing them in front of people, and we had to switch among ourselves.
~Jody was on the phone with Sara before they got there and signaled the waiter to place their drink orders by raising her pointer finger.  He came over and asked her "Did you just give me the finger?"

At the end of the meal, he stopped by to ask how many checks the meal would be on.  We were a big party, so gratuity is usually automatic, but he asked us if he needed to include gratuity or if we were going to tip him.  Yes, the waiter asked us about his tip!




Um, so yeah.  It was a quite a memorable dinner!  I've had rude waiters before or ones that barely show up twice at the table, but I've never had a waiter like this before!  Needless to say, that's a dinner I'll remember for a long time.

Quote the Raven, Livermore

Jill sent me this article yesterday announcing two new elements to the periodic table, Livermorium and Flerovium.

I have a love affair with the periodic table.  It combines three of my favorite things -- chemistry, organization, and some trivial thing to memorize that no one will ever ask you to recite.  Out of all of science, I love the periodic table the best.  The fact that elements with the same number of valence electrons line up in columns together and all have similar characteristics to each other baffles and excites me.  That Dmitri Mendeleev was able to predict the characteristics of undiscovered elements down to their precise atomic masses impresses the crap out of me.  I'm not kidding.  I don't have a lot of books at school with me, but one of them is The Disappearing Spoon, a book Jill gave me about how every element on the periodic table was discovered.  It's awesome!

Ok, I'll continue this geek-fest with a couple of neat elements and chemistry facts.

Did you know that the first column (family) of elements on the periodic table, the alkali metals, all explode in water?  You can see a video here: Periodic Table of Videos

Did you know that table salt (sodium chloride) is made of an explosive metal and a poisonous gas used in chemical warfare?

Sodium metal

Sodium reacting with water

Chlorine gas

Did you know that there are only two liquids on the periodic table -- mercury and bromine?  In fact, mercury was originally named hydragyrum (symbol Hg; Latin for "liquid" and "silver").

Mercury droplets ball up and join back together

Bromine is a dark red liquid that readily evaporates into poisonous fumes

Did you know that all of the last family of elements, the noble gases, are used to make "neon" lights?

The noble gases and the color "neon" signs they make

Ok, that's all the geeky element stuff I have for the day.  Congrats livermorium and flerovium, and welcome to the family!