THE THIRD REASON

"THE THIRD REASON"

The restaurant was expensive. And almost deserted on that afternoon. My friend had dragged me there for a cup of coffee.

I always avoided going to posh restaurants. There were three reasons for this. First, I did not like paying a ridiculously high price for a dish that I could get, same quality or better, at a fraction of that price in any other moderately priced good restaurant. Second, some of the waiters in such places had far more money in their pocket at the end of the month than me. You cannot fail to see that hint of a disdain in their eyes if they detected that you were not in the big league. My moto is "go to a place where you are welcome I am not an imposter".

And I will tell you the third reason in a while but let me first finish what I started with.

Yes, as I was saying,we were in a posh restaurant. There were several tables and we had settled in one that was adjascent to a highly polished central pillor. As I had said, the restaurent was not having many customers at that time but  I  could see from my side of our table a gentleman sitting across the pillor as well as his tabl. He appeared to be a regular  customer. He had a permanent scowl about his face. He appeared to be a hot-tempered super-rich man.

As I watched, the waiter placed some shining crockery before him on the table along with an assortment of cutlery and had barely turned when this gentleman looked at his plate and sharply called him back.

'Hey. Why can't you see that the plate is not clean?' he demanded.

From where I sat closeby, the plate looked quite clean.

The waiter was ruffled but remained courtious.

'Sorry sir ! I will just bring you another plate.'

'What do you mean by saying sorry you fool . This should not have happened.  And now what are you waiting for. Get going ". The tone was very offensive. ' He gestured with his hand to dismiss the waiter.

The waiter was clearly upset as he disappeared behind the pillor to re-emerge on our side.

I did not want him to know that I was a witness to his dressing down so I pretended to look in another direction but kept watching him from the corner of my eyes.

The waiter wiped his forehead with a white handkerchief and looked around to see if he was being watched. No, there was no one watching.Satisfied, he spitted several times on the plate and thoroughly polished it with the hankie. And then he reappeared before the gentleman, respectfully placing the plate before him.

' Good boy ! Now that's much better !", drawled the gentleman, ' I like this sort of cleanliness. It should always be like this in future. Okay ?'

' Yes sir. It will always be so' said the courteous waiter.

That was the third reasons why I avoided top-flight restaurants!

(the photo is for illustrative purpose only)