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, 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.

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. I could clearly see a gentleman sitting close by, though a part of his table was obstructed from view by the pillor. 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 sorry.This should not have happened. And now don't just stand here.' The tone was offensive. ' Be quick', the gentleman waved his hand to dismiss the waiter.

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

'Now that's much better !", drawled the gentleman, ' I like this sort of cleanliness. You will always clean it 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 !