No Armpit Drinks Please

Try as I might to stop writing about bad service, or terrible food or questionable management at eating establishments sometimes I just have to break my own rule and share a particularly horrible experience. Here is my one disclosure, please do not continue reading this if you are eating your dinner right now. Fair warning.

Today I went to a charity luncheon to support an organization that is doing good work in our community. You know the type of thing. A giant room full of women with five uncomfortable men scattered about. I am all for charity spreading their message and getting a few bucks to keep their doors open. What happened at this event in no way should reflect badly on the organization that was benefiting from it.

After visiting with old friends from far and wide I rarely see except at these things I joined the table I was asked to sit with. We were lucky enough to be right by the kitchen door, which meant that the staff did not have far to go when we had a need. When we arrived at our table our perfect for ladies who lunch salad with chicken was sitting at our places. On the table were carafes of water and tea.

Being polite Southern women we poured each other glasses of tea and passed around the tiny sauce boat of dressing, each trying to take only a drop or two since eight of us needed to share the serving that usually would cover two salads.

After all the pouring was done, one friend took a sip of tea and declared, “Oh no, it’s sweet tea.” Now I may live in the south, but any caterer worth their salt knows better than to serve middle aged women who try to avoid sugar at all costs sweet tea without warning them. One woman asked a sever if they had any unsweet tea and without much trouble a new carafe was delivered to our table. But what to do with all the glasses full of brown sugar water?

My table neighbor and friend K asked a server who was passing bread if she could have a new glass. She quickly disappeared into the kitchen and upon her return with breadbasket and tongs in her hands she leaned one side of her body into K and offered her a new glass that she was carrying tucked tightly into her armpit. I wish that I had a video of our faces as she pulled the glass from rim to stem fully through her sweaty shirt, keeping her arm tightly squeezed against her body so she would not drop the glass. K took the glass trying to touch as little of it as possible and placed the offending crystal as far from her plate as she could.

K looked at me with that did you see what I saw look and we both almost spit our lunches out on our plates in disgust with the thought that a server in any sort of establishment thought that it was sanitary to carry anything in her arm pit, let alone something someone might put to their lips. The fact that the server in no way thought this was acceptable is the scary thought. Imagine what might be going on in the kitchen.

Consider this my public service message to cater waiters, servers and restaurant owners everywhere – Never and I mean Never Ever carry anything in your armpit. Outside of the one in one million person with an armpit fetish no one wants to touch, let alone eat or drink with anything that has been tucked up there. I guess to the manager of this place he might have thought he did not need to cover this is training, but I guess you do.