It was a fairly busy night at the upscale restaurant that I work at. I
had a family of five come in one evening for dinner (2 adults and 3
children around the ages of 7-12). One of the boys had a bandage on
his head. At the moment, I wasn’t terribly busy and so to stir up
conversation, I asked him what had happened to his head. His mother
told me that they just left the emergency room and that he had to get
stitches after falling and hitting his head against the kitchen
counter. While I didn’t understand why they would come to a restaurant
after that kind of ordeal, I told the boy that I hoped his cut healed
okay and went back to doing what I was doing.
At the end of the meal, I dropped off the check to find the mother
changing the boy’s fresh bloody gauze and bandages AT THE TABLE. It’s
not like we were lacking a restroom that this could have been done at.
They could have even waited to go home and done this, but they chose
to do it AT THE TABLE with my other tables looking visibly
uncomfortable at this scene, with one guest expressing her disgust at
me. I dropped off the check and kindly asked them to please finish
changing his bandage in the bathroom as to not upset the appetites of
the other guests. I get a condescending glare, $7 on a $65 check, and
a huge wad of bloody dressings on my table. I had the busser
completely disinfect that table before I let the host stand seat it
again. SO gross!
- Allison
