Before I begin, let me say it has been a pleasure reading each and every one of you all’s stories. I’ve gotten well over a hundred stories during the course of the eight-week contest. I’m still taking submissions for the Reader’s Idiots page. Go on over to the Do You Serve Idiots Too? page to read how you can get on that.

The eighth and final contest winner is a guy by the name of Tony. If you like his story, go on over and visit his site called TonyDine.

The restaurant was having one of our “Chef Dinners” - you know, special menu, special ingredients, all that. It’s a night that is almost always balls-to-the-wall busy. Crazy busy — no time for bullshit, no time for one table of assholes to fuck around and get you in the weeds.

I get the first table of the night. As the hostess is coming to tell me I’ve been sat, I think I notice a certain look she’s giving me, trying to give me, but I can’t confirm it. No time - more customers are coming in and she can’t sidle up discreetly and whisper what I am sure is information I need.

I already can tell by her wide eyes and tired sigh what her look is trying to tell me. Servers know this look. In fact, all restaurant staff know this look - it’s the look that tells you the table you are about to approach is going to get you seriously wondering if you wouldn’t mind trading your server job for the momentary joy of shoving a dinner roll so far down some fuckers throat that his prostate gets covered in bread flour.

I walk up to the table hoping I had misread the hostess’ body language. There are three of them - one guy sitting across from a man and woman.

So I say, “Hi, I’m Tony. I’ll be your server.”

I continue, blah blah, tell them about the specials, blah blah, end by asking if anyone would like a drink.

Before I begin, let me explain something: In your head, please do a deep southern white trash accent for this next guy’s dialogue. Why is it, no matter where in the U.S. you are, if someone is a dumbass redneck, they talk with some pseudo-southern accent? We’re in Wisconsin, but this guy talks like fucking Bubba from the block.

“I don’t know,” says the dude. “Depends how much a beer cost in this place. What are they like $10 a bottle?”

In my head, I’ve already stuck my wine key into his eye.

I say, “Just typical prices – three dollars for a domestic, three seventy five and up for imports.”

The two men order beer, and when the lady begins to order a wine, Bubba from the block stops her.

“I’m already paying enough for the beer, I’m not paying another five dollars for a glass of wine.”

Of course you’re not, I think. In my imagination I’m now turning the corkscrew of my wine key into his eye.

I bring the beers and do my best to seem good ol’ boyish to the fine gentlemen. One of my strengths has always been my chameleon-like ability. Without trying, I seem to know how to talk to almost all social groups. I am able to fit in with whomever. So the dude seems to get along with me. When he jokes about his wife (I’ve been told by now they are married) having a big butt, I give him a “nothing wrong with big butts as long as there nice ones” response. Then a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. He guffaws and she actually looks please by the compliment. (Compliment? Weird.)

It’s a tedious table to wait on. Every interaction becomes a complicated middle-class struggle. He doesn’t know what to order because all the descriptions are too damn fancy (”If it’s a sweet and sour like sauce why can’t it just say so?” for example). The beer has a different label one time (God only knows why, but of course it had to happen with this douche bag), so this now becomes a scam we are trying on him. Apparently there is a cabal of label switching desperadoes bent on world domination. His wife warms up to me in a big way, and he tells me she’ll be here next Tuesday with her friend for lunch – her friend is a real horny babe, so they will “treat me good.” Christ.

Finally they are reaching the end stage of dinner. I’ve bantered my way through classless remark after classless remark. I’ve done my best self-deprecating laugh with each “there goes your tip” comment. I’ve feigned laughter when he asks about a waitress, and after finding out she’s barely eighteen, says it’s okay, she won’t feel weird calling him daddy. Let me repeat: she. won’t. feel. weird. calling. him. daddy.

The crowning bon mot – that he was disappointed we had no bathroom attendant to hand him towels, or at least shake off his dick. I’ve redirected the energy of each stupid remark like a verbal judo master. I’ve gritted my teeth, ground them to nubs really, created a permanent cramp in my jaw muscles.

But now the end is here. Check dropped, payment received.

Mercifully, the trio leaves. Assuring me they’ve taken good care of me with the tip (turns out that means a giant 15%, which is probably more than they’ve ever tipped), the wife winks and looks me up and down. Bubba laughs and grabs her around the waist.

“See you Tuesday,” she says as they push through the door and are finally gone.
Finally, I can breathe again.

I immediately tell the floor manager I will burn the place down if I’m ever scheduled to work another Tuesday ever.

Another manager is the winner of the Monday contest, this time her name’s Margaret and she managers a self-described “high-end restaurant”. That means no microwaves to reheat grilled-cheese sandwiches. No bottles of Hershey’s chocolate syrup to pour over bowls of cheap ice cream. In other words, not my type of restaurant, but probably good nonetheless. It’s short and sweet, but it’s such a common occurrence in the restaurant industry (and I had a boring week of emails from you guys). Enjoy!

A family of six are seated – and the father at the table looks at the menu and says very loudly and with a heavy southern accent:

“I can’t eat here, they ain’t got nothing fried!”

He then proceeds to ask the waiter if we could deep-fry something for her. She couldn’t believe that we didn’t have a deep-fryer. They ended up leaving, but not before informing the waitstaff that they were now in search of a restaurant that knows “how to properly cook food”.

Sad, really.

Again, anyone with stories should submit them to iserveidiots@gmail.com and I’ll put each week’s winner up on the site every Monday.

If only we could all have managers like the sixth winner of the contest, Jason Fuller. I’m glad there are still managers out there that will stick up for their servers when they have to deal with customers like this:

I am a manager, so I really only have to deal with the big idiots.

So every Tuesday we have our wing special and we get idiots that have no idea how to behave in a restaurant. This last Tuesday was especially busy and my bar was packed. The bar server was swamped with customers and taking one of about ten orders she needed to take when all of a sudden, a woman at the next table kept trying to get the server’s attention.

Finally, the server said ‘Excuse me,” to the table she was at and and asked the woman what she needed.

Woman: “I need another Long Island Iced Tea, but make this one strong.”
Server: “Okay. I’ll get that for you.”

She turns back to the original table and says “I’m sorry about that” when the original lady shoots back:

Woman: “Uh-uh! You don’t need to go fucking apologizing for me just because you can’t do your job, bitch!”

At this point I, the manager, walk over to the table and ask “Is everything okay?”

Woman, a bit wary: “Yes”

Me: “That’s good. I need you to do me a favor. There is no reason to curse at my servers like that and I would appreciate if you could maybe not do that anymore. Thank you.”

Woman: “Curse? I didn’t curse! I only said ‘Fuck’ and that ain’t cursing!”

Me: “Huh? It is cursing and you also said ‘bitch’ in a voice that carried across the bar to where I was working. I’m asking you nicely to not do it anymore.”

Woman: “Well, why don’t you get both sides of the story before you come over here and assume what happened?”

Me: “I saw and heard the whole thing. I don’t need to assume anything. The problem here is that you are assuming we are having a discussion. We are not. I am letting you know that you need to refrain from cursing at my employees or you will be asked to leave. That’s it.”

Woman: “You ain’t fucking [name of restaurant]! You just a lil’ man. Ain’t my fault you and she got low-paying jobs.”

Me: “You folks have a great night. It’s time for you to go. I’ll be right back with your bill.”

She tried to leave without paying, but we have off-duty police coming all the time on Tuesdays, so much to her dismay, she had to pay. I’m waiting with great anticipation for the complaint letter she will be sending to corporate.

Again, anyone with stories should submit them to iserveidiots@gmail.com and I’ll put each week’s winner up on the site every Monday.

The fifth winner of the weekly contest is Derek-Mother-Fucking-Klein and here is his story:

I used to work at a nation-wide retail box, and did so for nearly 3 years. A common practice for most retail stores is if you don’t have a receipt when you attempt to return merchandise it is allowed, within reason, and normally the customer is given store credit. Our system was simple:

Receipt + Garment = Cash.

No Receipt + Garment = Last/Lowest Sale Price.

It was a slow evening on a weekday and I was the only one working at the Men’s Department. Pretty usual stuff. In front of our counter was a large entryway and from which stroll in two women who make 2 a.m. Wal-Mart shoppers look clean. The oldest woman looked to be in her mid-50’s and the younger one in her late 30’s. They storm up to my register:

Younger Bitch: “I want a refund on this damn shirt. Its dirty! And stained!”
Older Bitch: “She just bought it here week.”
Me: “Okay, ma’am.”

So here is where I stick my hand into this filthy fucking bag and pull out a Southpole t-shirt, XXL of course. Most likely stolen for her 15 year old son. It reeks of cigarettes, has a bleach spot on the front and spots of bleach all over one side. It’s wrinkled and has obviously been stewing in this bag for a minute or two.
Me: (Looking right at the Younger Bitch) “You…want….you want to return this?”
Younger Bitch: “Damn right! That shirt ain’t supposed to look like that!”
Me: “Then why’d you buy it?
Younger Bitch: “I thought it was like that on purpose!”
Older Bitch: “She just bought it here last week.” (This bitch never said a useful word)
Me: “Do you have a receipt?”
Younger Bitch: “It’s in the damn bag.”

I again look into the dirty bag. No receipt.

Me: “Look lady there isn’t a receipt, any tags, the shirt is dirty as hell and obviously been worn, and to top it off, I’ve worked here for three years and I know for a fact that this shirt is at least two years old. I will not give you a refund.”
Younger Bitch: “Who the hell do you think you are! You little fucking shit! You cant talk to me Im a fucking customer!!”
Older Bitch: “She just bought it here last week!”
Me: “Look here you fucking white trash bitch. Take your shit and get the fuck out of my store or I’m going to give you a hysterectomy with a fucking shop vac!”
Younger Bitch: “I…I…I demand to talk to your manager!”
I do a 360 and proclaim, “Hi, I’m Derek-Mother-Fucking-Klein. I manage the Men’s Department. Now get the fuck out of my store, you stupid cunt.”

Long story short, I lasted about three more weeks at that shit hole.

Again, anyone with stories should submit them to iserveidiots@gmail.com and I’ll put each week’s winner up on the site every Monday.