I don’t understand women. Hell, I don’t even think women understand why they do half of the stuff they do. But they do it. And there’s no stopping them.

Ever.

So you can imagine my frustration when I’m slammed with half a dozen tables on a Friday night between 7 and 8 o’ clock and I absentmindedly introduce myself with:

“Hey, you guys, my name’s Ryan.”

Whoa. Double whoa. Triple frickin’ whoa with a cherry on the frickin’ top.

Woman #1: “Excuse me?”
Woman #2: “Did you just call us ‘guys’?”
Me: “Uh…I don’t remember?”
Woman #1: (Disgusted sigh)

Listen, how’s this for a deal? I pretend to care about what you have to say about the new “Sex and the City” movie and pretend you don’t look pregnant in that new dress you bought and you pretend to not care when I call you, and every other customer I have, “guys”.

In the restaurant industry, you are privy to many of the funniest conversations you’d never hear if you weren’t a server. It’s almost comical that people will say when they think no one else is listening.

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Woman #1: “So I went all the way to Orlando to visit Brad this weekend and he didn’t even finger me.”
Woman #2: “Men.”

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Man: “Is it wrong that I think girls are hotter when I think they’re underage?”

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Man: “You know, I had to take off Tuesday night, right?”
Woman: “Oh, for the new Dragon Ball Z video game coming out. Of course.”
Man: “Yea. I’ll tell your brother how it is.”
Woman: “Cool. He’s excited about the new movie coming out.”
Man: “Ask him what he thinks of it. I want to buy it, but I don’t know if I’ll have enough money to cover rent and the new box set.”

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Man #1: “I’m so drunk I could eat a horse.”
Man #2: “I don’t think that’s how that goes.”
Man #1: “I’m so drunk I could eat a house?”
Me: “Closer.”

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Man #1: “Okay, so would you rather with Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana?”
Man #2: “Aren’t they both the same chick?”
Man #1: “No, no, no. One is on the Disney Channel, the other’s Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter.”
Man #2: “Oh. Then the Disney chick. For sure.”
Man #1: “Right on, bro.”

What is it about women in crocs that gets me so angry? Regardless of what it is or what it tells me about a person, a chill always runs up my spine when a woman struts in showcasing a pair. And when I see a customer sporting those ridiculous, looks-like-they-were-made-with-playdough things on their feet, I immediately know four things about them:

1. There’s no way they can do long division.
2. Their favorite movie is “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” because (and I’m quoting a girl I went on two dates with last summer) “it speaks to me like no other movie.”
3. They’ll giggle profusely after saying #2.

…and…

4. They will not tip worth anything.

When Lucy, our hostess, sat me the woman wearing crocs and her hipster doofus of a husband, the smile she was wearing told me she knew the Rules of the Crocs.

Her: “What is filet mignon?”
Husband: “I think it’s a kind fish.”
Her: “I’ll have that. With a little lemon on top.”

Wow. Virginia Woolf would be rolling around in her grave.

Me: “No, ma’am. Filet mignon is a steak.”
Husband: “And I think it’s pronounced fil-et, not fil-ay, dear.”
Her: “No, it’s fil-ay. I took a year of French in community college. (Giggle)

Double wow.

Her: “Well, I’ll have the mignon.”
Husband: “Me too. Medium rare.”
Her: “Yea, medium rare.”

So I bring out the fil-ET mignon dinners and think nothing of the table until I hear the woman waving me over.

Me: “Is there something wrong?”
Her: “It’s pink inside.”
Me: “Yes, it’s medium rare. It’s suppose to have a little pink inside the…”
Her: “I want something else.”
Me: “Ma’am, that’s how medium rare works. I’m sorry if…”
Her: “I want a scallops dinner. Medium rare.”
Me: “Ma’am, firstly, I can’t just give you a new dinner if you didn’t know that medium rare came pink. Secondly, scallops don’t come pink.”
Her: “I want scallops.”
Me: “But the filet is perfectly fine. I can’t just throw away a dinner.”

By this time, April, my manager, comes over to “solve” the problem.

April: “Just get her a side of scallops and get her out of here.”
Me: “But…”
April: “Just do it. She’s come in before and she doesn’t know chicken from steak. Just get it to-go.”
So I get her a side of scallops to-go and bring her and her husband the check. As I’m taking up the plate, I notice that the filet is almost all gone. I just ignore it and try to walk away before I hear…

Her: “These scallops are slimy. Aren’t they supposed to crispy? A little burnt?”
Me: “No, they’re supposed to be exactly how they came on your…”
Her: “I want chicken. You can’t mess that up.”

What an ungrateful, croc-wearing twit. I’ve given this lady manna and water and she’s grumbling for meat. You want chicken? If it were up to me, I’d feed her chicken until it came out her nose. But I’m not God, and she’s not Moses. So I did the only thing I could do…

Me: “Ma’am. You’re going to have to leave.

There it was. The very first time I ever told a customer to leave the restaurant. And they did. They paid their tab and stormed out.

As fate would have it, she tripped on the curb leading outside of the restaurant. Whether or not the crocs were harmed remains to be seen.

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but when a couple goes out to eat, is it not the man who takes up the check most of the time? I’d give it a 9:1 ratio of dudes paying to dudettes paying. Obviously, the woman I served last night didn’t have her little (yes, very little) head wrapped around that little fact as she complained ad nauseum that I didn’t give her the check.

Her: “Ummm…why did you just assume that HE was going to pay for it?”
Me: “Because guys usually pick up the check.”
Her: “EXCUSE me?”
Me: “Ummm…”
Her: “That is soooo sexist!”
Me: “Well, here you go.”

And then I handed her the check. I went to go pick it up a little bit later, ran the credit card through and put the bill back on the table in front of her. Not a minute later, I saw the GUY signing his name because it was HIS credit card.

What a douchette. She bitches me out over principle and then doesn’t even follow through with it. At least the guy was cool. He gave me a 50% tip and a “Sorry my girlfriend’s a b****” on the bottom of the receipt. So, if anyone knows of a Benjamin B. Rossain with a high-strung-for-absolutely-no-reason girlfriend, give him a high-five for me because he 1) has her for a girlfriend and 2) frickin’ deserves it.