Who is Serving Whom?

We pay for services rendered, give tips as is customary. When are the tables turned?

A while ago I tried to get a reservation at a restaurant and was told that I had to pay in advance, within the next year or so they would tell me they had an opening and we would be obliged to get an immediate flight there to eat whatever they wished to serve us, forget that my husband is deathly allergic to anything that swims.

I am a diner. The cooks work to please me and my palate and my checkbook. I don’t pay for dinner a year in advance and have you choose my menu and kill my husband. I may be living overseas by then and our money is gone. Who let the dogs out?

Now there is someone who will not speak to me. I lent a staffer something, she hasn’t shown up for weeks so I asked for it back and she threw it at me and wrote me a nastygram and now will not speak to me. She works here for little more than minimum wage. I live here. I’ve fed her. She was a nice person. Now she thinks she is in a position of power to treat me badly. Who works for whom? I pay more per month than she makes in six months and I pay her salary. Go figure.

Ask my butchers, checkers, maid I treat them with respect and kindness, even asked someone to show her five year-old Stick Man on Netflix, which he loved. Who is the only person that brings chili (true TX chili that I grind myself) back into the grocery store for a tasting? Me. Who walks dogs for free and has a neighbor’s grandkids over to make parfaits for their family? Me. Who has an open invitation for a blind dog to hang out and have him and my dog Zoe ignore each other? Me.

I’ve given back my entire life. I adopt strays with no hips. Tell me I don’t have to pay a restaurant bill a year in advance for a meal I cannot choose and may be living around the world so cannot collect said meal. The tables have turned, literally. I like to pay for services rendered. If I wish for extra starch (or none) in my husband’s shirts I expect that recommendation to be accommodated. Hangers or folded? Ditto.

Lo, how I wish to go back to the day when the customer was always right. I’m old and know my purveyors. When people tip my boat I’ve a right to get a word in edgewise, before falling overboard thus cutting off the means to pay for their familial needs. Dee