#12 Overheard
I was working in a restaurant a few years ago. It was pretty late after closing, and I was waiting for the last table to finish eating so I could clean up (not my table). In the meantime, I was doing some other closing work on the other side of the restaurant, talking to a co-worker, and glancing occasionally over my shoulder to see if they had left yet.
The lady at the table comes up to me, demanding to see the manager. I say OK, not really grasping how angry she is, and go get him. She begins to rant about how my co-worker and I were laughing about how she and her friends were “dogs.” Actually, my co-worker and I were talking about how he was looking after another co-worker’s pets while they were out of town.
In the empty restaurant, they had overheard a few random words and pieced together their own little puzzle that my co-worker and I had nothing better to do than talk about them (which says volumes about their self-image, I suppose). She unloads on our manager, who doesn’t believe for a second that my co-worker and I would even think, much less say, anything like that about these women. Knowing there has obviously been some misunderstanding, he calls us over, and I proceed to explain how we were having a conversation about a co-worker’s pets.
I swear I saw a look of embarrassment flash over her eyes, but she just continued flipping out. My co-worker and I left the scene so the manager could cool her down, but after calling us rude names for the better part of 5 minutes she eventually just walked out without paying. Her friends followed her out a minute or two later, saying they aren’t paying for her meal.
Credit: nofutureinyofrontin