You Can’t Control Other People
A few years ago my dad was picking me up/moving me out of college in NH, I decided him to take him to this famous diner in the town, Red Arrow.
It should be noted that I’m the result of an interracial marriage and while I look like a generic white girl, my dad is a dark-skinned Hispanic man. So anyway we go in and I ask the waitress how long the wait would be for us. She looks at us incredulously and is like… “Wait, you two are together?” Confused, young me responds, “Yeah he’s my dad.” And she just goes, “Yeah, ooookay.”
So whatever, I’m a little taken aback by her rudeness but brush it off and she seats us. She hesitantly hands my dad the menu and goes, “Will you be able to pay for this meal?” Like wtf? Dude, it’s a cheesy diner. My dad is a well dressed, clean-cut guy. I don’t even know why she would even ask this but my dad politely responds that yes, of course, we will be able to pay for our meal.
Later, towards the end of our meal, my dad politely asks her if they happen to have some extra boxes in the back as he’s moving me out today. She responds, “Oh you’ll have to ask our dishwasher about that. He’s in the back, you’ll get along well, you both speak the same language.”
At this point, I’m practically shaking with fury about how obviously rude and racist this woman’s behavior is towards my dad. But of course, him being the chill, nice guy he is, just thanks her.
Upon leaving I asked my dad how he could stand being treated like that by someone and he just goes, “You can’t control the actions of other people, only how you react to it.”
Still, I wrote this long letter to Red Arrow about how unacceptable her behavior was and how you can’t treat patrons like that. They never responded. I should have ripped the staff to their face, but I didn’t want to upset my dad.
Story credit: Reddit / armermaid