We had a lovely weekend in St. George,
I was mortified. After the initial frozen state of shock, and praying that the man wouldn’t stand up and beat up my husband and/or myself, I started thinking:
What is the proper thing to do? Is there something written somewhere about post soda dousing etiquette? Do I wipe off his shirt? I mean, he can’t reach around to do it himself. But is it okay to touch a total stranger… especially in a wiping-type motion? Luckily, his wife decided to deal with his shirt. And she politely handed us the rest of their spare napkins to wipe up our still-dripping table, and the floor which was pooling with 16 oz. of Diet Coke, complete with those little shredded ice chunks. Our waiter walked over and all I could envision was him slipping in it and dropping his tray of beverages on the already doused man. There simply weren’t enough napkins to handle such a situation. But alas, I warned our waiter in time and he sent over a kid with one of those rag mops to slosh the soda around on the floor—not actually absorbing any of the soda, but at least distributing it over a larger area of the floor.
The whole time that all of this is going on, Zoe is crying because she feels so badly. The wife, in the midst of cleaning her husband’s shirt, is also trying to console my daughter. I mean, it was an accident, but it made me feel almost worse that the wife was being so gracious about it.
They left quickly and we finished our dinner without (further) incident. When we arrived at the front counter to pay, an older couple in line ahead of us looked back and said, “Are you the ones that had soda spilled on you?” I said, “No, we were the spillers.” She gave me a knowing look that only a woman with children can give. I added, “And I’m not sure which is worse: being the one getting spilled on, or being the one having to apologize.” She reminded me that it happens to everyone. And I reminded myself that we aren’t from St. George and that we wouldn’t have to see any of these people ever again.
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Oh goodness! That would be embarrassing.
Once, when I was around 12, I spilled my tray at the Long John Silvers - right in front of the cute guy behind the counter. My mom said, “Well, that was a lot for her to carry. She’s only 12.” I could have disappeared into the floor. The cute guy behind the counter knew I was 12. There’s nothing more humiliating than being 12. Ugh!
Comment by Leslie — May 22, 2007 @ 9:32 pm