Dinner with a show

Amy and I finally went out to Di Carlo tonight, the wood-fired pizza place next to the weird cash-for-cars joint.

When we got there, we realized they didn't serve booze, and for a couple of our sophistication, sobriety was not an option. So while Amy rode back to the house to pick up a bottle of Trader Joe's Barbera d'Alba, I was supposed to order a pizza and a salad and wait.

That was thwarted by the drama from the table before us.

I started eavesdropping shamelessly (as is my wont) when I hear the waitress say, "You should have told me!" to the table, then the guy in the corner starts saying, "I don't usually tell everyone I'm diabetic when I order."

He comes up to the counter, and starts telling some man (I assume the owner or manager) that he loves, loves, lurves this restaurant, but that he ordered 25 minutes ago, and got told it was only going to be five more minutes 12 minutes ago. And that the waitress didn't seem to care at all, and he'd already taken his medicine after the last time she told him five more minutes. He said, "I'm diabetic, this is serious."

Now, granted, he had a whiny, entitled voice. And the waitress usually has around zero control over when things come out of the oven, especially a wood-fired one. The manager jumped to and got the parties their pizzas, which were pretty much right there anyway.

But on the way out, the dude came up again. He reached across the counter and took the man's (owner? manager?)) hand in his and started talking about how he loved the place, but was so incredibly angry that something, something something whispered, because he suddenly realized that everyone in the restaurant could hear him.

The waitress had come over to the counter and started arguing with him, sotto voce. As the customer left, she flipped off a "Fuck you, bitch" with a delightful Latin accent (her dyed blonde hair and fake tan made her ethnicity unplaceable) and went out after the customer to continue swearing at him, at the same time her boss was still trying to glad hand him.

It was weird — the waitress was totally cool to Amy and me, but totally over the line to this other guy who seemed to kind of be in the right. I was stuck trying to explain it with stereotypes, like, that whole party (including the diabetic) were trim, well-dressed guys with the Valley Girl accent, and the waitress had an indeterminate accent that just marked her as "not American" (it might have been easier to guess if she wasn't a bottled golden blonde). So my guess was homophobia, which might be racist, but who knows?

Anyway, it was a lot more interesting than the goofy conversation the guys next to us were having about the relative loot factors of a bunch of games. "Borderline, I love it, I'm a total loot master. I love a level nine sniper rifle with a six shot clip." That guy was talking about the temple he worked at and how cool it was that his boss had an open mind and "liked all that new age shit."

Luckily, the pizza was really pretty damn tasty.