Let them eat cake

If you've read any random entry from this blog, you'll know that I hate serving people with birthdays more than anyone else.

More than waiting on children, more than waiting on large parties, and more than waiting on someone I know personally who inevitably makes a condscending comment like "Oh you're still a waiter?!"

Why?  Because at a Mexican restaurant, people usually expect fanfare like this for a birthday:

Just look how fucking happy the service staff is.  What a crusty pile of bird crap.  During the one instance in which I was forced to sing "Happy Birthday," the only glee on my face was because I'd stolen a piece of birthday cake while no one was watching.

But my least favorite birthday experience ever?  Come.  Put on a festive sombrero, sit back, and let me do all the entertaining. 
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One evening, as I was listening to the perky hostess/actress/model/singer/dancer/gum-smacking whore prattle on and on about some story that neither involved nor interested me, I watched in horror as a group of 15 Mexicans entered the restaurant with balloons, sombreros, bags of confetti, a puke green ice cream cake, and if I recall correctly, six or seven donkeys. 

"EESA BIRRRRT-DAY!" Grandma Salchicha proclaimed. 

"Happy BIRTHDAY!" the hostess squealed. 

"Fuck me with a paint ball gun," I muttered.

The hostess informed the birthday bandits that there'd be a 30 minute wait for a party of 15.  This did not please Cousin Esperanza, who fought logic with logic:

"But...EESA BIRRRRT-DAY!" she screamed.  I studied the intricate hostage/victim situation going on with her unnaturally curly hair and 100 proof hairspray. 

"Jew should geh-somethin' togayther 'coss EESA BIRRRRT-DAY!!!!"

With this, the hostess took to clumsily moving smaller tables between, by, and around unsuspecting diners.  Five minutes later, voila, a slapdash table fit for fifteen.  And placed awkwardly in the heart of my section.

"May I bring you all anything to drink?" I asked.

"EESA BIRRRRT-DAY!!!!" Chubby little Conchita informed me.  "Jew should wear dees!"

(Translation: You should wear this.)

With that, Chubby little Conchita handed me a sombrero.

"I thought only the birthday girl was supposed to wear the sombrero?" I asked.

"No," Grandma Salchicha said while shaking her head.  "EESA PARRRRTY!  Everyone wear sombrero!!"

"I...can't," I said searching.  "Allergies."

"Jeh?" she asked.

"The material in the sombrero," I explained.  "Makes me sneeze."

"Este gilipollas no se puede usar un sombrero," she told the others.

(Translation: This retard cannot wear a hat.)

"We haff a birrrrrtday cake," Esperanza bragged.  "Cou jew keep it somewhere cool an safe?"

I accepted the cake and approached the hostess.

"Can you put this in back for me?" I asked her.  "I assume you know where?"

"Sure thing, 10-4!!!" she replied while giving a military salute and smacking her gum.  I wanted to tie her to my exhaust pipe and give her a tour of Southern California. 

I returned to the birthday party and took drink and dinner orders.  The meal and beverage portion of the evening went without off without a hitch.  Esperanza asked for the cake.  She also asked if we had sparklers.  I replied that she was looking at one.  She did not laugh. 

I sauntered to the freezer to find the cake.  Not there.

"I didn't see the cake in the freezer?" I asked the hostess.

"Hahahaha, you're so funny!" the hostess replied.  "No wonder everyone tells me you're so funny!  Why would I put a birthday cake in the freezer?  It's in dry storage."

"You put an ICE CREAM CAKE in dry storage!?!?"

"Ohhhhhhhh," she said.  "That was an ice cream cake?"

"IT SAID 'BASKIN ROBBINS ICE CREAM CAKE' ON THE BOX, YOU RHODES SCHOLAR!!!!" I shrieked. 

The hostess began to cry.  I hot-footed it to dry storage and opened the cake box:

Normally I'd make the hostess inform the party of her error, but in light of her tears I knew I'd have to handle this one. 

"Be subtle, be friendly," I told myself.

"So your cake's completely melted," I told them. 

Judging by the various wailings and groans I received in response, I wondered if I'd told them that a cake had melted, or that Grandpa Sanchez was sent to jail for tax evasion. 

"Dees ees un-asseptable," Grandma Salchicha told me as she wagged her finger in my face.

"I really am sorry," I told them.  "And we'd be happy to bring out a complimentary flan to make up for our moronic hostess."

And with that, the owner suddenly appeared.  The hostess had given him the sob story about me berating her, the secondary details being that she'd inadvertently ruined the birthday dessert for our party of 15. 

"I AM SO SORRY," the owner screamed like a monotone robot trying to teach his complicated language to a group of deaf people.  "WE WILL BE HAPPY TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR ENTIRE MEAL AND BRING A FEW OF OUR WORLD FAMOUS CHOE-COE-LATTE FLANS FOR YOU TO ENJOY AT YOUR FIESTA!"

We walked off together.

"Are you sure we need to comp their entire meal?" I asked.  "The bill is nearly $300."

"We can't afford to lose ANY business!" he hissed.  "And I think those are some of our best customers!"

"Compared to whom, the homeless people who steal tortilla chips from our trash bins??" I replied.

But no, I couldn't reason with him.  Nor could I muster any kind of response from the birthday party.  Even though none of this was my fault, they needed someone to blame.  I received the silent treatment from each of them as I cleared the plates.  Three far perkier servers were sent to the table to deliver the birthday flans.  They wore sombreros, used large cracked pepper dispensers for maracas, and sang "Happy Birthday" with great gay gusto. 

I, on the other hand, had the pleasure of cleaning up all the confetti, all the flan remnants, and all the chip fragments. 

For no tip, whatsoever.

So you can imagine how my muscles tense up, my head starts throbbing, and my hand instinctively reaches for my flask any time someone informs me that there's a birthday at the table...

Comments

[Christina]

I just read this entry yesterday, and I swear I *almost* had this exact thing happen to me today, aside from the fact that the party were not Mexican. They arrive, hostess tells me they have a cake, and she put it "behind the bar", which is not unusual. I greet/special them, then remember reading this blog post last night and wonder. Go check the counter behind the bar, sure enough, it's a Dairy Queen ice cream cake! Crisis averted, $40 tip achieved, because of your awesome blog. Thank you! PS you should post more - you're hilarious! :)

[Bagel Fairy]

My birthday is tomorrow and I will think of you when my family humiliates me with the Birthday Entitlement Fever. And we're going to a Japanese steakhouse, so instead of an ice cream cake it'll be a pineapple with sparklers and an old man banging on a gong.

[Mark]

That bday video kills me!!! LOL!!!

[Mark]

I know what "salchicha" means, and I can't stop laughing at that nickname...

[chris]

"Fuck me with a paint ball gun," I muttered.

[Linzee]

Let's say it's Rebecca or Anna's birthday today! :)

[Gentle Whiskers]

They didn't tip you AT ALL? Geez. Normally Mexicans will leave at least a dollar or two on a bill like that.

[Tim G]

I'd still eat that cake.

[MM]

"This retard cannot wear a hat."

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! I am still LOLing each time I reread that one, haha!

[Sweaty Noel]

If you're over the age of 12 and still making a big deal out of birthdays, you deserve a melted cake anyway. I say that hostess was karma's sweet messenger there to deliver justice.