On Restaurants

Restaurants are very weird places to find yourself. The normal laws of etiquette and physics don't appear to apply here at all. For instance, I used to think that waiters, or waitresses for that matter, were partially sighted as this would account for their lack of response when one is trying to get their attention. Now I know that this is in fact a meticulously learned and honed skill. The mark of the best of waiters is his ability to negotiate his way through a large and crowded room without making eye contact with a single person.

One particular custom that drives me to distraction is the apparent reluctance of the waiters to present a bill for payment. You are plagued throughout your meal with waiters at your shoulder whipping the plate away as soon as the last morsel is on the fork, or on some occasion while the plate is still half full, only to disappear without trace once the last plate is emptied. You suddenly sit alone. Not a waiter in sight. Even the bar man has gone. If you do manage to get the bill they then disappear once more leaving you with it and your cash. You feel that you are really going to have to force the cash on them. I have known this ceremony to take as long as the entire meal prior to this point! What is this? Its not connected to any nationality and is not more prevalent in one country more than another. It is truly international. I find casting cutlery to the floor or walls often gets a response but without doubt a whole hoard of waiters will intercept you should you try to make it to the door. That fact alone prompts me to believe that there is a calculated scheme to force the food down you as fast as possible and then hide while watching to see how long it will take you crack up.