The rude waitress at new shanghai

( I wonder if this title will get any SEO hits. Probably.)

Here's the thing, I am the world's largest doormat when it comes to bad service at restaurants. I am the abused wife that crawls back to the asshole husband- I always give restaurants with bad service another chance.

Maybe it's the optimist in me but I always think that the next time won't be so awful, that it was a once-off, that it'll never happen again! More often than not, I am left gypped and fuming.

It's not like there's a shortage of restaurants in Sydney for me to go to so... don't ask me to explain what's going on in my head really.

Anyway it was late on a public holiday holiday and ND and I were searching for something to eat on the lower north shore, when he announced that he felt like Shanghainese food. There's really only one place that's open that late and I was pretty wary about going back.

I had tried it three times previously and each time there was something rather hilariously comical about just how hard the waiters/waitresses didn't care about anything. Really they should rename it the New Shanghai Restaurant of Apathy. If I don't know better, I would seriously say that the owner has been long dead in the closet in the backroom and the service staff are running the show because I honestly can't believe that any person that really gives a stuff about their business would only hire angry depressed teenagers.

If I didn't mention it before, the restaurant is called New Shanghai and you can find me validated here.

But back to the story, I just looked at ND with wounded eyes and said "Because I love you, I will sacrifice myself and go back to a restaurant where they're going to be rude to us."

He just laughed and said "You're just picky. Don't be so melodramatic." ( I really was not being melodramatic.)

So we sat down with St Mary and of course the same rigamarole ensued of no tea, no food, slow service and plain ol' just being ignored. I probably would have been okay with that (not happy but okay).

Generally as a bunch, we're pretty environmentally conscious. We recycle and switch off our switches at the plug and blah blah blah. The menus in New Shanghai double as placemats, kind of like the ones you used to find at McDonalds. Someone has put them some effort into them and as such we all felt loath in wasting that kind of paper so we put them aside on the table next to us and proceeded to keep talking. The waitress picked them up and tried to hand them back to us (and in all honesty, don't you think keeping us fed and liquified is more important?!) and we gave her a puzzled look and said "it's okay, we don't need it.... you can recycle it?"

This for some reason triggers the inner hulk in her and she flies into a rage. I don't even know how to convey the suddenness or the violence of it.

"YEAAAAAAAGGH!"

She snatches the placemats and crumples them up, slams into the counter and bins them.

We're all left blinking at her. Actually I'm blinking. ND has his jaw agape and St Mary is spluttering "whatthefuck? whatthefuck?"

Well, yeah what the fuck just happened? Why does she hate the green movement so much?
And then to look at her, she was just wandering around serenely afterwards as if flying off the handle at customers is an everyday occurence. Bad service is one thing but Jekyll and Hyde-ing it out is another.

Needless to say, we didn't leave a tip and we will never ever go back, not even if those dumplings are awarded a Michelin Bloody Star. Four times and a placemat rage experience is more than enough for me to say goodbye to it forever. If you choose to venture into the Gorgon's lair for food, don't say I didn't warn you.

Ways to leave a mark

Ok, so I know people read this blog because I have the stats (and because my darling friends tell me so) but not many people leave me comments and when they do it's often something about viagra for sale or something they've paraphrased from the book of revelations. There are lots of crazies out there.

Once in a while, someone will say something smart about anime or comment on my 'JTT is gay?!' post but all in all as far as discussion goes, it's really quiet in here.

Even though I'm fanatical about SEO at work, I have absolutely none of that on this blog at all. There are no tags, no meta-keywords, no blog circles, and so when people come in from Turkey and Iceland, I often wonder what they typed to get here. (Haha, How did I get here right?)

I logged on today to see that Joel had left me a comment on a post I had written on Photoshop all the way back in 2008. Apparently if you type in Google 'photoshop draw a fucking rectangle', my blog comes up as first. Needless to say, that totally made my day.

That's the kind of internet footprint I want to leave! (Adobe still does frustrate me from time to time)

An unforgettable start to the new year

This was at eleven, we are really old.

As the clock struck twelve (AEST of course) while everyone started to gather on the balcony, I followed ND into the bathroom and at 12:01, I stood there aghast as he hurled exorcist-style all over the Happy Wrestler's bathroom.

I have never seen so much intestinal juice in my entire life. It covered the walls, the floors and the sink was full of it.

Normally (normally!) I'm the one holding people's hair as they throw up but even I couldn't step into the swamp of vomit. If you say your love is unconditional, I defy you to try walking through the contents of their stomach. No- wait, I mean on. On the contents of their stomach.

And then he went to collapse on the couch, exhausted and not very kissable (unless of course, regurgitated acid is your kind of thing). I think he might have tracked it on the carpet.

Leaving me leaning in the doorway of one filthy bathroom at 12:06. And who was going to clean it? This is when my Asian martyr complex officially kicked in (do I have one? yes I do.): oh fuck, it's going to have to be me.

And so there I am on my hands and knees mopping up vomit for the next hour mumbling to myself:

There are cleaners out there who will be doing much worse tomorrow morning.
There are cleaners out there who will be doing much worse tomorrow morning.
Of course, they are doing it for money and I am not.
There are cleaners out there who will be doing much worse tomorrow morning.

This is while all my friends do drive-by inspections of the bomb site. Complete with witty and vibrant commentary of 'ew!' and 'Oh my God, I will never get to pee.' Someone tried to get a camera shot in (in which I say, over my dead and disintegrating body.)

A little while later, ND's woken up and is feeling guilty so he decides to help. By pouring water all over the hallway. I look down at the matted carpet, look back up at him, look down on the carpet and I think I am turning a nice puce colour- the colour of a vodka cranberry. He hightails it back to the lounge room before I can kick him like a puppy. And then promptly passes out again.

By 1:15, everything is clean except the sink, which had clogged itself. And at this point, I am this close to bursting into tears at the thought of having to dump my hand in there and scoop stuff out. My hands were made for typing! and manicures! and being pampered! And no chopstick/fork/sparkler/kitchen utensil was making a dent. So in the end, I had to bail the water out with a plastic cup. Which is what people do when their boat is sinking normally I guess.

Eventually it's all done and I go and collapse on the couch, smelling like peaches and cream (you believe me right??). We are both hella exhausted (imagine how our goodbyes went- they were sort of muted) so I take him home, I'm holding bags of something and he's holding a big bowl of pasta.

I swing open the door and I think he's holding the door behind me. He is not. So the door flies back and hits him (in the face) and sends the bowl of pasta flying everywhere.

There's pasta and food all over the floor.

I start to peal in hysterical laughter and then begin to rock backwards and forwards like a mental person. Happy 2012!



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(Of course, then the next day we locked ourselves out with no keys and no mobile phones. It's an extremely auspicious start if I must say so myself.)