Monday, July 16, 2012

Spicy is good, right?

Last night, I went to a nice restaurant that specializes in New Orleans style cooking.  I had been there before, but the woman who served me is someone I had never seen before.  We hit it off quite well, and I think I can count her among my "adoring fans" now.  As she was getting ready to take my order, she asked me, "What would you like from the menu?"  This question and the way she phrased it made me laugh, and I told her that I was impressed, because most people didn't ask such a specific question, which left me with plenty of room to give creative and not always appropriate (though no one has complained yet) answers.

Getting this reaction
from people is fun!
Apparently, this piqued her curiosity, because a couple times throughout my meal, she asked me if I wanted anything else, leaving off the qualifying phrase.  The first time, I shrugged it off as an amusing coincidence.  After all, it's much quicker and more efficient to just say "Do you want anything else?"  But then she came back a second time and asked the same question.  I blinked because I was pretty sure she emphasized the word anything this time.  I was still trying to decide if she was actually trying to set me up for one of my comments.

As an aside, I've never liked it when people do that to me.  I prefer to keep my zaniness 100% spontaneous and opportunistic.  The moment someone sets me up for a comment (especially in a way that's obvious), the whole thing feels forced and unnatural.  Plus I suddenly feel like I'm performing on command, which bothers me.

At the end of the meal, the young woman did confess that indeed, she was trying to elicit a response from me just to see what kind of things I said.  I turned to her and explained, "Well, usually if a server asks me if I want anything, I say something like, 'Well yeah.  But I'm pretty sure it would be illegal for you to provide me with a good looking guy.'"

She burst out laughing and exclaimed, "Oh my!  You are a spicy one!"  I just smiled and said thank you.  I'm sure that the next time she serves me while I'm there, it'll be an interesting experience for both of us.  But I love doing things like that.  It gives most people a laugh.  I think in a lot of ways, I think I sometimes end up saying the kinds of things other people would love to say, but are too shy or reserved to go out on that limb.

Fortunately, Hellcat has me pretty well trained when it comes to going out on limbs.

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