The Fun Table

A table at a restaurant with the word fun sitting on it

When Molly asked the waiter what the soup was, I was surprised that he just left the table. The waiter came back half a minute later, holding a spoon and said, “I’m not exactly sure what the soup is, but I definitely tasted chicken.”

The waiter smiled while Ben, Molly and I just looked at each other, horrified.

“You tried the soup?” I finally asked.

“Yeah, it tasted like Chicken!”

“We need another minute,” Ben said. The waiter smiled and left to talk to the people at the table next to us.

“I’m not sure I still want to eat here,” Molly whispered. “What else has he tried?”

“I’m just hoping that was a clean spoon,” I said. We sat in silence, listening to the waiter at the table of six next to us.

“I just tried the soup for them, and it’s something with chicken,” he said, holding up the spoon, as the table burst into laughter—not just polite laughter, laughter on the verge of tears. They looked at us like we should also join in. Several of them said they’d start with the soup, and the waiter left.

“I don’t think we’re the fun table,” Ben said.

“Of course, we’re not the fun table,” I said. “At no point since we entered that door did anyone look at us and think we were the fun table. But why did we get the fun waiter?”

“The host seemed frazzled when we walked in,” Ben said, “He had all of those tick marks and seemed to be counting on his fingers when we told him there were three of us.”

“It’s tough to be a hostess,” Molly said, “I used to do that job. You’re air traffic control, and the waitstaff is ready to crash the plane if you screw up.”

“It seems like a misalignment of values,” I added. “The manager hires this waiter and then doesn’t screen the customers? They should match the waiter with the table.”

“That woman,” Greg said, pointing out a woman with dyed black hair who looked more like an art critic than a waiter. “That’s the kind of person I look for when I go anywhere. Someone who seems nice and polite but ready to have a short interaction. We need a system where I get that waiter as my bank teller, accountant, and lawyer.”

“Yeah, we’re the fun table,” Molly said.

Dinner proceeded with similar topics.

None of us ordered dessert, but the table of six next to us got one of everything to sample. The famed waiter dropped off the food and asked my table if he could borrow our fourth chair for a minute.

He grabbed it and then sat down with the group of six, pulling a fork out of his shirt pocket.

“Where should we start?” the waiter said, to laughter and applause from the fun table.