Day 167, November 6

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend.  We are both "women of a certain age."  A sign at the restaurant proclaiming the need to "card" anyone appearing to be under 21, prompted me to ask the sweet waitress, "If my friend and I ordered margaritas, would you card us?"

She gave me a blank look. 

"We want to be carded," I said.  It so happens that neither my friend nor I drink anything stronger than lemonade, but, still, I wanted to know that if we were to order a drink, that she would do us the courtesy of carding us.

"Uh, sure." 

"That was naughty," my friend said when the waitress departed.

She was right.  It was naughty.  But then so am I.

Shortly afterward we had finished our meal, the manager squatted down at the end of our booth.  "I'm new here and I just wanted to see how your dining experience was."

"Everything was great," I assured him.  "The food, the service.  There was just one thing, though."

A look of conern creased his smoother-than-smooth forehead.  (Did I mention that he looked to be the age of my 9 year old grandson?)  "What's that?"

"The waitress didn't want to card us if we ordered drinks."

Bemusement clouded his eyes.  "Did you want to order drinks?"

"No.  We just wanted her to card us."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I."

Gem for the day:  if you want to be carded, choose a place where the waitstaff and manager have really poor eyesight.