It’s the System

Sometimes “the system” just needs to be suspended for the sake of sanity.

Photo by author. The red arrow is the decal on which the beeper MUST be placed.

“Will . that . be . all?” the server inquired, reading back my order (as per the system) in his sadly robotic, bored “The Rise of the Zombies” voice!

He sounded like every server that spews that well-worn sentence – “hi, I’m Shaun-the-sheep and I’ll be your server today!”

Humanity is summed up in that one simple sentence.

Surely we do not NEED to be acquainted to place a simple food order. I’ve got enough acquaintances.

Yet here I was. Somehow the pierced bauble in my server’s lip managed to tap against the yellowed enamel of his front incisors in perfect 4:4 tempo. Why was this so annoying for me, I wondered.

More importantly why would you attach a 5 kg dumbbell to your lip … as a fashion statement. And then fight for the system. Talk about a rebel without a cause!

This was my first restaurant experience in Italy for 9-months since Covid hit. I wanted it to be special. Not “Pavarotti” special … but special.

My “snare drum” of a server didn’t know that, and more importantly, why should he care.