Las Vegas Regained

I had planned to head directly from Grand Canyon West to my bed in Utah. However, I finished at the Canyon ahead of schedule, because there was nothing to do there. Instead of making an early start for my motel, I called Marcus and invited myself to his dinner with Walter in Las Vegas.

Walter turned out to be charming company, as well as an excellent source of free concert tickets. I was delighted to meet him, as well as to discover that he has pokies (slot machines) in his living room. Wow, a real live Las Vegas resident!

An otherwise perfectly enjoyable and normal dinner was made blogworthy by the involvement of Waitress Ratched. Our experience with her started out in more or less the usual way. She introduced herself as "Mrs Condescension," which is not her real name, but should have been. She has one of those annoyingly fake, sweet little girl voices that some people use to hide the fact that they're incredibly bossy and obnoxious. As the meal went on, it became apparent that she wasn't so much "taking care of us tonight" as "supervising the riff raff."

I don't know what caused this attitude. We were dressed reasonably well, and we could afford to pay. I don't think we looked like we were there to steal the silverware. We certainly weren't threatening to eat with our fingers, or belch loudly, or defecate at the table, or do any of the other things that she plainly feared. Perhaps she was concerned that we would cause harm to ourselves or others with the sharp implements because she took it upon herself to direct us to the proper method for doing almost everything. I have eaten out a lot, but never before has any waitress explained to me how to use the butter, or when to eat the bread, or just what vegetable I ought to be ordering.

Somehow we made it to the end of the meal without injuring ourselves (or her) with the salt shaker. By this stage we were collectively engaged in focused hatred of this officious bitch. I couldn't think of a way to complain about her because she hadn't been rude to us, hadn't openly insulted us and hadn't spilled anything on us. She was just a horrible person who looked at us like something she'd scraped off her shoe.

Then something miraculous happened. It was something so wonderful that the water in my glass magically transformed into nectar, ranneth over and washed me of all my pain. Proving that, even in a random universe, sometimes people get exactly what they deserve, Mrs Condescension screwed up. All my good deeds were rewarded, and hers punished, in the moment when she brought our bill (check) when we'd already asked someone for a dessert menu and waited ages for it. One of the sweetest moments of my life was the second after I politely requested that she take her filthy itemised invoice away and bring me a dessert menu at once, because I had already waited far too long. I used much more civilised language, of course, but I think my meaning was clear.

Mrs Condescension started channeling her slightly less evil twin Mrs Obsequious and I drove out of Las Vegas in a warm, triumphant fog of smugness. Alas, the forces of justice had not yet finished their work. To punish me for my joy at Mrs Condescension's suffering, they arranged for Marcus and Walter to have an utterly brilliant time seeing Penn and Teller perform live while I drove for hours to a second rate motel in southern Utah. Next time I will insist that Marcus complain about lousy service instead of doing it myself.