There is nothing that makes me more uncomfortable than waiting by myself for someone in a restaurant. Yet, I am clearly much more a waiter than someone waited for: I am always in time. I do my best to be late and still I always end up exactly in time. It is very frustrating as Americans consider that only the ugly and the unsophisticated should be punctual and are very suspicious towards people that are waiting in this time of Terrorism. As someone once said: “I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.”
Just yesterday I was supposed to have diner with (let’s publicly shame him) Frederico C. at L’Enfant at 8 pm and he had not arrived when I got there. After seriously envisioning for 5 minutes to stay in the excruciating cold by the door like some doggy, I decided to face my fear and get in. I took a seat at the bar and frowned as much as I could hoping to dissuade the hostess to approach me. Of course, she couldn’t miss such an opportunity and asked loudly “are you ordering food or just drinks?” (strange how waitresses are only willing to help when you really don't need them) which in restaurant language means “are you a loser or are you a complete loser?”. At least she did not ask “is your party complete?”. I could see that the entire restaurant was now starring at me whispering stuff like “poor guy”, “do you think he is retarded?”, “why is he alone? Where are his friends ? Why does he have golden buttons on his jacket?”. I replied “I am waiting for someone” with a nervous chuckle and ordered a beer. Now increasingly depressed I started to glance at the door every five seconds until I found out that I could do that much more discreetly by looking at the mirror in which the door was reflected. Back in the days I would have lighted a smoke to look cool, so I went through my pockets hoping to find something to play with (I still have not figured out how to use the Text Messaging option on my cell). Thank god I have taken the habit from LL to carry a pen everywhere and I started writing on a napkin hoping the restaurant personnel would assume I was some kind of a strange lonesome poet. I wrote about ten times “where the f*ck are you?” on the napkin still monitoring the door with the corner of my eye as if I was expecting the Gestapo to show up at any moment. As the charming young man does not have a cell phone, I ran in my head thousands of scenaris on the reasons he might be late thinking that perhaps he was himself waiting at the Diner or that maybe he died in an explosion. I tried to stop the panic attack by starting to assess if everyone in the restaurant regularly masturbate but it did not work out and I returned to my desperate loneliness. As I had finished my beer, I prevented the barman to talk to me by screaming “my friend is going to be here any minute now, thank you”. The hostess brought me a menu that I had not asked so I felt I should tell her too that “Thank you! I'm still waiting for my friend”. I felt more and more trapped as leaving wasn’t an option anymore as it would indicate clearly that I had been stood up. I even thought about going to the bathroom to check if I could escape through the bathroom window.
Finally Frederico got there (20 minutes later) I had lost all dignity was completely wasted and shouted "Ah, here you are at last! This is the person I have diner with. AH AH AH" but I did not even feel angry, just terribly relieved and glad that for once I did not break in one of my infamous sweat as well as to be alive to tell the tale.
What FHC omitted from the story is how he was totally hungover this morning and took a three hour nap this afternoon.
Posted by: LL | Friday, December 02, 2005 at 07:01 PM
I too have that same fucking incessant need to be on time. I too fucking have to wait at bars and tables alone for my fashionably late friends.
Posted by: Damien | Friday, December 02, 2005 at 08:46 PM
Someone has got to teach you a lesson once in a while!!!! If it makes you feel any better, I woke up completely dehydrated and with a huge headache. And unlike some people, I had to go to work!
Posted by: FCBDP | Saturday, December 03, 2005 at 12:33 PM