Dude at the offsale: You’re cute. …That’s a nice skirt. …I don’t care what anyone says, that’s sexy.

Me (always a smart-ass): Well I don’t think anyone’s said it’s not sexy. In fact, *gasp*, you’re the first person to imply I’m not.

* * *

Today I was telling my director how, even though I’m generally 99% careful to only write things in my blog that I’d be comfortable with everyone I know seeing, I still manage to offend people. “Oh no no no, when I reported that conversation I had with you and used the word ‘ridiculous’ I wasn’t saying that you are ridiculous, but that we had a ridiculous conversation. The kind that humans engage in all the time, and isn’t the human condition ridiculous. Get it? Human condition? I mean, maybe I’m too existentialist for you.”

* * *

Last week I said to one of my coworkers, “by the way, last week I mentioned you in my blog. I don’t care to tell you where it is or what I said, but the point is that it’s not a secret. Because frequently when I blog about someone and they find it, it doesn’t matter how benign I thought my commentary was, the fact that they didn’t know it existed before finding it always makes it seem ominous and back-stabbing to them. So now you know, I talked about you to the internet, it was clearly not creepy at all.”

He seemed fine with that.

* * *

Tonight, out for drinks with coworkers, our server was terrible. Like, reeeeeally terrible. Ian came to pick up Hannah and sat down with us. When she came around to take the orders of people newly arrived at our table, she took everyone else’s order and then Ian asked what they had on tap, and she said, “the list is on the menu.” I grabbed and flipped it open for Ian (who never takes long to decide because he knows what he likes, it’s just a matter of establishing what’s available) but the server immediately walked away to the next table. And then didn’t come back. Ian didn’t get to order anything until we were being served the next round. I ordered an appetizer and it took approximately an hour – after 45 minutes she came by and said, “your shrimp order got lost in the computer. They’re making it now.” But there wasn’t any apologetic tone. And she was so conspicuously absent for most of our stay there that one of our party when asked if we would like things cleared away replied, “no, I wouldn’t. I’ve been waiting for you to come by so I could request more bread. And I would like it if you came by a little more often.”

But she didn’t. In fact, she delegated another server to bring the bread and then stayed away for the rest of the meal.

“She sure doesn’t deserve a tip,” one of our party remarked. And Firefly and I were aghast. “I always tip,” we both said. On discussing it, we couldn’t come up with a good reason to tip though, and we did all agree that it was beyond shoddy service and that if some people tipped, it would be like saying the non-tippers were overreacting jerks. But we finally settled on tipping ~5%. I had the worst time getting through that debit transaction.

When I grabbed my stuff to go, Firefly said, “well I feel like a petty jerk now.”

“Me too,” I said. “I feel like I can’t come back.”

“Me too.” She said.

It’s not like it will have even sent much of a message. People in Saskatchewan are bad tippers. Apparently statistically, women are bad tippers and women are especially bad tippers with female servers. So it probably didn’t make a statement at all – other than that we are as boorish as the next table.

* * *

Yesterday we took Hannah to Prairie Ink for supper. She wanted spaghetti, but then decided she didn’t like it, and instead she preferred her father’s chicken mushroom linguini. So she sat in his lap and he fed her some, then himself some.

After a time, Ian said, “this is really good. Do you want to try a bite?” And I did. But as soon as my fork touched the plate, Hannah said in this arresting parental tone, “Mum! Hey. Mum.” And then as soon as she had my attention, “What are you doing?” in just the same low-key “calling you on your behaviour” tone I would use with Ethan if he was walking off with something that we both knew wasn’t his.

She is totally an old soul.