Daily surrealism or customer service

Collage: Lia Villares

I'm going to 23rd and 16th to buy a hotdog. I get there and there are no tables outside, generally people get the hot dogs to-go, so I go in and sit at one of the tables inside. Five minutes go by and then one of the waitresses comes by and says, while looking toward the counter:

- Mmmmm

Obviously I didn’t understand so I obediently stayed in my seat waiting. Then the counter girl called me:

- Psssssssss

I get up and walk over to her, strangely she doesn’t say a single word but continues some incomprehensible conversation with the other waitresses, the last one is listening and at the same time humming a song playing on the TV. In a moment she looks at me, takes a torn piece of paper, and says:

- How many?
- Two.

I pay and she writes something strange on the paper, gives it to me and nodding toward the kitchen says:

- Give it to Ugly there.

Ugly there was the cook. I walk over to the kitchen pass-through and give him the paper. I return to my table, still vacant, and sit and wait. Soon I realize there are two dogs on a plate in the pass-through, the guy signals me from the stove to come and get them.

I get up again and grab them and return to the table to fix them but then I realize there’s no mustard or ketchup, there isn’t even any on the empty tables. At that point I’d already realized I couldn’t count on the servers. A bit annoyed, I approach one of the occupied tables and ask if I can use theirs. As it seems the normal thing to do they told me yes quite calmly, I put a bit of everything on my dogs and left.